Friends of the Parks, the Chicago preservation group that helped drive George Lucas’ museum to Los Angeles and made all kinds of trouble for the Obama Presidential Center, apparently is fine with a casino on Chicago’s illustrious lakefront.
Surprised? We were amazed. Clearly, the lobbying campaign mounted by Neil Bluhm and the Rivers Chicago McCormick Place casino entity is just that good.
The Obama center offers potentially transformational economic development for the South Side associated with the city’s most influential Black couple. But so threadbare was the Friends of the Parks welcome mat that even President Barack Obama himself has been heard to express surprise at the opposition to what he thought would be welcomed with open arms.