To the Editors:
It’s fitting that John Vinci’s excellent post on the Obama Library siting runs in the same issue of The New Criterion (“The Obama Library double parks,” January 2016) as the symposium on the corruption of our political institutions.
The strong desire to locate the Obama Presidential Library on the South Side of Chicago is entirely understandable, as is the desire for a beautiful setting. An ideal site exists across the street and to the west of Washington Park, in an area acknowledged to be blighted and sparsely occupied, with acres and acres that could be inexpensively acquired by condemnation, and the result would reinvigorate a neighborhood without encroaching in any way on much-needed green space.
Why this obvious choice has been ignored has never been publicly addressed. It has been suggested that President and Mrs. Obama expressed a desire for a site with unobstructed views of Lake Michigan, and that this carried the day with the powers that be. If true, this means the library will be built in Jackson Park. Certainly the University of Chicago and Mayor Emanuel have not attempted to offer a plausible explanation why the library absolutely must take land actively used by park-goers, instead of being built on land not used for anything.
Not that this shocks anyone in Cook County.
Marc L. Hecht
Winnetka, Illinois
