The main building of the Obama Presidential Center, the tower, resembles a cavity-riddled lower incisor, one in dire need of extraction, but which, unfortunately, will remain in place for generations to come, a monument to Barack Obama\u2019s ego, and rotten to the core.<\/p>\n
\u2014 John Vukmirovich,\u00a0Lemont<\/p>\n
Obama center is terrific<\/p>\n
The commentary and hype about the Obama Presidential Center in the Tribune have been excellent. Praise is due to all of the staff involved, but particularly for Christopher Borrelli\u2019s June 14 article (\u201c\u2018Hope has a home<\/a>\u2018\u201d), supplemented by Brian Cassella\u2019s photography. Plus, a full page editorial that day (\u201cWhy Chicagoans should welcome, and care for, the Obama Presidential Center\u201d<\/a>) and Scott Stantis\u2019 funny\/sad cartoon<\/a>. But special praise for Borrelli: comprehensive descriptions of the center\u2019s features, its location (controversial but hopeful), cost, the works of art and more.<\/p>\n Many of us are wondering about presidential museums. How does this one stack up? Borrelli gives that important history of other presidential museums. (I have visited only two others: Franklin Delano Roosevelt\u2019s in Hyde Park, New York, and Lyndon B. Johnson\u2019s in Austin, Texas.)<\/p>\n The Obama center is simply terrific: the presentations, the art, the hugely uplifting and positive message, the variety of people attending, the well-informed staff, the breathtaking views, the stunningly gorgeous granite cladding of the building and courtyard, and more.<\/p>\n A two hour-visit was tiring for this octogenarian, but I\u2019m eager to return.<\/p>\n \u2014 Rebecca Dixon, Chicago\u00a0<\/p>\n South Side museum campus<\/p>\n In its editorial about the Obama Presidential Center, the Tribune Editorial Board states that the center\u2019s proximity to the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry led Obama Foundation head Valerie Jarrett to say there will now be two museum campuses in Chicago. These are not the only two museums in the area. On the University of Chicago campus, visitors can tour the Smart Museum of Art and Frank Lloyd Wright\u2019s Robie House.<\/p>\n Just west of the University of Chicago campus is the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center. A family could spend multiple days enjoying all the museums in the South Side museum campus.<\/p>\n \u2014 John Regan, Lemont<\/p>\n Hope for renewed optimism<\/p>\n Reading all the letters to the editor<\/a> about Barack Obama in the June 17 issue was very moving and brought back such good and positive memories for me, too.<\/p>\n I know that all leaders are not the same. Each is a different person with their own hallmarks, but the striking contrast between Obama and Donald Trump couldn\u2019t be more obvious. Obama genuinely cares about others. That is so clear in the letters published in the Tribune. He doesn\u2019t disparage anyone \u2014 not even his foes. Trump, on the other hand, belittles and degrades people every day. There is no empathy. No hugging. No thoughtful gestures. Not much thoughtfulness, period.<\/p>\n I had such optimism for America when Obama was elected president both times. I felt real pride in our country. Now I grieve for that optimism and pride.<\/p>\n I hope with all my heart that someday we can get back there.<\/p>\n \u2014 Judy Weik,\u00a0Oak Park<\/p>\n Revisiting South Side home<\/p>\n Last fall, with my adult daughter, I returned to the city of my birth to show her where I grew up and what I had always loved about Chicago.<\/p>\n My biggest surprise was that the red-brick apartment building where I lived with my parents and siblings from 1944 to 1952 was still standing and still in use. And from the kitchen of the third-floor apartment, which I had long ago shared with my parents and four siblings, the new Obama Presidential Center was clearly visible.<\/p>\n The building, on the east side of Blackstone Avenue and just north of 67th, was much the same, as I recalled. The one difference was a new layer of red bricks over the faded previous layer. The neighborhood was also much the same.<\/p>\n In 1944, when I was a boy, most of our neighbors were European refugees \u2014 Germans, Irish, Poles and a few Jewish families like mine. A few years after the war, when I was in elementary school, we began to see Black families who had left Southern states for the better jobs that Chicago offered.<\/p>\n Today, this part of the South Side seems to be almost entirely peopled by Black families.<\/p>\n As an undersized boy, I often played, alone, in Jackson Park, making a bow and arrows from branches taken from smaller trees and enjoying the cool shade in summer.<\/p>\n I was warned that my old neighborhood was now dangerous, but I found no danger. Only friendly and usually helpful residents who showed little surprise that after almost 80 years, I had returned to my childhood community to share it with my daughter.<\/p>\n We enjoyed every day of our week in Chicago and expect to return soon.<\/p>\n \u2014 Marvin J. Wolf, Asheville, North Carolina<\/p>\n On my bucket list of places<\/p>\n With the weekslong anticipation of the Obama Presidential Center opening, I cannot think of a better time than to be in the third most populous city in the United States. And, yes, Chicago is my kind of town. The nostalgia of this center\u2019s opening is too overwhelming. This summer is certainly a fantastic time to visit Chi-Town.<\/p>\n The selected works of art, particularly the unveiling of a Njideka Akunyili Crosby-commissioned portrait, make planning a trip to Chicago more exciting.<\/p>\n From the looks of things from afar, visiting Chicago is surely on my bucket list of places to go.<\/p>\n Welcome, Obama Presidential Center!<\/p>\n \u2014 Wayne E. Williams, Camden, New Jersey<\/p>\n Obama led hearings at UIC<\/p>\n In 1998, Illinois legislators held hearings at the University of Illinois Chicago regarding reports of racial bias in the College of Medicine. I attended those hearings as a university administrator, and the chair of the hearings was a young legislator with a name I had not heard of.<\/p>\n As I watched him lead the hearings and listened to him speak, I leaned over to one of my colleagues and commented how impressive he was and that I thought we would hear that name again in the future.<\/p>\n Of course, the man was named Barack Obama.<\/p>\n \u2014 Michael Ginsburg, Northbrook<\/p>\n Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here<\/a> or email letters@chicagotribune.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The main building of the Obama Presidential Center, the tower, resembles a cavity-riddled lower incisor, one in dire…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":881766,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5124],"tags":[11744,960,358182,5386,1818,193078,70957,92400,13561],"class_list":["post-881765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago","tag-barack-obama","tag-chicago","tag-dusable-museum","tag-il","tag-illinois","tag-jackson-park","tag-obama-foundation","tag-obama-presidential-center","tag-south-side"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116785695083148729","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=881765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/881766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=881765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=881765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=881765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}