The new Obama Presidential Center in Chicago is a must visit for kids and families
By Eileen Ogintz
Tribune Content Agency
Taking the Kids
Sometimes, don’t you wish you were a kid again? That’s what I was thinking as I stood in the middle of The Obama Presidential Center’s huge and wonderful playground on the Center’s campus on Chicago’s South Side. It is the country’s first play space tied to a presidential museum. (Shouldn’t they all have one?)
There is a giant duck slide, an insect-like jungle gym, and separate “sensory nooks,” among the spaces at the 21,000-square-foot playground. According to published reports, it is the first fully accessible play space in the city with separate areas for younger and older kids. I loved the suspended rope tunnel. There are oversized structures like the endangered Hine’s Emerald Dragonfly, child-sized warblers’ nests, a climbing forest and much, much more.
The vast majority of the 19.3-acre campus, which opened June 19, 2026, in Jackson Park to great fanfare, is free and includes new 3.7 acres of parkland, a Chicago Public Library branch with an interactive media room, the Home Court, a 60,000-square-foot multipurpose space, including an NBA regulation-size court, gym and community spaces, the John Lewis Plaza where visitors may gather for performances and other events, the Eleanor Roosevelt Fruit and Vegetable Garden, including a garden classroom. The produce and herbs grown here are used in the Center’s dining options which include Tafari’s Kitchen, honoring Tafari Campbell, the late White House and personal Obama chef. Family favorites are on the menu, including Obama family chili and Mrs. Robinson’s Red Rice with shrimp, a tribute to Michelle Obama’s mother, Marian Robinson.
The four-story museum is the only part of the campus that requires tickets with a timed entry, though there are discounts for Illinois residents and it is free for them on Tuesdays. There is also free admission for active-duty military, veterans and their families, Illinois educators and through the Museums for All program, free admission for individuals and families receiving food assistance. (Tickets sell out quickly so purchase as soon as they become available, roughly six months out.)
There is plenty of interactive and uplifting messaging about how anyone can make a difference. You’ll see everything from a draft of President Obama’s first State of the Union address with his notes, children’s campaign drawings, the U.S. flag that was taken on the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden, the Obamas’ wedding invitation, photographs and videos that can’t help but make you smile.
Just in its first 100 days, the Obama Presidential Center welcomed more than 220,000 visitors from all 50 states (a third from Illinois) and 39 countries. It’s projected that the museum will attract 600,000 to 700,000 visitors a year and the free campus up to a million visitors. That was the Obamas hope in choosing this South Side location near where Michelle Obama grew up.
“…For us, the Obama Presidential Center means a lot more to us than just creating a space to house memories from our eight years in the White House,” Michelle Obama said at the opening. “…This substantial investment in the South Side will help make the neighborhood, where we call home, a destination for the entire world. But more importantly, this project…will be a vital resource for the people who live here,…a place where folks can find work, where kids can learn and grow and envision bigger lives for themselves, where families can take a walk and ride a bike or have a reunion in the grass, where everyone can find calm and beauty and peace and safety.”
There is even a gentle hill that will be a sledding hill in the winter for neighborhood kids. Michelle Obama recalled that as a child growing up nearby, whenever her family wanted “to see art, to hear music, take in a new museum exhibit,” they had to leave the neighborhood.
“Even as a child, I understood this disparity. I understood that whenever there was a huge investment of resources in the city,” she said, “it just rarely was in our neighborhood.”
Building the Obama Presidential Center here presented a “unique opportunity to change that narrative … to help elevate the way kids like me … felt about their neighborhoods and in turn, themselves,” Michelle Obama explained.
“It’s about making it a place that welcomes people in, and not just folks from around the world, but families like mine who live right down the street.”
Judging from the number of local kids and parents at the playground after school one fall day, they have gotten it exactly right.
There are 28 original works of art throughout the campus, most free without a museum ticket. In the museum, people stood online to take photos in the full-scale Oval Office replica complete with the “Hard Things are Hard,” motto that President Obama kept on his desk. They oohed and aahed at the exhibit of Michelle Obama’s inaugural gowns and how she paired designer pieces with brand-name pieces, like J. Crew gloves.
Kids will love the interactive and inclusive exhibit featuring Bo and Sunny in the “Life in the White House” section with a comic strip starring the Obama family dogs.
Bloomberg Connects, the free arts and culture app, provides exclusive mobile digital guides for the Obama Presidential Center, including a special Family Guide that is narrated by the Obamas’ dogs (as voiced by Cree Summer.) It’s designed for elementary school children and includes prompts to engage children with clues as they explore the center.
“Hi, humans! Welcome to the Obama Presidential Center! We’re Bo and Sunny! Proud pets of the Obama Family! President Obama promised his daughters, Malia, and Sasha, that they could get a dog after the campaign was over, win or lose, and lucky me, he won and they got me in 2009! In 2013, they got my sister, Sunny! We’re Portuguese waterdogs, and we’re excited to explore the campus with you and be your guides, buddies, and professional sniffers!”
“That’s right,” President Obama says in the family guide. “Bo and Sunny love to sniff around. … We created this center to celebrate how people come together to improve their communities. Everything you experience…was designed to inspire you to think about how you can create change, too. I ran for president because I believed we could build a kinder, fairer country together. And I still believe that starts with curiosity, courage, and hope…. And remember, you can make change at any age. You can make a difference right now.”
(For more Taking the Kids, visit www.takingthekids.com and also follow TakingTheKids on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram where Eileen Ogintz welcomes your questions and comments. The fourth edition of The Kid’s Guide to New York City and the third edition of The Kid’s Guide to Washington D.C. are the latest in a series of 14 books for kid travelers published by Eileen.)
©2026 Eileen Ogintz. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.