Talk:Midway Gardens

Collaboration Discussion

I put a quick stub up, for collaboration on this article I was thinking we could start by each working on a draft for a section ourselves. Then we can come back together and review each others’ sections and pull together the completed article. Is there anything else you'd suggest? Some proposed sections:

Design

Use

Financial Troubles

(post what you want to work on or if you've got other ideas)

Here are some resources that I found, shall we throw these up as External Links right away?

http://www.steinerag.com/flw/Artifact%20Pages/PhRtS180.htm

http://phoenix.about.com/cs/famous/a/sprites01.htm

Photos: http://photofiles.lib.uchicago.edu/db.xqy?show=browse2.xml%7C157

Article available on JStor: Spectacular Failure: Frank Lloyd Wright's Midway Gardens and Chicago Entertainment, Theatre Journal - Volume 53, Number 2, May 2001, pp. 291-309

-- Shifra t (talk) 01:01, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

• I think those sections look good. I guess I'll start working on the design section. I thought I read somewhere that it was located at the midway and cottage grove, but I can't find that anymore. Did anybody else see that? I;m going to add that it was located in hyde park--Nabaati (talk) 16:19, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

• I'm thinking now that maybe the sections we should do are a history section and a design/description section--Nabaati (talk) 21:01, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks for adding the Hyde Park. My concern with sections is how to split up info, i.e. would discussion of the sprites go under design/description in virtue of being a part of the architecture or under history in virtue of the contested origin of their design and the way that they were salvaged to end up in Arizona before the Gardens were demolished? Regardless, I'm happy to start working on a "history" section and we can work out wrinkles once we've got a draft down. --Shifra t (talk) 21:21, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

• I've started writing up about the design. I think the sprites should go in or under the design since that's a design element. I haven't said much about them yet. I did find the reference to it being at 60th and Cottage Grove at http://www.steinerag.com/flw/Artifact%20Pages/PhRtS180.htm .--Nabaati (talk) 21:45, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

• I put the exact location in the History section, thanks for pointing it out. In terms of the design write-up, I like where you're going with it thus far. As you edit, I had two quick thoughts. Notable concepts like cantilevering and the Prairie Style I'm sure have Wiki articles that we should link to once you've got a final version. Also, in the intro sentence "Keeping in line with..." is a bit clunky and makes it sound like you're following up a discussion of beer gardens that we haven't. Maybe wording like "Designed in the tradition of..." instead?--Shifra t (talk) 20:07, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

• I will work on the use section. Does anybody know how to add pictures? I tried to add them to my last wikipedia page but it wouldn't work. --Fedgeworth (talk) 22:29, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

• For the uses of the Gardens, I definitely recommend the article from the Theatre Journal, Sebestia writes in more detail than any of the other online resources I've found. Especially from the end of page 301. As far as adding images, if we aren't able to do it ourselves we could always put a note up on the final talk page asking a more seasoned contributor to grab some images from our external links and add them to the page. -- Shifra t (talk) 23:36, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

• I'll finish the uses section up tonight using that article. Is it one of the external links, or what should I search for to find it? Thanks!--Fedgeworth (talk) 13:53, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

• It's available on Jstor, so you can get it through the library e-journals site. The title is: Spectacular Failure: Frank Lloyd Wright's Midway Gardens and Chicago Entertainment, Theatre Journal - Volume 53, Number 2, May 2001, pp. 291-309. I think adding some info about how the use changed with changing ownership and maybe listing the notable performers who played at the Gardens would help a lot. --Shifra t (talk) 14:52, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

• I moved my section to the end and made some minor changes. I think it looks pretty good and can be moved to the main section.Nabaati (talk) 20:45, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

• I made a couple quick changes to your section (added internal links and there was a place where it said "Frank Lloyd Wrights" instead of "Wright's"). Any change suggestions for the first couple sections? And do we want to include more external links or category sections? I can do some digging to find appropriate categories if we want them. --Shifra t (talk) 23:54, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

• Everything I've read falls under these three sections and I think we kind of overlap in a way with these three as it is. I'm going to finish my USE section, can we think of a better name for it though? I was thinking about purpose of entertainment. What do you think? Fedgeworth (talk) 01:00, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

• How about just "Entertainment"? Or Entertainment at Midway Gardens? And, I'm sorry, I wasn't clear. I wasn't talking about adding new sections of content, just doing a section of wiki category links along the bottom if we want to have one. If we'd rather keep it to just the article and let other folks add in links later that works for me, too. --Shifra t (talk) 01:23, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

• I looked at robie house for categories and flw buildings was the only one I saw that was appropriate. I think the article's in fine shape now, and I say we put it out there and let people who are more knowledgeable about this edit away.Nabaati (talk) 02:37, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

• Excellent, sounds good to me. Do we just need to hit "revert" on the original page to get this all sent back? --Shifra t (talk) 02:52, 19 April 2011 (UTC)