Fountain Fail: Giant Face Projections Missing From Millenium Park
Fountain Failing At Millennium Park
(CBS) -- The Crown Fountain is one of Millennium Park's premiere attractions. But for much of the week, it hasn't worked the way it was intended.
It didn't matter much to the kids, and to some adults, WBBM Newsradio's Bob Roberts reports.
Water cascaded Friday from the top of the 50-foot towers, but missing were the video images of the faces of Chicagoans that are normally displayed. The water that usually spouts from the mouths of the faces did not do so.
The city blames the problem on a computer hard drive issue. A spokesperson for the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events said that files had been corrupted, but that all have been salvaged.
Software technicians worked all day Thursday and Friday to try to get everything to run the way Spanish artist Jaume Plensa intended.
The computer-driven, wet and wild work of art is nearly a decade old.
Some who stopped by the fountain were not bothered, especially parents whose children had plenty of water in which they could frolic, even without spouting water.
Those who were disappointed were mostly those who are out-of-towners and just heard about the fountain, only to see it undergoing "maintenance," and those bringing out-of-town family members to see it.
