“About two dozen members of Protect Our Parks (POP) tied red ribbons around hundreds of trees they say would be cut down to make way for construction of the proposed Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park, but counter-protesters removed the ribbons.
“Herb Caplan, the president of POP, which on Friday filed its appeal of its case against the city and Chicago Park District seeking to block construction of the OPC in the park, said the protest was a recreation of the Daniel Burnham Brigade protest, in which Hyde Parkers chained themselves to trees slated to be cut down for the creation of Cornell Drive, a largely unrealized effort by then-Mayor Richard J. Daley to link Lake Shore Drive with the Chicago Skyway.
“Jackson Park Advisory Council (JPAC) member Mary Anton followed protesters and cut the ribbons down, explaining that she also was picking up litter around the trees’ bases.”
“Hyde Parker John Clement — the son of Burnham Brigade protester Kay Clement — said, “I think it’s a shame, that we’re going to destroy this portion of the park for a private entity that should be located somewhere else.”
“Everybody wants the presidential center to be located on the South Side, but many don’t want it in the park,” he said.
“They were sentiments many of the protestors echoed: that the 19.3-acre OPC campus was inappropriate for a public park, and that it — and its associated traffic — should go elsewhere (Gettinger, 10/28/19)
Read the full article at Hyde Park Herald
“And the trees! The professional assessment of the hundreds of trees on the site (640 when the inventory was conducted) found a diverse assortment of 42 species, with 448 in good condition (the highest rating), most of them healthy and mature. Most of the 19 dead trees were ash. The major attention the trees were found to require is regular pruning, again a part of the maintenance the park district has failed to provide.
” The report can be read in full here. Among other points of note in the report is the listing of the environmental services that the trees on the proposed OPC site provide. For example, these trees store 203.8 tons of carbon in their tissues annually and remove an additional 5.8 tons from the air. They remove 341.5 points of air pollution, and have an annual avoided runoff value of 9,591 cubic feet. While the Obama Foundation says it will plant new trees, it would take many decades for those newly planted trees to provide the same level of beneficial environmental services.” (Schmid, 10/28/19)