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Garfield Park Conservatory Fern Room Reopens

CHICAGO (CBS) -- One of the historic rooms at the Garfield Park Conservatory, heavily damaged this summer in a hail storm, has reopened.

The Fern Room opened over the weekend after workers spent five months repairing and cleaning hundreds of shattered glass panes.

The Garfield Park Conservatory sustained the damage in a hailstorm on June 30, shattering approximately half of the glass panes in the roofs of the Fern Room, Show House, and 10 propagation greenhouses, according to the Garfield Park Conservatory website.

Garfield Park Hail Damage
Glass litters the Show House floor at the Garfield Park Conservatory. (Credit: Garfield Park Conservatory)

The cost of the cleanup is $2 million, but that doesn't include other needed rehabilitation work, conservatory officials told the Associated Press.

Garfield Park, one of the biggest conservatories in the nation, houses several rare and exotic plants.

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