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“Hamstrung by debt payments, the museum is facing far-reaching consequences: layoffs and a massive restructuring that has stirred controversy around the globe,” said the Tribune in a March 8 story headlined “Dinosaur-size debt.” A dissident insider—Jonathan Haas, curator of the department of anthropology—was quoted: “What the administration is talking about in terms of cutting curators and scientists will dramatically and permanently change the nature and mission of the Field Museum. It will remove us from those ranks of internationally recognized natural history museums.”
This sounded calamitous. Imagine the Art Institute selling its Impressionists, selling its Hopper, its Seurat, and its Caillebotte, and hoping no one would notice the difference if it covered its walls with Peter Max. The Tribune was revealing a civic tragedy.
Pretty sweet work for a “local museum” with no purpose beyond giving people a place to “go to to see things.”
