LOCAL
FRIDAY, JUNE 23, 2000
Old Courthouse poster unveiled
BY DIANE KRIEGER SPIVAK
Times Correspondent

CROWN POINT -- The Grand Old Lady was unveiled in all of her historic splendor Thursday evening as the 33rd star in a 52-piece South Shore Millennium Poster series.
In a special ceremony on the east courthouse steps, the 42-by-28-inch original oil rendition of the courthouse, sponsored by the Greater Crown Point Chamber of Commerce, was presented during the Taste of Crown Point.
"We see it as a way to promote Crown Point," chamber President Carol Highsmith said.
Chamber Executive Director Gayle VanSessen gave a brief history of the landmark, built in 1876.
JOHN J. WATKINS / THE TIMES
Artists Mitch Markovitz, left, and Bruce Cegur unveil a poster of the Old Courthouse on the courthouse steps Thursday evening.
"It's probably the best-known structure in Northern Indiana," she said.
The original central structure was built with 50,000 locally made bricks. Additions were constructed 20 years later and again 10 years after that. The building was used for government until 1974 when the new Lake County Government Center was constructed on North Main Street.
Nearly turned into a parking lot, the building was saved from the wrecking ball by local advocates and has been refurbished to its former grandeur by donations and government grants totaling more than $1 million, VanSessen said. The building is now 100 percent occupied, with shops on the lower level and offices, a social room and museum above.
Artist Bruce Cegur, who has completed five of the South Shore Line posters and has been commissioned to paint a sixth, was on hand to sign the posters, which were available for $20 each.
"It's been a real privilege to be the artist chosen to do this," Cegur said. "I hope I do the Grand Old Lady justice."
Mitch Markovitz, art director and founding artist of the poster campaign that is sponsored by the Northwest Indiana Forum, said the poster program goes back to 1925 when the South Shore Line used them to promote the railroad in the region.
Markovitz said Cegur's is the first of a new series that has added an element of modernism to the poster design. The posters are to be displayed on billboards and placed in inserts and advertisements.
Cegur, a Hammond native and resident, signed posters inside the courthouse.
Matthew and Leona Macocha, who recently moved to Lowell after living 11 years in Crown Point, said the Old Courthouse poster was the fourth they had purchased in the series.
"We used to live in Whiting, and we bought the one of Wolf Lake, the one of the Whiting Library and the one of the Chicago Skyline with Phill Smidt's" Leona Macocha said.
"I always like this courthouse, and we got our marriage license in this building 58 years ago," Matthew Macocha added.
The posters are available for sale at the Greater Crown Point Chamber of Commerce in the Old lake County Courthouse.
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