How an Election in Chicago Could Shape Harlem

Recently, several outlets reported that when President Barak Obama's second term ends, the Obamas' will move to New York. The Obama Presidential Library and Museum will not follow, but function as a kind of concession prize for for Chicago, Michelle Obama's hometown.

 

Of course, means Columbia University's campaign to instead build the Obama Library and Museum in Harlem is dead. Well, not quite.

Late last year, The Chicago Tribune reported that a certain Ivy League university which sometimes describes itself as a Harlem institution and other times Harlem-adjacent, did more than promise prime real estate to the Obama Presidential Library. In one of just a few public statements about the library and contest to house it, Columbia University officials hinted that a deal to situate the Obama Presidential Library and Museum in New York would also include some sort of post-White House role for both the Obamas at Columbia University.

So, it's a given that the library will come to New York. Well, not exactly. 

When the Obama Presidential Library and Museum Foundation promised earlier this year to reveal the Obama Library's location by the end of March, the political tea-leaf readers, public prognosticators took that date seriously. Over the last few weeks, the low din of Obama library location chatter has entered the relm of the hard to ignore.  But, in the final hours of March, its one other tidbit included in a March  Chicago Tribune editorial that appears to get at the truth. There will be no final Obama library announcement -- not in Chicago, not in New York -- until the results of the mayoral run-off election in Chicago become clear.

Here's why.

Chicago's embattled Mayor, Rham Emanuel, used a significant share of his nearly-depleted political capital to exact a promise from city officials. Chicago will turn over 20-acres of prime city parkland to the group behind the Obama Presidential Library and Museum on the condition that the group agree to build the facility on that same Chicago park site. But Emanuel, who angered many of the city's black and Latino voters this year by closing schools and making other cuts to the city's budget, is facing a serious run-off challenge. 

Emanuel remains the front-runner in Chicago's mayoral run-off. But at least one reputable polling outfit found evidence that Emanuel's campaign has ignored a large and fast-growing part of Chicago's electorate, Latinos. And, that same poll found, that 6 out of 10 Latino voters in that city have indicated that they plan to support Emanuel's opponent. If they do, Jesus "Chuy" Garcia could become the city's next mayor.

And, that could change everything for the Obama Library. Garcia opposed Emanuel's parkland deal for months before changing his position earlier this month. But most Chicago politics watchers described that switch as less of a genuine change of opinion than a strategic bit of political jujitsu, an effort to keep Emanuel from turning a vote for him into a vote for building the the Obama library in Chicago. 

To be clear, Garcia is the long-shot candidate. But if he won, it seems, the park deal and the library would, at best, become less certain. Harlem's own, Columbia University, could easily become a strong front-runner. 

Publicly, Columbia has remained tightlipped about its Obama Library plans, if the school gets the nod. The school has said only that any Obama Library would likely go up on the school's Manhattanville Campus, a long-planned university expansion that stretches deep into West Harlem between   129^th and 133^rd, from Broadway to the Hudson River. 

In the formal proposal Columbia submitted in its bid to build and house an Obama Library and Museum, a Columbia officials did promise to build a facility that could provide a, "dynamic platform," for scholars, researchers and even the Obamas to, "engage," in the "most vital issues of the day." In essence, little became clear.

Columbia University officials have refused to share publicly where an Obama Library and Museum would sit, how high it would rise, how traffic -- human and vehicle -- would be managed and what, if any, jobs or economic activity the project could bring to Harlem.  

Still, in Harlem, it's worth noting that by the close of business March 31, no Obama Library announcement had been made. So, it seems, the predication that the  group behind the Obama Foundation will put off making a decision until the early April election results are in has become just about the only thing anyone can say about the Obama library with certainty.

Janell Ross is a journalist who lives in Harlem. 

***Update: Rahm Emanuel wins second term as Chicago mayor..http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/07/politics/chicago-mayoral-runoff-results-rahm-emanuel-chuy-garcia/index.html