Cabrini-Green

 

Cabrini-Green is a Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) public housing development on Chicago's North Side, bordered by Evergreen Avenue, Sedgwick Street, Chicago Avenue, and Larrabee Street. At its height, Cabrini-Green was home to 15,000 people,^[1] living in mid- and high-rise apartment buildings. Over the years, gang violence and neglect created terrible conditions for the residents, and the name "Cabrini-Green" became synonymous with the problems associated with public housing in the United States.

As of 2007, fewer than 5,000 residents remain in Cabrini-Green.^[2] Most of the buildings have been razed and the whole neighborhood is being redeveloped into a combination of high-rise buildings and row houses, with the stated goal of creating a mixed-income neighborhood with some units reserved for public housing tenants. The plan, and the way it is being implemented, has proven to be controversial.^[3]

History

Buildings & residents

Cabrini-Green was composed of four sections, built over a twenty-year period: the Frances Cabrini Rowhouses (1942), Cabrini Extension North and Cabrini Extension South (1958), and the William Green Homes (1962) (see Chronology below). The construction reflected the "urban renewal" approach to United States city planning in the mid-twentieth century. The Extension buildings were known as the "reds," for their red brick exteriors, while the Green Homes, with reinforced concrete exteriors, were known as the "whites." Many of the high-rise buildings originally had exterior porches (called "open galleries").

According to the CHA, the early residents of the Cabrini rowhouses were predominantly of Italian ancestry.^[4] By 1962, however, a majority of residents in the completed complex were African-American. White flight from the complex escalated over the following decade; by the 1970s, its population was almost entirely black.

How problems developed

Poverty and organized crime have long been associated with the area: a 1931 "map of Chicago's gangland" by Bruce-Roberts, Inc. notes Locust and Sedgwick as "Death Corner": "50 murders: count 'em."^{[citation needed]} At first, the housing was integrated and many residents held jobs. This changed in the years after World War II, when the nearby factories that provided the neighborhood's economic base closed and laid off thousands. At the same time, the cash-strapped city began withdrawing crucial services like police patrols, transit services, and routine building maintenance. Lawns were paved over to save on maintenance, failed lights were left for months, and apartments damaged by fire were simply boarded up instead of rehabilitated and reoccupied. Later phases of public housing development (such as the Green Homes, the newest of the Cabrini-Green buildings) were built on notoriously stingy budgets, with attendant problems with construction quality and durability.

As a result, the buildings have been neglected, and there was an exodus of residents who had any kind of resources or options. Only the most marginalized and destitute residents remained. Such a resource-poor population could not effectively exert political pressure on the city, so the city increasingly neglected its obligations to residents. Unlike many of the city's other public housing projects like Rockwell Gardens or Robert Taylor Homes, Cabrini Green was situated in an extremely affluent part of the city. The poverty-stricken projects were actually situated at the meeting point of Chicago's two wealthiest neighborhoods, Lincoln Park and the Near_North_Side,_Chicago#Gold_Coast. Less than a mile to the east sits Michigan Avenue and with its affluent shopping and expensive housing.

Meanwhile, the buildings' proximity to affluent areas made Cabrini-Green a lucrative site for illicit drug sales; in the absence of other employment opportunities, intense competition in this underground economy fostered gang formation and violence. Specific gangs 'controlled' individual buildings, and residents felt pressure to ally with these gangs in order to protect themselves from escalating violence. During the worst years of Cabrini-Green's miseries, residents endured rat and cockroach infestations,rotting garbage in trash chutes (once piled up to the 15th floor), the stench of urine and insecticide in hallways, malfunctioning elevators, graffiti on walls, as well as problems with basic utilities, such as frequently bursting pipes. On the exterior, boarded-up windows, burned-out areas on the façade, and pavement instead of green space—all in the name of economizing on maintenance—created an atmosphere of neglect and decay. The high "open galleries" proved to be dangerous, and for safety reasons the CHA enclosed the entire height of the buildings with steel fencing to prevent residents from falling or being thrown off.^[5]

Tenant activism in response

In response to these problems, residents have organized over the years both to pressure the city for assistance and to protect and support each other.

In 1996, tenant activists had a new challenge when the federal government mandated the destruction of 18,000 units of public housing in Chicago (along with tens of thousands of other units nationwide). In response, some Cabrini-Green tenants have organized to protect themselves from becoming homeless and to protect what they and their supporters see as a right to public housing for the city's poorest residents.

The residents succeeded in obtaining a consent decree guaranteeing that some buildings will remain standing while the new structures are built, so that tenants can remain in their homes until new ones are available.^[6] The document also guarantees displaced Cabrini residents a home in the new neighborhood.

Further, in 2004, a tenants' group sued the housing authority over relocation plans for displaced residents of Cabrini-Green under the city's Plan for Transformation, a $1.4 billion blueprint for public housing renewal. Richard Wheelock, an attorney representing the tenants, said the authority's demolition program had outpaced its reconstruction program, thus leaving families with few options beyond similarly or identically dangerous and segregated areas elsewhere in the city; or simply being forced out of the residences and becoming homeless.

Reputation

Though Chicago has had many ill-fated public housing projects, including the Robert Taylor Homes and Stateway Gardens on the South Side, and Rockwell Gardens and The Henry Horner Homes on the Neighborhoods of West side, Cabrini-Green's name and its problems were the most publicized, especially beyond Chicago.

The widespread familiarity may have developed in part because Cabrini-Green was surrounded by wealthy neighborhoods, notably the Gold Coast and Lincoln Park, which are just blocks away. As a result of this location, wealthy Chicagoans were more aware of Cabrini-Green than they were of other projects that were farther removed from their daily routes of travel and activity.

Several infamous incidents contributed to Cabrini-Green's reputation. In 1992, seven-year old Dantrell Davis was killed by a stray bullet while walking to school with his mother. In 1997, nine-year-old "Girl X", whose real name was Toya Currie, was brutally raped and poisoned in a stairwell, leaving her blind, paralyzed and unable to speak.^[7] Members of the infamous street gang, the Gangster Disciples, who controlled most of Cabrini-Green, were ordered by the gang's leaders to find the person responsible for the crime and brutally assault him. The attacker, Patrick Sykes (who was not a gang member), was later apprehended by police and sentenced to 120 years in prison. Cabrini-Green was so feared by the police during the 1990's that many refused to go into the complex for fear of their lives. Several Chicago Police had reported that once inside the project they had been verbally abused, spit at, some had rocks smashed through their cars, and many others had been shot.^[8][9]

An unanticipated result of the steel fencing installed to secure the previously open gangways was that it became difficult for police to see through the steel mesh from outside; in 1970, two policemen were killed by snipers.

In an effort to demonstrate a commitment to making the complex safer, then Chicago Mayor Jane Byrne moved into a fourth-floor apartment in 1981. Backed by police and bodyguards, she stayed for only three weeks. This incident, too, contributed to public perception of Cabrini-Green as the worst of the worst of public housing.

While many non-residents regarded Cabrini-Green with almost unalloyed horror, long-term residents interviewed by a Chicago Tribune reporter in 2004 described mixed feelings about the end of the Cabrini-Green era.^[10] They told the reporter that, in the face of their shared hardships, many residents had developed bonds of community and mutual support. They lamented the uprooting and scattering of that community, and worried about what would become of the residents who were being moved out of the old buildings to make way for new development.

Recent history and future plans

The CHA, under a ten-year Plan for Transformation enacted in 2000, plans to demolish almost all of its high-rise public housing, including much of Cabrini-Green (except the original rowhouses, which will remain).^[11]

While Cabrini-Green was deteriorating during the postwar era, causing industry, investment, and residents to abandon its immediate surroundings, the rest of Chicago's near north side underwent equally dramatic upward changes in socioeconomic status. Cabrini-Green's location became increasingly desirable to private developers.

First, downtown employment shifted dramatically from manufacturing to professional services, spurring increased demand for middle-income housing; the resulting gentrification spread north along the lakefront from the Gold Coast, then pushed west and eventually crossed the river.

Then, in the 1980s, the Lower North Side industrial area (just across the river from the Loop, west of famed Michigan Avenue, and south of Cabrini-Green) was transformed into "River North," a focus of arts and entertainment.

By the 1990s, developers had converted thousands of acres of former industrial lands near the north branch of the Chicago River (and directly north, south, and west of Cabrini-Green) to office, retail, and housing.

Speculators began purchasing property immediately adjacent to Cabrini-Green, with the expectation that the project would eventually be demolished.

Finally, in May 1995, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development took over management of the CHA and almost immediately began demolishing vacant "reds" buildings in Cabrini Extension, intending to make Chicago a showpiece of a new, mixed-income approach to public housing. Shortly thereafter, in June 1996, the city of Chicago and the CHA unveiled the Near North Redevelopment Initiative, which called for new development on and around the Cabrini-Green site. Demolition of Cabrini Extension was completed in 2002; part of the site was added to Seward Park, and construction of new, mixed-income housing on the remainder of the site began in 2006.

Subsidized development of mixed-income housing on vacant or under-used parcels adjacent to Cabrini-Green, including a long-shuttered Oscar Mayer sausage factory, the former headquarters of Montgomery Ward, and an adjacent senior housing project named Orchard Park, began in 1994. New market-rate housing now almost completely surrounds the remaining public housing.

Cabrini-Green once housed 15,000 people but as noted above, this number is now down to less than 5,000 (plus an unknown number of squatters occupying "vacant" apartments that are slated for demolition). New housing built on the 70-acre Cabrini-Green site will include 30% public-housing replacement homes and 20% "workforce affordable" housing, while many adjacent developments (almost all targeted at luxury buyers) include 20% affordable housing, half targeted as public-housing replacement, with a goal of 505 replacement units built off-site.

The best-known redevelopment site so far is North Town Village, a 261-unit development completed in 2001 by a partnership with Holsten Real Estate Development and Kenard Corporation on city-owned but vacant land directly northwest of Green Homes.

In February 2006, a unique partnership between CHA, Holsten, Kimball Hill Urban Centers and the Cabrini Green LAC Community Development Corporation will begin a 790-unit, $250-million redevelopment of the 18-acre Cabrini Extension site, to be called Parkside at Old Town. Plans for demolition and redevelopment of Green Homes are still under negotiation, while the original Cabrini rowhouses are currently undergoing rehabilitation.

The Plan for Transformation's relocation process was the subject of a lawsuit, Wallace v. Chicago Housing Authority, which alleged that many residents were hastily forced into substandard, "temporary" housing in other slums, did not receive promised social services during or after the move, and were often denied the promised opportunity to return to the redeveloped sites.^[12] The lawsuit was settled in June 2006, as the parties agreed to two relocation programs for current and former CHA residents: (1) CHA’s current relocation program, encouraging moves to racially integrated areas of metropolitan Chicago and providing for case-managed social services, would be applied to families initially moving from public housing; and (2) an agreed-upon modified program run by CHA’s voucher administrator, CHAC Inc., would encourage former CHA residents to relocate to economically and racially integrated communities as well as give them increased access to social services.^[13]

Some former CHA residents have moved out of Chicago, to nearby suburbs such as Harvey or to other nearby cities, such as East St. Louis and Gary, Indiana. Other residents have successfully moved into the replacement housing, and to date residents of the mixed-income developments have reported few problems. The entire redevelopment and relocation process remains highly controversial, more so at this highly sought-after site than at other CHA sites.

Crime has dramatically decreased as the area's population has shifted; in the first half of 2006, only one murder occurred. Since most of the new housing post-dates 2000, no census figures are yet available, but the area is no longer predominantly African American. As of July 2006, foundations are being built at Parkside, the first development on former public housing land. Demolition of Cabrini-Green continues slowly and is expected to be completed by late 2008. Plaintiffs in Wallace and others allege that CHA's hasty removal of residents has exacerbated socioeconomic and racial segregation, homelessness, and other social ills that the Plan for Transformation aimed to address by forcing residents to less-visible but still impoverished neighborhoods, largely on the south and west sides of the city. ^{[citation needed]}

Cabrini-Green in Popular Culture

The 1975 film Cooley High was set in and around the Cabrini-Green projects, though primarily filmed at another Chicago-area housing project. The actual Edward J. Cooley High School was located on the 800 block of West Scott Street in Chicago and was demolished in the late 1970s. The area around the former Cooley High School is, as of 2007, zoned to Lincoln Park High School.

Cabrini-Green was the setting for the film Candyman, a 1992 horror film based on a story by Clive Barker. The film chronicles the legendary life of the infamous Candyman (played by Tony Todd), a black man who was brutally killed because of a love affair with the daughter of a local (and white) plantation owner. In the film, Candyman was killed at the site on which the future Cabrini-Green would be built (though this plot line would later be changed in the sequel), and within the film the residents of the housing project are under his sway, though most consider him nothing more than a figment of the collective imagination. The main character, Helen Lyle (played by Virginia Madsen), was researching the urban legend of Candyman and her journey took her to Cabrini-Green, though the housing project was only used for long distance and aerial shots according to online trivia of the film.

Danitra Vance, Saturday Night Live's first black female repertoire player (first appearing in the show's 1985-1986 season), had a recurring character named Cabrini-Green Jackson, a poor, black, teenage mother who acted as a motivational speaker to young, unwed mothers.

The sitcom Good Times (1974-1979) was ostensibly set in Cabrini-Green. Although Cabrini-Green was never mentioned by name as the housing project in which the Evans family of Good Times lived, exterior shots of Cabrini-Green were shown in both the opening and closing credits sequences of the sitcom.

In the latter half of the 1980's, the backstory of DC Comics character Amanda Waller, leader of the third incarnation of the Suicide Squad was initially tied specifically to Cabrini-Green.

The 1994 film Hoop Dreams chronicles the life of Cabrini-Green youth William Gates (along with Garfield Park resident Arthur Agee) in pursuit of his dreams to someday play in the NBA.

In the sitcom The Bernie Mac Show (2001-2006), Bernie's two nieces and nephew Vanessa, Bryana, and Jordan Tompkins lived in Cabrini-Green with their mom before they moved in with Bernie and Wanda.

In the 1999 film Whiteboyz, a group of white hip-hop fans from Iowa come to Cabrini-Green to buy drugs.

The book Cabrini-Green in Words and Pictures (compiled by David T. Whitaker, 2000) tells the story of this community from the perspective of those who lived there. Through interviews with three generations of residents, young and old share thoughts and memories of a place they called home.

In the 2001 Film Hardball, an aimless young man (played by Keanu Reeves) struggles with alcoholism, gambling and ticket scalping. Desperate for cash, he secures a loan from an acquaintance by agreeing to coach the Little League team of the Cabrini Green. His new job gives him purpose and he starts to turn his life around.

The 1990 futuristic fictional comic book series Give Me Liberty by Frank Miller and Dave Gibbons begins in Cabrini-Green. As of the opening of the story in 1995 the neighborhood has already been enclosed in a gigantic walled and roofed structure, turning it into a prison for its impoverished residents, reflecting the decision to enclose several buildings in steel mesh. The enclosure is demolished years later by direct order of Howard Nissen, the future United States President, who does so after being informed of the horrible living conditions by the story's protagonist, Martha Washington, who grew up there.

The 1999 documentary, Voices of Cabrini: Rebuilding Chicago's Public Housing (by Ronit Bezalel and Antonio Ferrera) is a half-hour look at the redevelopment/demolition of Cabrini through the stories of its residents. The film interviews resident Mark Pratt and his son Trevonte. In addition, Cabrini Green Barber George Robbins is also interviewed and eventually has to move out of the community. The website can be found at http://www.voicesofcabrini.com

In Alex Ross's Kingdom Come miniseries, he created a background character named Kabrini, a green monster in chains whose name is basically a joke referring to Cabrini-Green^{[citation needed]}.

Education

Lincoln Park High School, operated by Chicago Public Schools, serves area students.

Chronology

• 1850 - Shanties first built on low-lying land along Chicago River; population predominantly Swedish, then Irish. Acquires "Little Hell" name due to nearby gas refinery, which produced shooting pillars of flame and various noxious fumes. By 20th century, known as "Little Sicily" due to large numbers of Sicilian immigrants.
• 1929 - Harvey Zorbaugh writes "The Gold Coast and the Slum: A Sociological Study of Chicago's Near North Side," contrasting the widely varying social mores of the wealthy Gold Coast, the poor Little Sicily, and the transitional area in between. Marshall Field Garden Apartments, first large-scale (although funded through private charity) low-income housing development in area, completed.
• 1942 - Frances Cabrini Homes (two-story rowhouses), with 586 units in 54 buildings, completed. Initial regulations stipulate 75% white and 25% black residents. Holsman, Burmeister, et al, architects. (Named for Frances Cabrini, an Italian-American nun who served the poor and was the first American to be canonized.)
• 1958 - Cabrini Homes Extension (red brick mid- and high-rises), with 1,925 units in 15 buildings, is completed. A. Epstein & Sons, architects.
• 1962 - Green Homes (1,096 units, north of Division Street) is completed. Pace Associates, architects. (Named for Great Society era congressman William J. Green.)
• 1966 - Gautreaux et al vs. Chicago Housing Authority, a lawsuit alleging that Chicago's public housing program was conceived and executed in a racially discriminatory manner that perpetuated racial segregation within neighborhoods, is filed. CHA was found liable in 1969, and a consent decree was issued in 1981.
• July 17, 1970 - Sergeant James Severin and Officer Tony Rizzato of the Chicago Police Department are fatally shot.
• 1974 - Television sitcom Good Times, set in the Cabrini Green projects, and featuring shots of the structure in the opening and closing credits, debuts.
• 1981 - Mayor Jane Byrne moves into Cabrini-Green as part of a publicity stunt.
• October 13, 1992 - Seven-year-old Dantrell Davis is fatally shot while walking to school with his mother. Some of the shots came from 500-502 W. Oak Street.
• 1992 - Candyman is released, the story taking place at the housing project.

• 1994 - Chicago receives one of the first HOPE VI (Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere) grants to redevelop Cabrini-Green as a mixed-income neighborhood.
• September 27, 1995 - Demolition begins.^{[citation needed]}
• January 9, 1997 - Nine-year-old "Girl X" found in a seventh-floor stairwell at 1121 N. Larrabee Street after being raped, beaten, choked, poisoned with insecticide and scrawled on with gang symbols. Her attacker allegedly stepped on her throat. She was left for dead but survived, though the attack blinded her. [13]
• 1997 - Chicago unveils Near North Redevelopment Initiative, a master plan for development in the area. It recommends demolishing Green Homes and most of Cabrini Extension.
• 1999 - Chicago Housing Authority announces Plan for Transformation, which will spend $1.5 billion over ten years to demolish 18,000 apartments and build or rehabilitate 25,000 apartments. Earlier redevelopment plans for Cabrini-Green are included in the Plan for Transformation. New library, rehabilitated Seward Park, and new shopping center open.
• January 19, 2004 - The man who portrays the mascot of the Chicago Bulls, Chester J. Brewer, is arrested on the suspicion of selling marijuana out of his car at Cabrini-Green. ^[14]
• August 8 2006 -A 14-year-old boy is still hospitalized Tuesday morning after being shot by Chicago Police, while residents of the Cabrini-Green neighborhood protested that the police shooting was not justified.^{[citation needed]}
• August 14 2006 - A 17 year-old teen is arrested after spitting on a police officer. Officers alleged the teen hit an officer during a protest and attempted to assault that officer.^{[citation needed]}

• October 18 2006 -A 21-year-old man was shot to death Saturday night as he crossed the street near the Chicago Housing Authority's Cabrini-Green Homes, police said. Source: www.chicagotribune.com

• April 1 2007 -A fire breaks out in the garbage chute of 1230 North Larrabee Street, all of the breeze ways filled with smoke, and three people were injured with minor burns.source:www.cbs2chicago.com

See also

• Robert Taylor Homes, Chicago

References

External links

• Cabrini Residents Human Rights Page
• Residents' Journal (written, produced & distributed by Chicago Public Housing residents; archives contain many articles on activism at Cabrini-Green, particularly around the plans for redevelopment).
• Chicago Coalition to Protect Public Housing
• Photos, Paintings and Discussions about Cabrini-Green
• Voices of Cabrini (Documentary film)
• Cabrini-Green in Words and Pictures (book, 2000) ISBN 0-942986-80-6
• CBS News: Tearing Down Cabrini-Green
• Chicago Tribune: Cabrini-Green Columns
• North Town Park site plan (redevelopment of Cabrini Extension site)
• Map of Cabrini-Green Area at Google Maps

The Encyclopedia of Chicago has very detailed background information on the history of public housing and the Near North neighborhood:

• Encyclopedia of Chicago entry on Chicago Housing Authority
• Encyclopedia of Chicago entry on Near North Side

Coordinates: 41.908142° N 87.639318° W

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