Cabrini- Green

 

Cabrini-Green was a notorious public housing project. It is located in Chicago's Northside, near the North/Clybourn Red Line stop along with the Chicago and Sedgwick Brown Line stops. It was made up primarily of mid- and high-rise apartment buildings, many with exterior corridors so that residents enter their apartments like a motel room. The corridors were later covered with chain link fencing to prevent people from jumping or being pushed from them, or from throwing garbage over the side. Though Chicago has many housing projects with crime problems, this one was the most noticeable because it is surrounded by wealthy neighborhoods, notably the Gold Coast and Lincoln Park just blocks away.

The apartment buildings opened in 1958 (the "reds") and 1962 (the "whites"), while the rowhouses (called the Frances Cabrini Homes) opened in 1943. Cabrini-Green stands on top of what used to be an Italian neighborhood called "Little Sicily".

As gentrification began to take hold of the city in the early 1990s, the land on which Cabrini-Green sat became extremely valuable, and one by one, the buildings have begun to meet the wrecking ball to make way for new development. Destruction of the "reds" began in 1995, and were all completely demolished by 2002.

Low to midrise condominium buildings and rowhouses have been and are currently being constructed, as the Chicago street grid is slowly rebuilt through the area. The redevelopment is riddled with controversy, as the residents are forced out of the complex. Although 20% of the new units must be built as public housing, there is not enough supply to meet the demand for housing, and former residents of Cabrini-Green find themselves forced to less expensive areas of the city or to the suburbs.

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