Located within a Little Rock, Arkansas city park, the facility, designed by architect James Polshek, cantilevers over the Arkansas River, echoing Clinton's famous campaign promise of "building a bridge to the 21st century."
The archives and library at the Clinton Presidential Center, the largest presidential library in the United States, contain 2 million photographs, 80 million pages of documents, 21 million e-mail messages, and nearly 80,000 artifacts from the Clinton presidency. The museum within the site showcases artifacts from Clinton's term and includes a full-scale replica of the Clinton-era Oval Office; other occupants of the Center include the Clinton School of Public Service, and the offices of the Clinton Foundation.
Opening on November 18, 2004, the Clinton Presidential Center cost $165 million to construct and covers 150,000 square feet (14,000 mē) within a 28 acre (113,000 mē) park.
Controversy has erupted over the reported "cleansing" of the surrounding area of homeless and vagrant persons. Critics, notably The Washington Post editoral page, have claimed that it is the "ultimate sign of the disingenuity of the Clinton administration".
External links
Official website (http://www.clintonpresidentialcenter.org/index.htm)
First-hand account of the dedication of the center, from someone who had VIP tickets (http://the-raw-prawn.blogspot.com/2004/11/my-trip-to-opening-of-clintons.html)
Clinton, with the $165 million glass-and-steel museum as a backdrop, talked pointedly about the architectural allusion to his desire during his eight years in the Oval office to build a "bridge to the 21st century."
Clinton chose the center site in 1997, and construction has transformed a rusty abandoned warehouse district into a sprawling complex that has fueled $1 billion in development in downtown Little Rock.
A presidential timeline at the library explores Clinton's highlights and headaches -- economic prosperity and peace efforts in Northern Ireland, the Balkans and the Middle East along with his partisan fights with Congress, Whitewater and his impeachment and acquittal over lies told in the Monica Lewinsky affair.
And at the center of that era, at the head of that administration, was an able and energetic American.
Perhaps the Clintons' greatest achievement is their daughter, who moved into the White House as a young girl, and left as an accomplished young lady.
Among his heroes, President Clinton always includes his mother, Virginia Kelley, "a working woman and a widow." Virginia was there when her son took the oath of office, and we know that she would be incredibly proud of this day.
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