Media tower installed at MBC

Museum gets 30-day extension to finish basic interior work and landscaping

By Steven Dahlman

(Left) Mark Patsfall makes adjustments to his sculpture, a “media tower” installed this week at the Museum of Broadcast Communications, a 62,000 square foot building being constructed on North State Street next door to Marina City. Holding the ladder is his assistant, Tim McMichael.

April 29, 2011 – It may be scaled down slightly to just 23 monitors, but the 17-foot tall steel-and-neon tribute to broadcast history was installed late Thursday afternoon at the Museum of Broadcast Communications.

Six DVDs feed television programming from decades past to old monitors. Circuit boards, cameras, microphones, VCRs, and other vintage electronic gear the museum had lying around – and once considered junk – are now a beacon at the corner of State and Kinzie Streets. When the first visitors enter the museum from the State Street entrance for an open house on June 14, the tower, in a two-story glass and steel atrium at the top of a grand staircase, will be one of the first things they see.

It took Cincinnati artist Mark Patsfall about a year and a half to build the sculpture. It had to be taken apart for delivery to the museum, then reassembled this week. Patsfall was still tweaking the tower Thursday evening.

“It’s just about evolution of technology and a little bit of entertainment thrown in and history,” he says.

MBC founder Bruce DuMont says the electronic parts pay tribute to the people in television who worked off-camera. “I wanted something very early in the museum experience to be a homage to the men and women who were behind the scenes, with the equipment that they used, then intersperse it with the programming elements that they will see once they begin the museum experience.”

DuMont was introduced to Patsfall through the museum’s Cincinnati-based design firm, Jack Rouse Associates. In a March 31 newsletter, DuMont said the final bill for the media tower was $40,000.

Deadline extended to May

The museum has a 30-day extension on an April 30 deadline by the State of Illinois to finish basic interior work and landscaping. Some of the plants, explains DuMont, could not be installed due to the cold weather.

MBC will be moving its offices into the building in mid-May. In mid-July, a metal façade on the Kinzie side of the building will be finished. According to DuMont, the State Street side “is almost done.”

Donors that include broadcast companies, non-profit organizations, and individuals will sponsor much of the museum. “Now that the building is back on track,” says DuMont, “there’s been some very good response from some major potential sponsors, so we want to get them on board.”