Chicago Chosen For Obama Library

Current Events
The finalists for the coveted presidential library included Honolulu, Hawaii, where the president was born; New York City, where the president attended Columbia University as an undergrad; and the South Side of Chicago, where Mr. Obama planted his roots as a community organizer.

In an official announcement posted online last week, the Barack Obama Foundation announced the presidential library would be built in a park on Chicago’s South Side, which happens to be where the Obama’s still own a home.

“All the strands of my life came together, and I really became a man, when I moved to Chicago,” Mr. Obama said in a videotaped announcement posted on YouTube. “That’s where I was able to apply that early idealism to try to work in communities in public service.”

Chicago was always the front runner and is a natural selection, since it is the city that nurtured Mr. Obama’s ascent from young community activist to state legislator to United States senator and then to President of the United States.  Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who served as Mr. Obama’s first White House chief of staff, made the project a priority and convinced the City Council to vote unanimously to allow it to be built in either Washington Park or Jackson Park.

The Obama Foundation said it will choose one of the parks in the coming months and that the site will include the library, a museum and office and activity space for the foundation.

Current Events
Building anything on parkland is traditionally and legally a no-no in Chicago. However, state legislators passed a law this year to ease legal concerns and create a clear path for the future Obama Library.  Still, Friends of the Parks, a Chicago group that opposes private development on parkland, had publicly urged Mr. Obama to select a Chicago site other than a park. They have already filed a lawsuit to block a narrative arts museum from being built along the lakefront, so it would not be unexpected if they were to petition the courts to block the Obama Library.

Chicagoans are hopeful that the Obama project will bring economic benefits to the predominately black and poor South Side. Both Washington Park and Jackson Park border neighborhoods struggling with economic decay and violent crime, making city officials celebrate the project’s potential to foster development and create jobs.

“The Obama Presidential Library is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that will bring tremendous cultural, economic and educational benefits to the South Side and the entire city of Chicago for generations to come,” Mayor Emanuel said in a news release distributed by the Obama Foundation.  The library will be built in a partnership with the University of Chicago, where Mr. Obama once taught law.

As for the other finalists, the Obama Foundation said it will extend itself “to maintain a presence at Columbia” and work with the state of Hawaii “to establish a lasting presence in Honolulu.”