from the Washington Times:
Obama’s presidential library ripped as ‘ugly waste of taxpayer resources’ by Chicagoans![]()
Chicagoans in droves are venting their displeasure with President Barack Obama’s planned library, calling it an “ugly waste of taxpayer resources” and a “dangerous precedent” for the preservation of historic public parklands.
Recent letters to the editor published in the Chicago Tribune have overwhelmingly panned the Obama Presidential Center, which will take nearly 20 acres from historic Jackson Park and cost taxpayers $100 million in renovations to the surrounding area.
In a letter published on Jan. 26, John Deal of Dolton, Illinois, called the egg-shaped main tower and surrounding buildings “garish monstrosities that ruin the aesthetics of the surrounding parkland stolen from the taxpaying public.”
“Does anyone else think the artist’s rendering of the proposed Obama Presidential Center campus is ugly?” Mr. Deal asked.
Jerry Bruti of Chicagoexpressed outrage that the library is “taking valuable and irreplaceable park land that belongs to all the people of Chicago.”
“My suggestion: Build the Obama Presidential Center on vacant land that is not already dedicated as parkland, perhaps in an area that needs rejuvenation; and while at it, maybe spend those millions of dollars to build and endow a state-of-the-art school, library, affordable housing or other facility that the people of Chicago really need and can use to improve their quality of life,” Mr. Bruti wrote in the letter published on Jan. 28.
Plans for the library elicited controversy on the South Side even before the University of Chicago won the bid to host the facility in 2015.
Preservationists point out that Jackson Park, part of Chicago’s public park system, was originally designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, the landscape architects behind New York’s famed Central Park.
Then came news that the center will not be Mr. Obama’s official presidential library and will not house documents from the Obama White House.