Build the Obama Foundation Center in the Washington Park Neighborhood
The available vacant site in the Washington Park neighborhood that abuts the western edge of Washington Park is a far superior site to the parkland in Jackson Park upon which the Obama Foundation wants to build its center (see videos below). The site abutting Washington Park would allow the City and the Foundation to optimize the balance of four important objectives:
- Honoring President Obama
- Encouraging Neighborhood Economic Development
- Preserving Historic, Majestic Parks (and their environmental ecosystems)
- Enhancing a Modern Transportation System
|
Honoring President Obama There are only two monuments in the US that come to mind as being taller than the proposed Obama Foundation Center (and they are both scaled to their immediate surroundings):
Why are taxpayers reconfiguring roads and shoehorning a private foundation’s center as well as a local branch of the Chicago Public Library into Jackson Park at such great environmental and cash cost when there is so much undeveloped land available on the South Side? The scale of the proposed center will be an architectural intrusion in the immediate surroundings and an unworthy honor for President Obama if it is built in Jackson Park. Won’t someone say “the emperor has no clothes”. |
Encouraging Neighborhood Economic Development Every Chicago neighborhood can use additional economic development, but Hyde Park and the area of Woodlawn most affected by building the Obama Foundation Center in Jackson Park are in less need of development than the Washington Park neighborhood. The number of vacant, undeveloped land parcels in the Washington Park neighborhood is an obscene disgrace for the world’s richest nation. Rather than taking advantage of the opportunity to bring real economic development to such an area, building the Obama Foundation Center in Jackson Park is in effect telling the Chicagoans living in the Washington Park neighborhood: “it’s still not your turn; you’re not worth the risk at this time; be patient”. |
|
Preserving Historic, Majestic Parks (and their environmental ecosystems) Majestic parks of the scale and nature of Jackson Park are not being created anymore. Frederick Olmsted designed Jackson Park and other notable parks, including Central Park in Manhattan. Olmsted stated the building now occupied by The Museum of Science and Industry should be the only prominent building in an otherwise green and blue park, which would be a place where a person could go to recreate, relax and rejuvenate the soul. Building the Obama Foundation Center in the park will result in the loss of hundreds of trees and disrupt a well-established migratory path for tens of thousands of birds that traverse a city already suffering from a relatively low level of parkland on a per capita basis. (It is interesting to note that two of Mayor Richard M. Daley’s lakefront initiatives, moving Lake Shore Drive entirely west of Soldier Field and decommissioning Meigs Field as an airport, actually resulted in the creation of more parkland.) As a result of the Covid 19 crisis, we have gained a greater appreciation of the vital importance of green open space for the physical and mental health of all our communities. Locating the Obama Foundation Center on the vacant site abutting Washington Park would allow for a beautiful contiguous extension of the park into the neighborhood at that point, thereby preserving Jackson Park and increasing the amount of parkland in the Washington Park neighborhood. |
Enhancing a Modern Transportation System The vacant land site abutting Washington Park at the intersection of Garfield Boulevard and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive is conveniently located between Lake Shore Drive to the east and the Dan Ryan Expressway to the west. Better yet, the CTA’s elevated train line runs right through the site. Today’s transportation environment is changing rapidly. Self-driving vehicles of all types are envisioned to be commonplace in the relatively near future and there is expected to be less reliance on cars as we know them today. What sense does it make for taxpayers to pay to widen the portion of Lake Shore Drive that runs through Jackson Park and the portion of Stony Island that runs along a heavily-trafficked pedestrian sidewalk in front of a high school and a YMCA? An elegantly designed Obama Foundation Center located on the vacant site abutting Washington Park could incorporate a state-of-the-art transportation center for the CTA elevated line. |
|
The Site Abutting the Western Edge of Washington Park |
Northern and Eastern Panorama from Above Site |
|
360* Panorama of Washington Park from Above the Park |
Tight 360* Panorama from Above Site and Broader Western and Southern Panorama |
8 replies on “Re-Envisioning the Obama Foundation Center Post Covid”
This is a brilliant suggestion. Parks must be protected, they provide relief to city dwellers. There are SO many vacant lots, urban renewal land, adjacent to Washington Park. This could be a catalyst for change in that neighborhood.
Didn’t Mayor Lightfoot just announce an initiative, to bring housing, development to the South and West sides? This is where we should start.
Yes! To really honor our First Black American president, we should build a monument for HIM, not on the ashes of someone else’s monument, but on a site specifically for HIM!
Yes, agreed. The area just west of Washington Park on 55th street, Garfield Ave is an ideal location – but how about making it a traditional ex Presidential library? We can also offer to change the name of (Andrew) Jackson Park to President Obama Park and encourage some of Mr. Obama’s extremely wealthy supporters to contribute private $ donations to make the South Side “President Obama Park” one of THE best free and open public parks in Chicago. The current Obama Presidential Center plan is an Obamanation and will frankly cause large numbers of regular people who either live here or commute to work here to hate the Obama legacy.
i feel sad i’m just seeing this now that the opc is cleared for taking jackson park. he really could have done something fine.
Outstanding recommendation! Thanks for all your good ideas and work here. Too little, too late, however?
I strongly support relocating the Obama Center away from Jackson Park to the Washington Park location. Chicago’s park land is a big part of what makes this city great, and it is a limited and non-renewable resource. The city has got to stop offering park land to attract plutocrats who have plenty of money and don’t need to devour our parks to move here if they want to.
thank you for this. i hope that this is not a dead issue. it seems that this exception and this precedent jeopardizes the entire lakefront and the prospects for public parks everywhere.
Hi!:
Wonderful idea! Could you please get in touch with me? Thanks!