A number of recent stories like one here say it’s done deal that ground will be broken late this summer on the Obama Center in Chicago’s Jackson Park.
Not so fast.
From Herb Caplan, president of Protect Our Parks, which is fighting the good fight to move it to an appropriate place:
DON’T BE FOOLED BY THE STORIES OF THE OPC PLANNING TO BREAK GROUND IN JACKSON PARK. IT IS NOT A DONE DEAL. THERE IS LOTS MORE TO COME.
We are about to (1) file a petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court; (2) file a new lawsuit for administrative review of the defective environmental federal review of the proposed project in historic Jackson Park; (3) release a spectacular architectural plan for relocating the OPC to private land in the nearby Washington Park neighborhood; (4) prepare to file a new complaint (as permitted by the 7th Circuit opinion) with new plaintiffs and expanded legal issues ; (4) release on YouTube two new videos, and more to come, based on multiple interviews with local residents of the south side, about the need and value of an open, clear and free Jackson Park, especially in this time of pandemic and climate change; and (5) soon launch an expanded PR campaign for outreach to correct any perception that the OPC is a done deal, better inform the public of the important issues we are acting to protect, and to increase the number of active supporters of Protect Our Parks. Enforcing Public Trust doctrine is not only critical to protecting all our lakefront public parks from commercial exploitation, but has national application and importance, and a ruling in our favor will be a giant step forward for good government by providing a legal tool to start effectively ending the corruption that exists in Chicago politics.
It’s going to be a busy year, and a reminder to the Park District, City, Obama Foundation, and University of Chicago, that if they want to start construction of an OPC tomorrow all they have to do is agree to relocate it out of the public park and into the Washington Park neighborhood as we have documented for them.
We have just begun to fight to save historic Jackson Park.
Let’s hope Caplan wins. If the center is built in Jackson Park, it will stand as a fittingly hideous monument to hubris and misuse of government power, subsidized by Illinois and federal taxpayers, disfiguring one of the finest urban parks on the planet.
And, yes, you are paying for it — about $174 million of state and federal taxpayer money, plus the priceless land. See my earlier articles on that in the Wall Street Journal and here in Wirepoints.
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
This is not a presidential library, it’s a temple to honor Obama before he is deified and ascends to heaven to sit next to St. Peter.
If that’s the case, what happened to the separation of Church and State? More accurate is a Patronage Boondoggle, an idea hatched to memorialize an event, that years later, people will most likely wonder – what were they thinking? No Presidential papers, here. This is a center, Not a Presidential Library. It is an offense against nature to build this, inside of Jackson Park. It is contradictory to all he did for Parks, for the Environment, while in office. It is a monument to one guys ego. Calls into question his commitment to our environment, to climate change, global warming.… Read more »
From Friends of the Parks today, just to update you on their activities: Dear friend of the parks,Last week we sent a letter to President Biden’s nominee for U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator, Michael Regan. We invited him to join us in Chicago to see and hear from communities experiencing environmental threats. Check out our Letter to the Editor in the Chicago Tribune below:https://files.constantcontact.com/d88c77d8001/827602fa-0324-4062-918f-78ed441b4e9e.jpgLetters: We invite EPA chief to see the battles we are fighting in Chicago for environmental justice – Chicago Tribune“With the clear intent of President Joe Biden coming into sharp focus and the confirmation process for Michael… Read more »
I agree, the dredge tailings dump on the Lakefront, the relocation of General Iron to that neighborhood, these are all environmental crimes. But so, too, is the Obama Center, located inside of Historic Jackson Park. Where is Friends of the Parks on the subject of the OPC? Where is the required Environmental Impact Statement? The City now denies that’ll be necessary. The OPC, inside this natural Park, is a boondoggle, and birds will collide with this 23 story tower. This project is completely contrary to what Obama did for the Parks, for the environment, while in office. This is a… Read more »
That is one seriously ugly building
Notice the snobs from “Friends of the parks” is nowhere to be found on this issue? Are they only friends of lakefront parks?
They are Only interested in Parks on the North side. They are Not the Park Preservation / advocacy group they once were. We need such a group, to help us preserve this Park, but they do nothing. This is Obama, ‘bending’ the rules.
Correction, Friends of the Parks has now discovered a new focus – environmental justice, on the South East side. While we remain opposed to asphalt factories, car shredding businesses, and the like, we would like to Protect Jackson Park, as well.
They got stung by their success in opposing the Lucas museum (that wasn’t). Now we need them to step up, preserve Jackson Park. They are trying to ‘sit this one out’, when they should be protesting this from the rooftops. It’s called Park advocacy, a mission they seem to have abandoned.
What does Obama have against Chicago? Why doesn’t he want his OFFICIAL Presidential LIBRARY built in Chicago??
Why are we getting this UnOfficial Center with a branch of the Chicago Library?
Where will the Official Presidential library of Obama be built; if not Chicago ? Hawaii??
Kenya????
This is a Center, and Not a Presidential library. His archives will be available “online”, only. This branch of the Chicago Public library was added to the plan so they could say -and library. No study has ever identified that community as lacking libraries. More of the smoke and mirrors that have defined the ‘evolution’ of these plans. They added in the removal of Cornell Drive, they removed East bound Midway Plaisance, they even removed Marquette Drive. A thousand trees will be cut down, this in a time of climate change, global warming. This is a Boondoggle. I suggest we… Read more »
I was hoping he’d put his library in one of the 56 other states.
Might as well just go to Hawaii.
Obama fits Alice Roosevelt Longworth’s description of her father, TR, who, she said, had to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral. Every thing, EVERY THING, has to be about Obama. Destroy Jackson Park? Sounds good to him. The Bahia Temple, now fittingly located along Sheridan Road, was once slated to be in Jackson Park; it’s in a much more suitable location now. Reconsideration of an original plan has its advantages. Should this hideous monstrosity have the misfortune to be built, the Obama Foundation or the Obama Alumni Association, for which this may be the… Read more »
The U of C is contributing as this is a path to gentrifying the Woodlawn neighborhood. I think the facility is the size it is – twenty three stories tall – as there will be extra room for U of C classes, functions. How else could the University expand onto what Had been a Public Park?
Is there any doubt any more that Obama was not an environmentalist?
A hideous building, windowless, clad in some opaque stone. It soars to 235 feet in height – the renderings in the article show an earlier version. This, adjacent to a nature sanctuary, a tower of collisions with migrating wildlife. What happened to federal reviews; requirements for an Environmental Impact Statement? This is the product of a corrupt, dated, patronage machine mind-set that I had hoped would be illegal by now. The ‘deal’ gives a private foundation public Park land, for ten dollars / ninety nine years. This is / Was a Lakefront Park. Costs go beyond just road widening, (175… Read more »
The artist’s rendering resembles a futuristic high tec solar powered
Cook County Forest Preserve outhouse which is a very fitting
monument worthy of BHO.
Not only does it lack Any kind of solar, there aren’t even any windows to admit light. I’m also wary of the fact it is a sealed box, relying on air handlers to exchange out the (cough, wheeze) atmosphere (gasp) in there. Has anyone given this much thought, post – covid?
Reminds me of Chinese take out carton
Just here for the rice!
I think it tries to evoke the gently sloping sides of the Hancock Building, but seeing how it is clad in stone, opaque, it fails miserably in that regards. This is what happens when you ‘borrow’ an idea from another – you get a second rate knock-off that sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb. It should be bathed in pulsing red lights, throbbing, to warn off birds.
Tax payer money being used for another boondoggle. No surprise there. Obama was a BS artist when he was in office and he is now that he is getting richer and richer from the deals and celebrity notoriety. using public money for this is wrong. if Obama wants to fund this ugly scar on the earth, whatever, but dont use my money for it. Pointless to resist, it is already done and Biden has already sign an executive order for it…
That’s just it – it isn’t a done deal, yet. The City, the Foundation have yet to settle remaining legal issues, lawsuits. There is an Environmental Impact Statement, required, in spite of the City’s protests. There is the matter of money, Fundraising, required not just to build ($500 million) but also an endowment, to operate it ($500 million to one Billion) – and they are Not there, yet. Another hallmark of the boondoggle – they are announcing a groundbreaking, even though all these hurdles remain. Truth is, Biden is Coming, and so, too, the environmental community. This project cries out,… Read more »
What an eyesore for the neighborhood. Looks like the NIPSCO cooling tower in northern Indiana. Who designed this monstrosity; a chemical engineer?
Lol,thats pretty funny!!
It is the work of Todd Williams / Billie Tsien Architects, from NYC. Check out their American Folk Art Museum / New York City. So ugly, even New Yorkers objected, and it was dismantled. They are known for bleak, foreboding structures that are at odds with their surroundings.
It is either an obelisk or elongated chop suey bucket. Where’s the windows?
Could someone tell me exactly what Obama did?
What did he do for the African American people??
During his tenure many thousands of people mostly black killed each other in Chicago alone.
How many African Americans died all across the country by gun violence not including inferior healthcare/substandard housing/lack of quality education/etc?
Did he find a cure for Sickle Cell? That in the least would be worthy of a monument.
Obama and his son Trayvon watered the seeds of racial discourse resulting in relentless polarization.
Well, he gave nice speeches.
What did Obama do? Recall he had a fondness for biting his lower lip. Soon Quinn and many Democrats were biting their lower lips also. It became a fad among Democrats. Not sure if Biden did though.
Obama pulled us out of the ‘Great Recession’, eventually; He And the Democrats gave us health insurance, you might want to avail yourself. He had no scandal, but barely cracked the sentencing guidelines that repress minority Americans, who were largely left out. His ‘Center’ robs minority communities of their Parks, giving us a 23 story tall tourist attraction, which could be a catalyst for change in a depressed neighborhood like Washington Park. This is a boondoggle, the spoils, as it were. A nod to Rahm, to J.B., to their Pals at the U of C. It is a throwback to… Read more »
It this hideous scar on Chicago and Illinois is built, for gosh sakes at least use it for urban renewal and try and do something positive. There is plenty of urban in Chicago needing renewal, that’s for sure.
There are acres of underutilized land directly adjacent to Jackson Park that are better locations for this building. I’m not sure what part of “forever open, clear and free” Obama doesn’t understand.
Backdoor plan to get the poor Black folks out of Woodlawn. Note who is on their board – it looks like a subsidiary of Pritzker Realty Enterprises. U of C contributed $30 million. The better location is on King Drive, North of Garfield Boulevard. City land, urban renewal land.
Vacant lots with nothing on them. Instead, Obama wants the Lakefront Park. He seeks to bend the rules. His OPC is bleak, lacks windows. This isn’t Chicago grade Architecture.
They should not build it on the grounds that it is a butt ugly building. It looks like the metropolitan correction center with the vertical slit windows.
Well it is an indoctrination center for up and coming “community organizers”…
At least the MCC has those ‘slit’ windows. This building has no windows, to speak of. No air, no sunlight, just a huge obelisk. They added to the height of it, as well. They added in the removal of Cornell Drive. They added in removing between 800 to 1,000 trees, widening roads, paving more of this Historic, largely natural Park. Twenty Three stories tall. Butt ugly is being kind.