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 129th and
133rd, 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
***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