ROGERS PARK — One thousand origami cranes will remain on display at the Rogers Park library before they're shipped off to Japan in support of world peace.
Origami master Robert Smith, who runs the Chicago Area Origami Society, worked with a few kids at the library over the past month to fold the multi-colored cranes.
"The cranes are a symbol of longevity and peace," Smith said.
Ben Woodard says the cranes have deep significance:
In the next couple weeks, the strung-together cranes will be packed up and shipped to the Hiroshima International School.
The school receives cranes from all over the world and displays them in remembrance of Sadako Sasaki, a girl who was 2 years old when the atomic bomb fell on her hometown of Hiroshima. She initially survived despite being less than 2 miles from the blast's epicenter.
Years later, Sasaki fell ill with Leukemia. Before she died, she learned of a Japanese legend that says a sick person would get better if he or she folds 1,000 paper cranes, the country's sacred bird.
She folded 644 before succumbing to the disease.
Smith, 61, a health-care worker and former software developer, said he began making origami 20 years ago. Now he runs the origami society, which meets once a month at the Garfield Park Conservatory.
He said he hopes the symbol of the cranes would teach of the horror of war.
"The bombs that were dropped [in Japan] were firecrackers compared with what we have today," he said.
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