The Transformation of Cabrini-Green - A retrospective
On Thursday, April 28th, I visited one of Chicago's most notorious public housing developments - Cabrini-Green. This was my first time visiting since November 2008. At the time, many of it's buildings were demolished, but plenty more remained. Over the next two years, the Chicago Housing Authority slowly knocked them down. The process dragged on due to lawsuits and the lack of funding, but, as of a few months ago, those lawsuits have been settled. While there are still some public housing buildings left, the high-rises most people associate with Cabrini-Green have either already been demolished or are currently in the midst of demolition. So I wanted to come back and take some pictures before they were gone completely.
The results were... sobering.
The Background
For those who don't take nearly as much interest in Chicago history and politics, some background information. Cabrini-Green was originally built in the 1940s in the Italian-American neighborhood known as Little Sicily. But at the time, it was much better known to the people of Chicago as Little Hell. It was desperately poor, crime-ridden and suffering from the effects of the pollution from the industrial plants on the nearly Goose Island.
The first public housing development was known as Frances Cabrini Homes. They were relatively small, apartment-style buildings. They were an improvement compared to most of the housing in Little Sicily - they were sturdier, more modern and had heating and electricity. They were meant to be temporary accommodations - people would live there until they would get the jobs that would let them earn enough money to move on to something better. To help them along, the Chicago Housing Authority set up schools, job training centers, counseling centers and other community service facilities.
The end of World War II brought in the surge of migrants and immigrants. Many of them were too poor to settle anywhere but public housing CHA dealt with the crowds by building the Cabrini Extensions. These taller buildings were built according to the popular urban development theories at the time - the same theories that would be at the root of urban planning in 50s and 60s Europe and Soviet Union. Because of their red tint, they were popularly known as the Reds, or Red Bricks.
During the 1960s, things got worse. Industries that kept most of Chicago's unskilled working-class residents employed discovered outsourcing. Many factories and warehouses closed down. People who were supposed to be able to move out after a few years found themselves stuck. At the same time, CHA started to suffer from funding shortfalls. But the population kept increasing, so CHA built what would become the most infamous section of Cabrini-Green - the William Green Extension. CHA cut lots of corners, which resulted in very rudimentary designs. Those tall buildings became known as White Walls, or the Whites.
Together, the Cabrini Extensions and the William Green Extension gave Little Sicily it's new name - Cabrini-Green.
Over the next three decades, things went from bad to worse. Employment opportunities continued to dwindle. Crime rose. CHA, which continued to suffer from funding shortfalls (which were further compounded by corruption and mismanagement), cut back on social services, security and even basic maintenance. Gangs stepped in to fill in the void. And as the 80s dawned and the drug trade became more profitable than ever, gangs started fighting over territory, leaving plenty of collateral damage in their wake.
But that's not what really made Cabrini-Green notorious. Yes, it had crime, but Robert Taylor Homes had far more violent crime than Cabrini-Green. Yes, it was overwhelmingly poor, but not as much as Ida Wells Homes. It wasn't even the biggest concentration of public housing in Chicago - that dubious honor belonged to Lower West Sides ABLA Homes public-housing mega-complex. What made Cabrini-Green so notorious was that, unlike any of the previously mentioned examples, it was within walking distance of the Gold Coast, Chicago's wealthiest neighborhood, and the bustling State Street shopping district. Cabrini-Green was one public housing development the city elite could not ignore.
In 1990s, CHA devised A Plan For Transformation - an extensive, expensive attempt to revamp Chicago's public housing projects. It should come to no surprise that Cabrini-Green was at the top of the list. The plan changed several times, but what they ultimately approved called for the demolition of all the Red Bricks and White Walls. They were to be replaced with mixed-income housing that would be divided into market-rate condominiums, affordable rental apartments and public housing units. They would all have the same amenities and similar floor plans. But the public housing residents would be subject to rigorous screening process and (often draconian) rules.
The demolition began in 2006. The project was supposed to be complete by 2010. But things didn't quite work out this way.
So, Where Do I Fit In?
I originally stumbled into Cabrini-Green completely by accident. I was still new to Chicago. I wanted to see Ukrainian Village, but I took the wrong turn on Division Street. I had no idea where I was, but I was fascinated by the white buildings that seemed oddly reminiscent of the sort of architecture I grew up with in Russia. By that time, the demolition of the White Walls already begin. This only made the experience even more fascinating.
But there were two things that really made my accidental visit memorable. First, as I passed by the White Wall the locals dubbed "Scamplife," I heard a woman yelling at the men in the parking lot from the tenth floor. The woman ordered (there was really no other way to describe her tone) the men to get off the parking lot and sell their poison somewhere else. The men seemed defensive, telling her that they were just hanging out, honest, but she wouldn't hear any of that. I didn't stick around long enough to see how this confrontation ultimately played out, but I like to think that the drug dealers didn't stick around for long.
The second thing I remember was how, aside from the confrontation, the entire neighborhood was silent. You could almost hear the wind blow. Every once in a while, a police siren would piece the silence, but then, it would be quiet again.
Once I found out what I passed through, I became fascinated with Cabrini-Green. And, after much second-guessing and preparation, I visited Cabrini-Green in June 2008. For the most part, that visit went without incident, so I came back again in November of the same year, photographing parts of the neighborhood I didn't see the first time and taking shots of a few things I did see just to show what changed.
I meant to come back the following year, but it didn't work out. Cabrini-Green is not a place you'd enter without some advance planning and preparation. Timing is also important. So, like I said, it didn't work out. I couldn't find an opportunity to visit it in 2010, either. But now that the last White Walls and Red Bricks are vanishing off the face of Chicago, I decided that it was now or never. So I went.
The William Green Extension
The last time I visited, five our of eight White Walls were already demolished. The remaining three still had an imposing presence.
Even as mixed-income housing was built around them, they towered over the landscape, serving as the persistent reminder that the market-rate condo owners were living in Cabrini-Green. The newspapers at the time talked about the tensions and mistrust between the two groups. Division Street lived up to its name by serving as the dividing line between the old and the new.
When I did a story on Cabrini-Green for Chicago Flame, the only comment I got was a young middle-class condo owner asking me when the White Walls were going to come down.
But by my most recent visit, the White Walls known as the Himalaya and the Big O were already demolished.
I was there just in time to see the last remnants of Scamplife smashed away.
More close-ups of the last pieces of Scamplife:
The only thing that's left are the fences.
And an old sign or two.
Schiller Elementary School was built specifically to serve the residents of the William Green Extension. The last two times I was there, it was very much active.
But in 2008, CHA decided to shut down the school and transfer all the remaining students to the more recently built Jenner Elementary Academy of Arts. There were protests, but with so many residents already moved elsewhere, it wasn't much of a fight. The school was shut down. I assumed that it would be demolished along with the rest of the William Green Extension. But when I got there on Thursday, I was surprised to discover that the building was still in use.
It turned out that CPS decided to use the building to house the newly opened Skinner North Classical School.
Behind the school is the much neglected Stanton Park. Things haven't changed all that much since I saw it last.
But there was one change that made me genuinely angry. Last time I visited it, the park had a mural painted by Cabrini-Green residents. Even though someone splattered it with white paint, you could still make out most of it.
The statement on the shirt of a man in the middle encapsulates something that often gets forgotten when people discuss public housing. Whatever else you may say, Cabrini-Green was a community. It had families. It had friends. It had people who were willing to help each other, sacrifice for each other. Whatever happens to the public housing developments in Chicago, they are the ones who stand to face the full consequences.
When I came back, the mural was gone. Just gone. Painted over. I suppose it is a fitting metaphor for what happened to the people of Cabrini-Green - now that the White Walls are gone, Chicagoans are free not to care - but God damn it, this upset me.
On the other hand, I was somewhat amused that the gold Cabrini-Green grocery store across the street from William Green Extension still remained. It used to be located between two Red Bricks. The first time I visited Cabrini-Green, I saw it wedged between two new houses. Almost three years later, it's still there.
Old Town Village and River River Village
These two mixed-income developments were largely built over a decayed, mostly demolished industrial corridor that polluted Little Sicily and gave employment to its residents. The official CHA line is that those developments are supposed to be evenly split into market-rate condos, affordable rental apartments and public housing units. But if you look at CHA's internal statistics, you discover that it's only true if you add up the units in every single mixed-income housing development in Cabrini-Green and its vicinity - including the developments that haven't actually been built yet.
So what this means is that some units are mostly market-rate condos
While others are mostly apartments and public housing units
The number of public housing units in each building fluctuate quite a bit. Some buildings are 1/3-1/2 public housing. Others have as little as 2. Most fall somewhere in between.
Some condos were built independently of the Plan for Transformation:
There is even a new church:
Those buildings look nice and modern - but you don't have to look far to be reminded exactly where you are:
This section of Cabrini-Green is home to a beautiful mural. Unlike the mural in Stanton Park, it survived largely intact.
I say "mostly" because it used to be covered with tiny inscriptions written by Cabrini-Green children. They are all painted over now.Here is a small sample of what vanished:
Frances Cabrini Rowhouses
Of course, no visit to Cabrini-Green would be complete without a stop by where it all began.
Walking through this community is an experience on its own. It's almost a neighborhood in on itself. It has its own, internal street grid:
Street markers with vaguely African engravings mark each street corner:
It has it's own system of backyard common areas
And, as I walked through it, I discovered a familiar sight - a Heartland Alliance employment assistance office.
With condos built to the west of it, Frances Cabrini Homes don't feel quite as removed from the rest of Chicago as they used to.
The first two times I stopped by, the residents looked at me with suspicion and, at times, naked hostility. But this time around, they barely seemed to notice me. I guess a white person walking past their homes isn't as uncommon of a sight as it used to be.
As of this writing, the fate of Frances Cabrini Homes is uncertain. Half of the houses are boarded up. The original Plan For Transformation called for them to repaired and refurbished, but otherwise left alone. Now, CHA is openly wondering whether it should demolish it and replace it with more mixed-income housing.
I hope that Frances Cabrini Homes would remain in some form or another. They outlasted the rest of Cabrini-Green. Surely, they can survive for a few decades more.
Cabrini Extensions and Parkside of Old Town
The first time I visited Cabrini-Green, most Red Bricks were either in the midst of demolition or already demolished. Only four remained. By my second visit, it was down to three.
The third Red Brick (nicknamed 41-Deuce), was demolished late that year. But the remaining two, which didn't have colorful nicknames, didn't get demolished until 2010.
I couldn't find a good shot of the second building at the same angle as the post-demolition shot. This is the next best thing:
The enormous field left behind from the demolition of the southern section of Cabrini Extension is still very much there. The buildings that went there were supposed to be under construction by now, but it doesn't look like they are even thinking about starting.
On the other hand, it is amazing the compare the way the condo buildings looked the first time I visited and the way they look now:
This condo building is known as the Elm. Unlike Cabrini-Green building nicknames, these names were devised by developers.
There are still condos under construction. This one is known as the Oak:
Cabrini Extension - Byrd Academy
Richard E. Byrd Academy was an elementary school built to serve Cabrini Extension residents. Out of all the schools built in Cabrini-Green, this one became especially notorious for lack of maintenance, safety and anything resembling a sensible learning environment. It got to the point where, in the early 2000s, one 5th grade class took it upon themselves to find a way to fix the school. But when CHA started tearing down the Reds, CPS decided to cut its losses and close the school down. The students and their parents fought back, accusing CPS of abdicating its responsibilities - all for naught. By the time I visited Cabrini-Green, the school was closed.
As with Schiller, I assumed that the building would be demolished. I was very surprised to discover that the building was under renovation. When I got back home, I did some research and discovered that the Archdiocese of Chicago got the building from the City of Chicago in exchange for the abandoned St. Boniface Church campus (which the city wants to turn into senior public housing development). Once the renovations and repairs are complete, it will be a new home of St. Joseph (Catholic) Elementary school.
So, in a twisted sort of way, the kids from Room 405 got their wish - too bad the Cabrini-Green kids wouldn't be able to benefit from it.
There is a mural near the former Byrd Academy. I photographed it every time I visited Cabrini-Green. This time, I was armed with a new camera that had a "panorama" function, and I decided to test it out.
I'm sure I'll get the hang of it eventually.
Cabrini Extensions - Shadows of Little Sicily
When Cabrini-Green was built, most old Little Sicily buildings were torn down, but a few survived. Most of them sit on the eastern edge of Cabrini-Green. As Cabrini-Green gained notoriety, most of the buildings were left abandoned, but now, they are slowly coming back to life.
There is an abandoned church near the middle of the Cabrini Extension. I have no idea what it was called, or anything about its history. All I know is that it appeared in the opening theme of Good Times (a 1970s TV show set in an idealized version of Cabrini-Green). I took a picture of it because, well, it's what I do every time I visit.
Parkside of Old Town
"Parkside of Old Town" is the developer-speak for Cabrini-Green. Obviously, they can't sell market-rate condos in Chicago's most notoriouss public housing development, so they made up a nicer-sounding name that evokes the nearby Old Town neighborhood.
The mixed-income housing seems to exist in three different worlds. The market-rate condos, affordable apartments and public housing portions of the development are managed by different organizations with different websites and different terminology. The sales center for condos tries its best to pretend the other two parts don't exist, and none of its advertisements so much as hint that Parkside of Old Town is a mixed-income development. But home buyers aren't stupid. Even in 2008, the first two times I visited, the condo sales were sluggish. At this point, the real estate bubble already burst, but the developers were still in denial about how bad it was. But then the Great Recession hit and, suddenly, the Parkside of Old Town condos became unsellable.
The original Plan for Transformation was designed so that the developers had to sell 80 percent of the condos before it receives funding to continue building. By 2010, the city government realized that this benchmark was unrealistic and lowered it. By that point, it had little choice - without the funding, the developer would go bankrupt.
Today, the construction continues, but the developers still have trouble selling condos they already finished. There is a huge "this way to the sales center" sign between the Hudson and the Cambridge buildings all but begs the passersbies to please, please buy a condo or three.
And there is another sign further back:
They have demolished all the White Walls. The way things are going, I am not sure they will build anything in their place.
The Edges of Cabrini-Green
Meanwhile, on the other side of Division Street, you'll find one of the enduring legacies of Cabrini-Green - the Carbini-Green Community Vegetable Garden. Originally built in 2001 (or so), it was meant to give Cabrini-Green residents a source of fruits and vegetables. The Reds and the Whites were torn down, but the garden remains.
It even got itself a beautiful mural I don't remember seeing before:
Behind the garden, you'll see the Near North Apartments - an affordable housing development built independently of the Plan for Transformation.The building is eco-friendly and energy-efficient. I suspect that more than a few residents of the Cabrini Extention wound up here.
Father northwest, at the Division/Clybourn intersection, you'll find a recently built shopping plaza. It was built along with the mixed-income buildings north of Cabrini-Green. For the most part, Cabrini-green residents welcomed the change - the more stores the neighborhood had, the better.
It even has its own Starbucks. Yes, a Starbucks - right on the edge of Cabrini-Green:
But lest you think everything on the edge of Cabrini-Green is new and improved, this is what you'd find a block further northwest.
The buildings may be gone, but the footprints of Cabrini-Green are still with us.
In Conclusion
To be honest, I wouldn't care as much about the demolished public housing if I knew that its residents would get better homes to replace it. But that hasn't been the case. While writing an article about the area for Chicago Flame, I did some calculations and concluded that, ieven if all the mixed-income buildings are built exactly as planned, they still wouldn't have nearly enough room to fit all the residents of the demolished buildings.
All of the people displaced by the demolition got Section 8 vouchers. The problem is that landlord are under no obligation to honor them. As the result, most residents wound up in neighborhoods that are not much better (and, in some cases, even worse) than Cabrini-Green was.
According to a recent article in Chicago Tribune, CHA lost track of 2,202 families that lived in the demolished developments. Now, this includes all developments, not just Cabrini-Green. But even then, the number is disturbing.
Nobody knows what happened to them. Nobody knows if they have a roof over their heads. Nobody knows if they have enough to eat. Nobody knows if they are even alive.
2,202 families. We are talking about parents. Grandparents.
Children.
That disturbs me - and it should disturb anyone who lives in Chicago.
But what about the ones who got to stay in the new mixed-income buildings. On one hand, their situation has improved. They live in secure, regularly maintained apartments. The neighborhood is safer than it has been since anyone can remember. But at the same time, they had to abide by strict rules. And while some of those rules make sense, others seem at best harsh and at worst outright vindictive. Public housing residents are limited to how many people they can have in their apartment at the time. Friends, family, doesn't matter - the limits apply. They can't barbecue near the buildings. The volume is strictly controlled.
Oh, and did I mention that condo owners have different rules?
For some residents, the rules are nothing they can't deal with. But others chafe under restrictions and openly wonder if they are worth it.
And finally, there is a matter of community. As I mentioned earlier, before the buildings came down, public housing residents had support networks they could rely on. A group of women might pull money to buy groceries or take turn babysitting children. Men and women can help each other find jobs. But when the buildings came down, their residents were disbursed all over Chicago. Some residents are trying to keep the old connection together, but they are fighting an uphill battle.
In the end, the Plan for Transformation is about the people. It is about improving the lives of the residents of Cabrini-Green and other public housing developments throughout Chicago. I said it before and I will keep saying it again and again - if the people of the Cabrini-Green are left worse off than they were before the plan was implemented, than the plan is a failure.
It's as simple as that.
The results were... sobering.
The Background
For those who don't take nearly as much interest in Chicago history and politics, some background information. Cabrini-Green was originally built in the 1940s in the Italian-American neighborhood known as Little Sicily. But at the time, it was much better known to the people of Chicago as Little Hell. It was desperately poor, crime-ridden and suffering from the effects of the pollution from the industrial plants on the nearly Goose Island.
The first public housing development was known as Frances Cabrini Homes. They were relatively small, apartment-style buildings. They were an improvement compared to most of the housing in Little Sicily - they were sturdier, more modern and had heating and electricity. They were meant to be temporary accommodations - people would live there until they would get the jobs that would let them earn enough money to move on to something better. To help them along, the Chicago Housing Authority set up schools, job training centers, counseling centers and other community service facilities.
The end of World War II brought in the surge of migrants and immigrants. Many of them were too poor to settle anywhere but public housing CHA dealt with the crowds by building the Cabrini Extensions. These taller buildings were built according to the popular urban development theories at the time - the same theories that would be at the root of urban planning in 50s and 60s Europe and Soviet Union. Because of their red tint, they were popularly known as the Reds, or Red Bricks.
During the 1960s, things got worse. Industries that kept most of Chicago's unskilled working-class residents employed discovered outsourcing. Many factories and warehouses closed down. People who were supposed to be able to move out after a few years found themselves stuck. At the same time, CHA started to suffer from funding shortfalls. But the population kept increasing, so CHA built what would become the most infamous section of Cabrini-Green - the William Green Extension. CHA cut lots of corners, which resulted in very rudimentary designs. Those tall buildings became known as White Walls, or the Whites.
Together, the Cabrini Extensions and the William Green Extension gave Little Sicily it's new name - Cabrini-Green.
Over the next three decades, things went from bad to worse. Employment opportunities continued to dwindle. Crime rose. CHA, which continued to suffer from funding shortfalls (which were further compounded by corruption and mismanagement), cut back on social services, security and even basic maintenance. Gangs stepped in to fill in the void. And as the 80s dawned and the drug trade became more profitable than ever, gangs started fighting over territory, leaving plenty of collateral damage in their wake.
But that's not what really made Cabrini-Green notorious. Yes, it had crime, but Robert Taylor Homes had far more violent crime than Cabrini-Green. Yes, it was overwhelmingly poor, but not as much as Ida Wells Homes. It wasn't even the biggest concentration of public housing in Chicago - that dubious honor belonged to Lower West Sides ABLA Homes public-housing mega-complex. What made Cabrini-Green so notorious was that, unlike any of the previously mentioned examples, it was within walking distance of the Gold Coast, Chicago's wealthiest neighborhood, and the bustling State Street shopping district. Cabrini-Green was one public housing development the city elite could not ignore.
In 1990s, CHA devised A Plan For Transformation - an extensive, expensive attempt to revamp Chicago's public housing projects. It should come to no surprise that Cabrini-Green was at the top of the list. The plan changed several times, but what they ultimately approved called for the demolition of all the Red Bricks and White Walls. They were to be replaced with mixed-income housing that would be divided into market-rate condominiums, affordable rental apartments and public housing units. They would all have the same amenities and similar floor plans. But the public housing residents would be subject to rigorous screening process and (often draconian) rules.
The demolition began in 2006. The project was supposed to be complete by 2010. But things didn't quite work out this way.
So, Where Do I Fit In?
I originally stumbled into Cabrini-Green completely by accident. I was still new to Chicago. I wanted to see Ukrainian Village, but I took the wrong turn on Division Street. I had no idea where I was, but I was fascinated by the white buildings that seemed oddly reminiscent of the sort of architecture I grew up with in Russia. By that time, the demolition of the White Walls already begin. This only made the experience even more fascinating.
But there were two things that really made my accidental visit memorable. First, as I passed by the White Wall the locals dubbed "Scamplife," I heard a woman yelling at the men in the parking lot from the tenth floor. The woman ordered (there was really no other way to describe her tone) the men to get off the parking lot and sell their poison somewhere else. The men seemed defensive, telling her that they were just hanging out, honest, but she wouldn't hear any of that. I didn't stick around long enough to see how this confrontation ultimately played out, but I like to think that the drug dealers didn't stick around for long.
The second thing I remember was how, aside from the confrontation, the entire neighborhood was silent. You could almost hear the wind blow. Every once in a while, a police siren would piece the silence, but then, it would be quiet again.
Once I found out what I passed through, I became fascinated with Cabrini-Green. And, after much second-guessing and preparation, I visited Cabrini-Green in June 2008. For the most part, that visit went without incident, so I came back again in November of the same year, photographing parts of the neighborhood I didn't see the first time and taking shots of a few things I did see just to show what changed.
I meant to come back the following year, but it didn't work out. Cabrini-Green is not a place you'd enter without some advance planning and preparation. Timing is also important. So, like I said, it didn't work out. I couldn't find an opportunity to visit it in 2010, either. But now that the last White Walls and Red Bricks are vanishing off the face of Chicago, I decided that it was now or never. So I went.
The William Green Extension
The last time I visited, five our of eight White Walls were already demolished. The remaining three still had an imposing presence.
Even as mixed-income housing was built around them, they towered over the landscape, serving as the persistent reminder that the market-rate condo owners were living in Cabrini-Green. The newspapers at the time talked about the tensions and mistrust between the two groups. Division Street lived up to its name by serving as the dividing line between the old and the new.
When I did a story on Cabrini-Green for Chicago Flame, the only comment I got was a young middle-class condo owner asking me when the White Walls were going to come down.
But by my most recent visit, the White Walls known as the Himalaya and the Big O were already demolished.
I was there just in time to see the last remnants of Scamplife smashed away.
More close-ups of the last pieces of Scamplife:
The only thing that's left are the fences.
And an old sign or two.
Schiller Elementary School was built specifically to serve the residents of the William Green Extension. The last two times I was there, it was very much active.
But in 2008, CHA decided to shut down the school and transfer all the remaining students to the more recently built Jenner Elementary Academy of Arts. There were protests, but with so many residents already moved elsewhere, it wasn't much of a fight. The school was shut down. I assumed that it would be demolished along with the rest of the William Green Extension. But when I got there on Thursday, I was surprised to discover that the building was still in use.
It turned out that CPS decided to use the building to house the newly opened Skinner North Classical School.
Behind the school is the much neglected Stanton Park. Things haven't changed all that much since I saw it last.
But there was one change that made me genuinely angry. Last time I visited it, the park had a mural painted by Cabrini-Green residents. Even though someone splattered it with white paint, you could still make out most of it.
The statement on the shirt of a man in the middle encapsulates something that often gets forgotten when people discuss public housing. Whatever else you may say, Cabrini-Green was a community. It had families. It had friends. It had people who were willing to help each other, sacrifice for each other. Whatever happens to the public housing developments in Chicago, they are the ones who stand to face the full consequences.
When I came back, the mural was gone. Just gone. Painted over. I suppose it is a fitting metaphor for what happened to the people of Cabrini-Green - now that the White Walls are gone, Chicagoans are free not to care - but God damn it, this upset me.
On the other hand, I was somewhat amused that the gold Cabrini-Green grocery store across the street from William Green Extension still remained. It used to be located between two Red Bricks. The first time I visited Cabrini-Green, I saw it wedged between two new houses. Almost three years later, it's still there.
Old Town Village and River River Village
These two mixed-income developments were largely built over a decayed, mostly demolished industrial corridor that polluted Little Sicily and gave employment to its residents. The official CHA line is that those developments are supposed to be evenly split into market-rate condos, affordable rental apartments and public housing units. But if you look at CHA's internal statistics, you discover that it's only true if you add up the units in every single mixed-income housing development in Cabrini-Green and its vicinity - including the developments that haven't actually been built yet.
So what this means is that some units are mostly market-rate condos
While others are mostly apartments and public housing units
The number of public housing units in each building fluctuate quite a bit. Some buildings are 1/3-1/2 public housing. Others have as little as 2. Most fall somewhere in between.
Some condos were built independently of the Plan for Transformation:
There is even a new church:
Those buildings look nice and modern - but you don't have to look far to be reminded exactly where you are:
This section of Cabrini-Green is home to a beautiful mural. Unlike the mural in Stanton Park, it survived largely intact.
I say "mostly" because it used to be covered with tiny inscriptions written by Cabrini-Green children. They are all painted over now.Here is a small sample of what vanished:
Frances Cabrini Rowhouses
Of course, no visit to Cabrini-Green would be complete without a stop by where it all began.
Walking through this community is an experience on its own. It's almost a neighborhood in on itself. It has its own, internal street grid:
Street markers with vaguely African engravings mark each street corner:
It has it's own system of backyard common areas
And, as I walked through it, I discovered a familiar sight - a Heartland Alliance employment assistance office.
With condos built to the west of it, Frances Cabrini Homes don't feel quite as removed from the rest of Chicago as they used to.
The first two times I stopped by, the residents looked at me with suspicion and, at times, naked hostility. But this time around, they barely seemed to notice me. I guess a white person walking past their homes isn't as uncommon of a sight as it used to be.
As of this writing, the fate of Frances Cabrini Homes is uncertain. Half of the houses are boarded up. The original Plan For Transformation called for them to repaired and refurbished, but otherwise left alone. Now, CHA is openly wondering whether it should demolish it and replace it with more mixed-income housing.
I hope that Frances Cabrini Homes would remain in some form or another. They outlasted the rest of Cabrini-Green. Surely, they can survive for a few decades more.
Cabrini Extensions and Parkside of Old Town
The first time I visited Cabrini-Green, most Red Bricks were either in the midst of demolition or already demolished. Only four remained. By my second visit, it was down to three.
The third Red Brick (nicknamed 41-Deuce), was demolished late that year. But the remaining two, which didn't have colorful nicknames, didn't get demolished until 2010.
I couldn't find a good shot of the second building at the same angle as the post-demolition shot. This is the next best thing:
The enormous field left behind from the demolition of the southern section of Cabrini Extension is still very much there. The buildings that went there were supposed to be under construction by now, but it doesn't look like they are even thinking about starting.
On the other hand, it is amazing the compare the way the condo buildings looked the first time I visited and the way they look now:
This condo building is known as the Elm. Unlike Cabrini-Green building nicknames, these names were devised by developers.
There are still condos under construction. This one is known as the Oak:
Cabrini Extension - Byrd Academy
Richard E. Byrd Academy was an elementary school built to serve Cabrini Extension residents. Out of all the schools built in Cabrini-Green, this one became especially notorious for lack of maintenance, safety and anything resembling a sensible learning environment. It got to the point where, in the early 2000s, one 5th grade class took it upon themselves to find a way to fix the school. But when CHA started tearing down the Reds, CPS decided to cut its losses and close the school down. The students and their parents fought back, accusing CPS of abdicating its responsibilities - all for naught. By the time I visited Cabrini-Green, the school was closed.
As with Schiller, I assumed that the building would be demolished. I was very surprised to discover that the building was under renovation. When I got back home, I did some research and discovered that the Archdiocese of Chicago got the building from the City of Chicago in exchange for the abandoned St. Boniface Church campus (which the city wants to turn into senior public housing development). Once the renovations and repairs are complete, it will be a new home of St. Joseph (Catholic) Elementary school.
So, in a twisted sort of way, the kids from Room 405 got their wish - too bad the Cabrini-Green kids wouldn't be able to benefit from it.
There is a mural near the former Byrd Academy. I photographed it every time I visited Cabrini-Green. This time, I was armed with a new camera that had a "panorama" function, and I decided to test it out.
I'm sure I'll get the hang of it eventually.
Cabrini Extensions - Shadows of Little Sicily
When Cabrini-Green was built, most old Little Sicily buildings were torn down, but a few survived. Most of them sit on the eastern edge of Cabrini-Green. As Cabrini-Green gained notoriety, most of the buildings were left abandoned, but now, they are slowly coming back to life.
There is an abandoned church near the middle of the Cabrini Extension. I have no idea what it was called, or anything about its history. All I know is that it appeared in the opening theme of Good Times (a 1970s TV show set in an idealized version of Cabrini-Green). I took a picture of it because, well, it's what I do every time I visit.
Parkside of Old Town
"Parkside of Old Town" is the developer-speak for Cabrini-Green. Obviously, they can't sell market-rate condos in Chicago's most notoriouss public housing development, so they made up a nicer-sounding name that evokes the nearby Old Town neighborhood.
The mixed-income housing seems to exist in three different worlds. The market-rate condos, affordable apartments and public housing portions of the development are managed by different organizations with different websites and different terminology. The sales center for condos tries its best to pretend the other two parts don't exist, and none of its advertisements so much as hint that Parkside of Old Town is a mixed-income development. But home buyers aren't stupid. Even in 2008, the first two times I visited, the condo sales were sluggish. At this point, the real estate bubble already burst, but the developers were still in denial about how bad it was. But then the Great Recession hit and, suddenly, the Parkside of Old Town condos became unsellable.
The original Plan for Transformation was designed so that the developers had to sell 80 percent of the condos before it receives funding to continue building. By 2010, the city government realized that this benchmark was unrealistic and lowered it. By that point, it had little choice - without the funding, the developer would go bankrupt.
Today, the construction continues, but the developers still have trouble selling condos they already finished. There is a huge "this way to the sales center" sign between the Hudson and the Cambridge buildings all but begs the passersbies to please, please buy a condo or three.
And there is another sign further back:
They have demolished all the White Walls. The way things are going, I am not sure they will build anything in their place.
The Edges of Cabrini-Green
Meanwhile, on the other side of Division Street, you'll find one of the enduring legacies of Cabrini-Green - the Carbini-Green Community Vegetable Garden. Originally built in 2001 (or so), it was meant to give Cabrini-Green residents a source of fruits and vegetables. The Reds and the Whites were torn down, but the garden remains.
It even got itself a beautiful mural I don't remember seeing before:
Behind the garden, you'll see the Near North Apartments - an affordable housing development built independently of the Plan for Transformation.The building is eco-friendly and energy-efficient. I suspect that more than a few residents of the Cabrini Extention wound up here.
Father northwest, at the Division/Clybourn intersection, you'll find a recently built shopping plaza. It was built along with the mixed-income buildings north of Cabrini-Green. For the most part, Cabrini-green residents welcomed the change - the more stores the neighborhood had, the better.
It even has its own Starbucks. Yes, a Starbucks - right on the edge of Cabrini-Green:
But lest you think everything on the edge of Cabrini-Green is new and improved, this is what you'd find a block further northwest.
The buildings may be gone, but the footprints of Cabrini-Green are still with us.
In Conclusion
To be honest, I wouldn't care as much about the demolished public housing if I knew that its residents would get better homes to replace it. But that hasn't been the case. While writing an article about the area for Chicago Flame, I did some calculations and concluded that, ieven if all the mixed-income buildings are built exactly as planned, they still wouldn't have nearly enough room to fit all the residents of the demolished buildings.
All of the people displaced by the demolition got Section 8 vouchers. The problem is that landlord are under no obligation to honor them. As the result, most residents wound up in neighborhoods that are not much better (and, in some cases, even worse) than Cabrini-Green was.
According to a recent article in Chicago Tribune, CHA lost track of 2,202 families that lived in the demolished developments. Now, this includes all developments, not just Cabrini-Green. But even then, the number is disturbing.
Nobody knows what happened to them. Nobody knows if they have a roof over their heads. Nobody knows if they have enough to eat. Nobody knows if they are even alive.
2,202 families. We are talking about parents. Grandparents.
Children.
That disturbs me - and it should disturb anyone who lives in Chicago.
But what about the ones who got to stay in the new mixed-income buildings. On one hand, their situation has improved. They live in secure, regularly maintained apartments. The neighborhood is safer than it has been since anyone can remember. But at the same time, they had to abide by strict rules. And while some of those rules make sense, others seem at best harsh and at worst outright vindictive. Public housing residents are limited to how many people they can have in their apartment at the time. Friends, family, doesn't matter - the limits apply. They can't barbecue near the buildings. The volume is strictly controlled.
Oh, and did I mention that condo owners have different rules?
For some residents, the rules are nothing they can't deal with. But others chafe under restrictions and openly wonder if they are worth it.
And finally, there is a matter of community. As I mentioned earlier, before the buildings came down, public housing residents had support networks they could rely on. A group of women might pull money to buy groceries or take turn babysitting children. Men and women can help each other find jobs. But when the buildings came down, their residents were disbursed all over Chicago. Some residents are trying to keep the old connection together, but they are fighting an uphill battle.
In the end, the Plan for Transformation is about the people. It is about improving the lives of the residents of Cabrini-Green and other public housing developments throughout Chicago. I said it before and I will keep saying it again and again - if the people of the Cabrini-Green are left worse off than they were before the plan was implemented, than the plan is a failure.
It's as simple as that.