First Lady to Decide Where Obama Library Goes -- and Her Eye is on the Big Apple

Michelle Obama will decide where her husband’s presidential library will be built, and the born and bred South Sider prefers New York City, according to an exclusive report from Chicago Sun-Times columnist Michael Sneed.

Sneed is told by several top sources that first lady Michelle Obama got the green light from her husband to pick the spot. And, at this juncture, she wants it in New York!

“It’s Michelle’s choice where the library and museum will ultimately be located, and she has let her close friends know she wants it to be located in New York,” a top Sneed source said.

Specifically, that would be Columbia University’s Harlem campus, where the Ivy League school is undertaking a massive expansion project.

The University of Chicago and the University of Illinois at Chicago are the local contenders, though UIC is considered a long shot. The University of Hawaii, in the state where Barack Obama was born, also has made a pitch.

The University of Chicago, in Hyde Park near the hometown residence of the president and first lady, once employed both Michelle Obama and the president. Its plan requires the Chicago Park District to cede South Side parkland, a move that’s been heavily criticized by parks advocates. Neighborhood residents, eager for the jobs and the prestige the presidential library would bring to the beleaguered neighborhood, are eager to see the land swap take place. Mayor Rahm Emanuel no doubt will need to twist some arms.

And he’s willing to do that. In fact, the mayor said “I will do as necessary, through my office and the office of the mayor, to move heaven and earth to make this happen.”

Illinoisans already had reason to raise a stink over the library and museum when House Speaker Mike Madigan last year proposed committing $100 million in public tax dollars to the project — the use of which would be a first for a presidential library. That bill was dropped in May.

Whether you support the president or not, the presence of a presidential library in Chicago would be a great benefit to the city. Reports Crain’s Chicago Business:

The university commissioned a study estimating the project would create 1,900 permanent jobs, with $220 million in annual economic impact and 800,000 annual visitors. Under Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s former chief of staff, the city has worked with both of the competing Chicago universities to explore possible transportation and infrastructure upgrades at the winning site.

The moving of heaven and earth and the twisting of arms probably will need to wait until after the mayoral election. But if Sneed is right and the first lady is throwing over her hometown and the school down the street from the Obama family home for the Big Apple (and you probably don’t want to bet on Sneed being right), then all this fretting and fury may be for naught.

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