Wild Ones to host screening of Jens Jensen film
The Northern Kane County Wild Ones invites you for popcorn and a movie at 7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 25, at Christ the Lord Lutheran Church, 12N462 Tina Trail, Elgin.
They will show the documentary "Jens Jensen the Living Green." It follows the career of Danish-born Jens Jensen (1860-1951). This film traces the inspirational story of a penniless Danish immigrant who came to Chicago in the 1880s, started as a street sweeper and became a champion of the environment. Jensen fell in love with the peaceful, wild prairies located just west of the bustling metropolis. The prairie became his inspiration, as this conservation hero fought to infuse the calming beauty of nature into the industrial urban squalor.
Jensen's vision of a sustainable city was in his time revolutionary, as he transformed the lives of Midwesterners with prairie-style parks and community gardens - urban oases that fed the soul and the body. Jensen leveraged his relationships with Frank Lloyd Wright, Henry Ford and Julius Rosenwald, to stop the steel mills from industrializing the entire shoreline and preserve native Midwestern landscapes.
In a legendary career that combined art, architecture and activism, Jensen helped save the Indiana Dunes and created unforgettable, natural public spaces for Chicago's west side, including Humboldt, Douglas and Columbus parks, as well as the Garfield Park Conservatory.