OUR TOWN : An empty honor

Richard Allin

WORK IS proceeding apace on the William J. Clinton Presidential Center over in Murky Bottoms. But progress has not gone so far that fundamental changes couldn’t be made, with money raised for Clinton’s presidential library going to better uses.

Arkansans are still smarting that Mr. Clinton didn’t choose a team of local Arkansas architects to design his library. A better looking and more appropriate building might have resulted at the hands of artists who know about and love Little Rock and Arkansas. The structure being visited on our state in the former president’s memory is more to be tolerated than admired.

But Mr. Clinton has turned his back on Arkansas, abandoning the state of his birth for the glamour and whizbang of New York, centering his presidential after-life in Harlem, and visiting the land of his roots only furtively and infrequently. His translation from Arkansas to Harlem in his quest for a better life speaks eloquently of Mr. Clinton’s attitude toward things. WE’VE BEEN noting news reports that the River Rail system being developed to operate in the downtown areas of Little Rock and North Little Rock will eventually extend its tracks to the Clinton presidential library. Such is the plan. Visiting tourists will take a pleasant ride about our handsome city centers, then poke on by urban rail to the new glass-and-steel library dedicated to the Arkansas-born president.

There’s an underlying hope that our new streetcar system can be ultimately expanded throughout the metropolis of Little Rock. What a pleasant way to get about in this lovely and leafy city, on board the yellow cars of a street railway system.

But money will be needed for that ambitious project. And it is money worth striving for.

This combination of events has led to the formulation of the Allin Plan To Benefit Arkansas and Honor Our Former President (APBAHOFP) Under the plan, work would cease immediately on the presidential library. It would release the east side acreage to return to the polluted industrial site that it once was. The construction work done so far could be redesigned by Mr. Clinton’s architects and capped off as a small shed to memorialize the gifts, improvements and benefits that accrued to Arkansas while Mr. Clinton was president.

Meanwhile, the documents, letters, papers of the Clinton presidency would remain safely where they now reside — in the old Balch Oldsmobile building on LaHarpe Boulevard. THE BENEFITS of the Allin Plan should be obvious. The massive amounts of money now earmarked for finishing the presidential library could now be diverted to creating a citywide trolley car system throughout Little Rock and North Little Rock. Indeed, the streetcars could be named after the president and memories of his family and friends. Think of a stable of historic cars named President Bill, Hillary, Chelsea, Roger, Monica and Marc. Other names could be borrowed from other luminaries as needed when the system expands. Not to downplay the importance of another library in Little Rock, let it be known that the public would nevertheless benefit many times over from a citywide streetcar system. It would, finally, be an appropriate and valuable gift from William J. Clinton, his friends, backers, and the pardoned of his administration. It would be a highly visible gift always before the eyes of the people, always telling the story of the Arkansas boy who left his friends and neighbors behind to make a name for himself.

Richard Allin’s Our Town column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and alternate Sundays. E-mail him at:

rall@aristotle.net

-- Anonymous, October 10, 2002