Greetings, all!
TO KEEP EVERYONE UP TO DATE, HERE IS THE VERY LATEST NEWS:
The parking garage: The Obama Foundation has announced that it is abandoning its attempt to build an above-ground parking garage at the east end of the Midway Plaisance and will instead build a garage underground on the site already designated for the Obama Presidential Center. Read all about it in the Sun-Times, Tribune, and Herald. Congratulations to all those who helped create this positive outcome! Let us all hope that the Obama Foundation continues to listen to community voices!
UChicago faculty letter: Faculty at the University of Chicago are circulating a letter stating concerns about numerous aspects of the Obama Foundation plans to date and raising the question of whether an alternate site for the OPC should be considered. As reported in Crain’s Chicago Business, “W.J.T. Mitchell, a professor of English and art history at the University of Chicago, said he and Jonathan Lear, a philosophy professor, initiated the letter. Mitchell, author of a book, “Landscape and Power,” attended community meetings hosted by backers of the Obama Center and found them patronizing, he said. Compared with long presentations, he said, there was little time for questions from the audience. ‘More and more I heard these murmurs of discontent, which were getting louder and louder,’ he says, recalling his conclusion: ‘Well . . . this is one of those Chicago power plays.’” (Note: you may have trouble accessing the full text of the Crain’s article unless you subscribe or have established a log-in.)
FOTP comments on the Section 106 review: We want to add to the report in our last Update on the federal review of the impact of the OPC the historic Jackson Park. In its consulting party statement, Friends of the Parks identified the siting of the OPC in Jackson Park as a key adverse effect on the entire Olmsted park system; highlighted the need to preserve the road system in keeping with the Olmsted design; and called again for comprehensive park planning.
Brenda Nelms and Margaret Schmid
Co-presidents, Jackson Park Watch
www.jacksonparkwatch.org
jacksonparkwatch@gmail.com
www.facebook.com/jacksonparkwatch