Park Pals Prevail, Plaisance Presidential Parking Peril Passes
The proposal to turn a city block’s worth of public park over to a private organization to build a parking garage is dead. It was announced late last night that the Barack Obama Presidential Center has decided not to build its controversial parking garage and transit center on the Midway Plaisance. The parking deck and bus idling area were met with scorn and disbelief by neighbors and fans of public space when it surfaced last...
Opposition Growing Against Obama Museum Eating Jackson Park
Just a day after the Chicago Sun-Times reported that the feds are going to examine the placement of the Barack Obama Presidential Center on a prime chunk of public park, neighbors are getting organized to save their green space. “Save the Midway” has been formed to protect the city’s beloved Midway Plaisance from a parking garage and charter bus staging area that the Obama Foundation wants to build at the head of the...
Park Pals Protest Potential Park Peril from Proposed Presidential Parking Plan
The advocacy group Friends of the Parks made headlines last year when it successfully scared Hollywood director George Lucas away from Chicago, handing his free billion-dollar art museum to Los Angeles on a silver platter. At the time, there were minor rumblings about the group’s true commitment to the city’s parks since it opposed the Lucas museum plan in Grant Park, but was silent on the Obama museum plan in the...
Obama Center Clarifies Its Plaisance Park Parking Plan
The Obama Foundation has revealed its plans for a chunk of the Midway Plaisance across the street from the new Barack Obama Presidential Center. It wants to use the tree-lined open lawn for a parking garage and transit center. The Obama Foundation describes the public open parkland as “underutilized,” which is kind of the point of open parkland. In modern landscaping terms, the space will be “activated” with...
Video: First Designs of the Obama Presidential Library
The Obama Foundation has released a video and stills showing its latest vision for the Barack Obama Presidential Center. Taking a large chunk out of Jackson Park, the facility is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of visitors each year to Chicago’s South Side. According to the Foundation: The Center will be a place for doing. It will include classrooms, labs, and outdoor spaces, and it will conduct programs that provide...
Obama Library Price Jumps 50% in 9 Months
It was already the biggest cultural landmark to come to the South Side in a generation. Now it’s going to be the biggest financial injection into the region of Chicago in modern memory. Just nine months after former president Barack Obama stated that he needed a billion dollars to build his presidential library and museum, that price is now reportedly $1.5 billion. The news was broken by the New York Post’s Richard...
Park Pals Pass on Protesting Presidential Plan
A couple of days ago, the Obama Foundation announced that Chicago’s Jackson Park will be the location of the Barack Obama Presidential Center. The decision came as a surprise to some observers who believed that Washington Park was a lock. The Jackson decision now leaves them with neighborhood revitalization plans unrealized. Also not happy with the choice is Friends of the Parks. You may remember it as the N.G.O. that scared George...
Trib: Obama Library To Land in Jackson Park
We’re still a week away from an official announcement, but the Chicago Tribune says President Barack Obama has chosen Jackson Park for the Obama Presidential Center. It was quite some time ago that the location for the presidential library was narrowed down to either Washington Park, or Jackson Park. But until now it was widely believed that Washington Park was the front runner. How much of Jackson Park will be impacted by the...
TWBTA and IDEA Chosen to Design Obama Presidential Library on Chicago’s South Side
After months of anticipation, the Obama Foundation has decided in which direction it wants to go with the Barack Obama Presidential Center: TWBTA out of New York and IDEA in Chicago. You may know TWBTA (Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects) from such projects as the University of Chicago’s Logan Center for the Arts and the Phoenix Art Museum. Locally, IDEA was the architect of record for Renzo Piano’s Art Institute of...
Take a Turn Designing an (not “the”) Obama Presidential Library
While the Jedi battle the Sith in federal court over where to put the still-coming-to-Chicago-for-now Lucas Museum (you can decide which side is which), another major new museum is chugging along with little opposition or fanfare. President Obama’s library —to be known as the Obama Presidential Center (OPC) — will be built eventually on the south side of Chicago. Who will design the building is still being decided, but chances...
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