One life-long Democrat is tempted to revoke his party support after voicing a slew of criticism directed towards the newly unveiled Obama presidential tower. 

Stephen J Lyons, an author and South Side resident who grew up playing in Jackson Park, refused to hold back his vehement opposition to the creation, stating the 225-foot museum tower has transformed one of Chicago’s most treasured green spaces into something unrecognizable.

The $850,000,000 project opened on June 19, after having been in the works for almost a decade, and has been enshrouded in relentless skepticism.

Writing in the Chicago Sun-Times, Lyons says he no longer sees the peaceful landscape created in 1869 by the famed park designer Frederick Law Olmsted, who was the man behind New York's Central Park and site of the 1893 World's Fair.

Instead, he sees what he dubs the ‘Obamalisk’ – a granite-clad tower that he believes dominates the skyline with its sheer scale and infiltrates the pastoral beauty of Jackson park.

‘It’s a visible blot on my city’s landscape,’ Lyons wrote, adding a cutting barb that the structure is ‘an assault on my senses.’

The broadside comes just weeks after the Obama Presidential Center opened to visitors following years of construction, legal challenges and debate over whether such a monumental project belonged inside Jackson Park.

Far from a conventional presidential library, the 19-acre campus was conceived by Barack and Michelle Obama as a civic center rather than simply a repository for presidential papers.

Its centerpiece is the 225-foot museum tower, clad in pale granite and inscribed with words from Obama’s landmark 2015 speech commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Selma voting rights marches. 

Inside are immersive exhibits chronicling Obama’s presidency, galleries exploring American democracy and civic participation, temporary exhibition space, an 291-seat auditorium and upper-floor observation areas, offering sweeping views across Lake Michigan and the Chicago skyline.

The wider campus also includes the Obama Foundation’s Forum, home to classrooms, recording studios, meeting rooms and community spaces, alongside a branch of the Chicago Public Library. 

Outside, visitors can explore landscaped gardens, walking trails, wetlands, athletic courts, event lawns and one of Chicago’s largest destination playgrounds, designed to encourage imaginative play and outdoor learning.

With no expense spared, there are ball fields, barbecue grills and picnic tables. There’s a teaching kitchen, with a fruit and vegetable garden, overseen by the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Obama has consistently rejected the idea that the center is intended as a narcissistic shrine.

Speaking at the center’s groundbreaking ceremony in September 2021, he said it would become 'the world’s premier institution for developing civic leaders' and 'a forum for those who want to strengthen democratic ideals and foster active citizenship.'

He added that himself and Michelle Obama 'cannot imagine a better legacy than investing in the next generation of leaders.'

Ahead of the groundbreaking, Obama also told ABC’s Good Morning America that 'this isn’t about some president over there. This is about citizens like you who could make a difference.'

He said he wanted visitors to leave asking the thought provoking questions themselves of , 'How can you make a contribution?' and argued the center would serve as an engine of economic opportunity for Chicago’s South Side.

Those ambitions have won praise from supporters, who see the project as a once-in-a-generation investment in one of the city’s historically underserved neighborhoods.

The architects are Billie Tsien and Tod Williams, New York veterans known for openhearted projects like the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia and the Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago.

They teamed with Michael Van Valkenburgh, the landscape architect behind Brooklyn Bridge Park, who has reimagined all the parkland. Moody Nolan, one of the largest Black-owned architectural firms, designed an athletic facility at the campus’s southern end, called Home Court, where After School Matters, a Chicago youth-oriented nonprofit, will organize programming.

For deeply reminiscent Lyons, no amount of programming can outweigh what he believes is the loss of a idyllic landscape that had remained unchanged for generations.

He argues that the towers monumental presence contradicts Olmsted’s vision of urban parks as places of calm and refuge, writing that whenever he sees the building ‘towering over the South Side like a Giza-like homage to a pharaoh,’ he thinks America’s recent ‘No Kings’ protests should add another stop.

The architecture has divided opinion almost since designs were first unveiled. Some critics have likened the building’s monumental form to a fortress, mausoleum, defensive bunker, and even less eloquently 'a giant trash can' while admirers see a bold civic landmark unlike any previous presidential library.

Yet, the debate over the center long predates its opening.

Conservation groups fought the decision to build within Jackson Park, arguing it would permanently alter an Olmsted-designed landscape dating back to the 19th century, while some neighborhood activists raised concerns over displacement and rising housing costs.

The Daily Mail previously spoke to individuals at the launch of the building who were less then elated with the presence, declaring having to relocate as a result of the increasing housing prices.

40-year-old Kenneth Woodard described having to move, thanks to the building of which he dubbed 'a monstrosity'.

'I was living three blocks away from the presidential center,' he told the Daily Mail. 'Prices went up by a crazy level, so I decided to move out - that was literally three weeks ago.

Yet, supporters countered that the project would bring jobs, investment and international attention to Chicago’s South Side.