Proposals to put the Barack Obama presidential library on Chicago parkland stirred passionate debates during six hours of public hearings this week and divided residents into two camps: one that wants the city’s precious green space to be left alone with the other saying a library at either of the two South Side parks under consideration would boost economies of the surrounding communities.
The University of Chicago is behind the two proposals, one that would carve out 21 acres of Jackson Park or 22 acres of Washington Park plus another 11 acres owned by the university and CTA near the Garfield Green Line stop outside Washington Park.
“Parks are not land banks. They are not empty land waiting to be developed,” Stephanie Franklin, of Hyde Park, said at Tuesday’s hearing at Hyde Park Academy near Jackson Park. “Land is finite and once it’s gone, it’s simply gone,” she said.
Ghian Foreman, 41, who lives in Kenwood, said he viewed the library not as taking away park space but adding to it. “This will benefit our neighborhoods, our city on a global scale. How amazing would it be to share with the world our community? They can see something on the news other than how many shootings take place on the South Side of Chicago,” he said at a separate park hearing Wednesday at the Washington Park fieldhouse.
Some residents at the hearings were skeptical of the process while others expressed concerns over how the library has the potential to gentrify the neighborhood.
“I don’t like this notion of a blank check syndrome where we as the public must give up our own land, our public open space, and we’re told, ‘Trust me, it’s going to be great.’ We’re given limited information and we’re not included in the process,” said Melanie Moore, a Woodlawn resident who is the senior policy director for Friends of the Parks, a nonprofit organization that promotes open spaces. She supported the university using the 11 acres across from Washington Park and opposed using park property.
What residents seemingly could agree on is that an Obama presidential library belongs in Chicago.
“It would be a slap in the face if any other city other than the city of Chicago receives this endorsement,” said Torrey Barrett, executive director of the KLEO Center, a nonprofit in the Washington Park community. “Our communities have been disenfranchised for far too long. They have been neglected for far too long. It’s time the president showed the support to us that we showed to him since before he got into office.”
Here are 5 facts about how Chicago’s trying to land the Obama Presidential Library
Chicago—and the University of Chicago in particular—has been seen as a front-runner in the competition to land the presidential library, considering it’s Mrs. Obama’s hometown and the city where the President began his political career.
The Barack Obama Foundation, created to plan and raise money for the library, questioned the sites offered up by U of C as well as a bid made by the University of Illinois at Chicago. The foundation was concerned the U of C sites aren’t wholly controlled by the university or city; at UIC, expected leadership changes made the foundation question moving forward with that bid. The foundation has raised between $2.9 million and $6.2 million during its first year of operation, officials reported Thursday. The majority of it—between $2.3 million and $4.9 million—was raised during the last three months of 2014.
Friends of the Parks said it believes it would be unprecedented to transfer park district land to another public agency or another private entity and questioned the legality of doing so because the parks are protected land and held in public trust. The group has sued over plans to put the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art on the lakefront.
Two other contenders also are in the running for the library: Columbia University in New York, where the president earned his undergraduate degree, and the University of Hawaii, located in Honolulu, where he was born.
The Obamas are expected to make a decision on the library by the end of March.
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