With an opening date set for May 16, the nascent American Writers Museum held its first press conference Tuesday in the space it’ll occupy, the second floor of a vintage building at Michigan Avenue and Lake Street.
“This is not the last chapter in Chicago’s literary legacy, but the next chapter in our literary legacy,” said Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
Museum executives said the expected 100,000-plus visitors annually will be charged $12 for adults, $8 for students, with 12-and-unders getting in free.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel tours the new exhibit space of the American Writers Museum on Tuesday Feb. 21, 2017. The opening of the new museum is set for May 16th.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel tours the new exhibit space of the American Writers Museum on Tuesday Feb. 21, 2017. The opening of the new museum is set for May 16th.
They showcased concept drawings for galleries in the museum’s 11,000 square feet including The Mind of a Writer, Chicago Writers: Visionaries and Troublemakers, and A Nation of Writers. The first two temporary exhibits will be devoted to the poet W.S. Merwin and to Jack Kerouac’s scroll manuscript for “On the Road.”
Billed as the first national museum devoted to American writers, the museum has been seven years in the making, the brainchild of Malcolm O’Hagan, a retired manufacturing executive and book enthusiast originally from Ireland who settled on Chicago as an ideal location.
The museum has raised $8.6 million and is looking to bring in another $1.4 million by opening. “We’ve essentially got enough money to build the place,” board co-chair Hill Hammock said; the extra cash would cover operating expenses for the next couple of years.
The museum will increase the cultural power of an already rich area south of the Chicago River, stuffed with theater, museums, and showcase urban parks, said Mark Kelly, Chicago’s Commissioner of the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.
“This is a gift to the city,” Kelly said.
sajohnson@chicagotribune.com
Twitter: @StevenKJohnson
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