Two clear messages emerged from a blizzard of opinions expressed Wednesday evening at the most highly charged meeting yet about the Obama Presidential Center:
An actual blizzard in New York kept architect and panelist Michael Sorkin from making the trip (his remarks were read by Mitchell). But Charles Birnbaum, president of the D.C.-based Cultural Landscape Foundation was there, arguing against putting the Obama Center in Jackson Park, invoking Janet Jackson.
Arguments voiced in the meeting, which ran over its two-hour time slot, covered the full spectrum of opinions, though there may have been something close to consensus on Birnbaum’s point that a site near Washington Park would have been preferable. The legendary 99-year-old historian and activist Timuel Black supported this; so did Juanita Irizarry and Ward Miller, the executive directors of Friends of the Parks and Preservation Chicago, respectively. But it was a point that almost everyone has already given up on.
“Not everybody agrees,” Mitchell said, “but that’s what democracy stands for.” v
