Barack Obama spent years telling us his presidential center was going to transform Chicago's South Side.
Now it's almost open – and the locals are calling it "The Obamalisk."
What just appeared on the outside of that concrete tower has people in Chicago squinting, getting headaches, and openly laughing out loud.
Chicago Locals Are Calling Obama's $850 Million Library a Prison Tower – And Now They Can't Read It Either
Obama's team just installed five-foot-tall concrete letters wrapping around the top of his 225-foot museum tower – an excerpt from a speech he gave himself in 2015.
Chicago Sun-Times architecture critic Lee Bay posted a photo to X Monday and said the letters give off "lorem ipsum vibes" – that's the scrambled dummy text graphic designers use to fill in blank spaces when they haven't written the real words yet.
One Chicago resident posted what the text actually looks like from the street: "YOU ARE AMERICA ED BY HABILAND UNENCUMBERED ADY TO SEIZE WE."
"I gave up after developing a headache three lines from the top," another local wrote.
"Find yourself someone who loves you like Obama loves himself," posted another.
Sen. Ted Cruz had already compared the building to the Death Star from Star Wars.
Trump called it "not too pretty" and said Obama "wanted only women and DEI to build it."
Obama Promised Taxpayers Wouldn't Pay a Dime – Here's What the Numbers Actually Show
Here's what the mainstream media won't tell you about this building.
Obama promised in 2017 that taxpayers wouldn't pay a single dime for his presidential center.
That promise has collapsed.
Illinois taxpayers are already on the hook for $175 million in infrastructure improvements – road realignments, utility work, traffic signals – all required just to accommodate this project, none of it paid by Obama's foundation.
The building itself ballooned from a $330 million estimate to $850 million.
The Obama Foundation took control of 19 acres of historic Jackson Park – Chicago's equivalent of Central Park – under a 99-year lease for exactly $10.
As part of that arrangement, the foundation promised to deposit $470 million into a reserve fund to protect taxpayers if the project went under.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey spotlighted the numbers in January: that $470 million fund currently holds exactly $1 million – 0.21 percent of what was promised – and hasn't grown by a single dollar since it was created in 2021.
University of Chicago law professor Richard Epstein told Fox News Digital exactly what that means: "They put a million dollars into a $400 million endowment, so it's endowed. That gets you in jail as a securities matter."
Trump Was Right: Obama's Library Cost Overruns Tell You Everything You Need to Know
When Reagan's presidential library opened, it took 1,000 days after he left office.
The Bushes averaged 1,653 days.
Bill Clinton's took 1,398.
Obama's center will mark the longest gap in modern presidential history – at least 3,300 days after he left the White House – and locals are calling the finished product a prison tower, a Soviet-era flak bunker, and a concrete trash can.
The Obama Foundation says the building's design of "four hands coming together" was intentional.
The South Side residents being priced out of their homes might describe it differently.
The man who lectured America for eight years about inequality took 19 acres of public parkland for $10, let Illinois taxpayers absorb $175 million in road bills, left a promised $470 million protection fund sitting at one-fifth of one percent funded – and now even the words on the outside of his building don't make sense.
Sources:
- Emma Colton, "Obama dragged for 'headache'-inducing presidential center update that has visitors squinting," Fox News, February 17, 2026.
- "Obama Presidential Center deposits just $1M into $470M reserve fund aimed to protect taxpayers," Fox News, September 30, 2025.
- "Illinois Taxpayers Stuck With $175 Million Bill for Obama Center After Pledge of 'No Public Money,'" Illinois Review, January 16, 2026.
- "Obama Presidential Center slammed for promoting 'far-left' agenda on public land," Fox News, January 11, 2026.
- "Inside the $830M Obama Center Saga: Repeated Delays, Millions Spent Over Budget," Atlanta Black Star, February 10, 2025.
- "Trump says Obama library 'stuck' due to 'women and DEI' builders," Washington Examiner, October 22, 2025.
