Author of Water Tanks of Chicago to be featured on WGN TV’s Midday News with Steve Sanders on Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Larry W. Green, a Chicago artist, will talk about his 2007 book Water Tanks of Chicago: A Vanishing Urban Legacy ($19.95, paperback, ISBN 978-0-9789676-0-4, Wicker Park Press) on WGN TV Midday News program on Tuesday, January 27, 2009 at approximately 11:25 am. This is local Channel 9, and nationally syndicated on Cable TV through WGN America.

Water Tanks of Chicago remains the only book on the subject of Chicago’s disappearing rooftop water tanks. Tony Jones, Past President of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where Green is a 1975 graduate, says in his foreword to the book: “Chicago’s crumbling water-tanks take on a new significance when seen in Green’s paintings – surely we knew they were there, they’d registered, but they weren’t the star of the street-show. But we’ve woken up to them, become part of his celebration of them as dynamic incidents in what is clearly a Chicago landscape.”

Water tanks have been omnipresent in Chicago for the past 136 years, but are often overlooked and/or taken for granted in the urban environment. Green’s vibrant images of these iconic structures gently remind readers of their historical and cultural significance to the city. The tanks, strong symbols of the city’s industrial past, are rapidly becoming extinct. It is a primary mission of this book to call attention to the plight of the water tanks, and to raise awareness of the urgent need to preserve them.

Green’s paintings are currently being featured in the Museum of Science and Industry’s ongoing Black Creativity Exhibit and Program (January 15 – March 1, 2009). This is a juried art show, and it is a good chance for museum visitors to see Green’s colorful and distinctive paintings of the city’s water tanks up close. For more information about this groundbreaking exhibit, visit www.msichicago.org

Mayor Richard M. Daley was quoted in the Chicago Tribune in 2005 in a speech at the Chicago Cultural Center saying, “This is all about the history of the city of Chicago, the architects, engineers and tradesman who built these wonderful tanks basically reflect the great history of Chicago.” Water Tanks of Chicago is both an artist’s bold statement about the plight of the tanks, and a clarion call to save these picturesque rooftop structures from demolition and the industrial scrapheap of history.