McDonald's Cycle Center is an indoor bike station in Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago. The city built the center and opened it July 2004. Since June 2006, it has been sponsored by McDonald's and other partners, including city departments and bicycle advocacy organizations. The bike station, which serves bicycle commuters and utility cyclists, provides lockers, showers, a snack bar with outdoor summer seating, bike repair, bike rental and 300 bicycle parking spaces. The Cycle Center is accessible by membership and day pass. It also accommodates runners and inline skaters, and provides space for a Chicago Police Department Bike Patrol Group. Planning for the Cycle Center was part of the larger "Bike 2010 Plan", in which the city aimed to make itself more accommodating to bicycle commuters. Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley was an advocate of the plan. Suburban Chicago-based McDonald's controversially claimed that their sponsorship of the Cycle Center fit with their efforts to promote health. Environmentalists, urban planners and cycling enthusiasts around the world have expressed interest in the Cycle Center, and want to match its urban planning and transit-oriented development success story.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald%27s_Cycle_Center

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

64:

The Great Fire of Rome started among the shops around the Circus Maximus, eventually destroying three of fourteen Roman districts and severely damaging seven others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_Rome

1702:

Great Northern War: A numerically superior Polish–Saxon army of Augustus II the Strong, operating from an advantageous defensive position, was defeated by a Swedish army half its size in the Battle of Klissow. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Klissow

1848:

The two-day Women's Rights Convention, the first women's rights and feminist convention held in the United States, opened in Seneca Falls, New York. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seneca_Falls_Convention

1981:

French President François Mitterrand privately revealed to U.S. President Ronald Reagan (both pictured) documents showing that the Soviets had been stealing American technological research and development. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farewell_Dossier

1992:

A car bomb killed anti-Mafia judge Paolo Borsellino and five policemen in Palermo, Italy, less than two months after the murder of his friend and colleague Giovanni Falcone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_Via_D%27Amelio

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

reliquary: A container to hold or display religious relics. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/reliquary

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

A painting requires a little mystery, some vagueness, and some fantasy. When you always make your meaning perfectly plain you end up boring people.   --Edgar Degas https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edgar_Degas