Cabrini-Green

Cabrini-Green is one of the most notorious and infamous housing projects in the world. It is located on the North Side of Chicago, near the North/Clybourn Red Line stop along with the Chicago and Sedgwick Brown Line stops. The project is bordered by Evergreen Ave., Sedgwick St., Chicago Ave., and Larrabee St. It is made up primarily of mid- and high-rise apartment buildings, many with exterior porches so that residents enter their apartments like a motel room. Though Chicago has many housing projects with crime problems, this one is the most noticeable because it is surrounded by wealthy neighborhoods, notably the Gold Coast and Lincoln Park just blocks away. In fact, residents of Gold Coast high-rise condos whose windows faced to the west could often see the flash of gunfire from Cabrini-Green. 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 slum called "Little Sicily" or more sardonically, "Little Hell". The problems discussed in this article mostly pertain to the apartment buildings, not the rowhouses.

The concentration of poverty in one place turned out to be a ill-fated idea. Drugs and violence were rampant. Poverty passed from generation to generation and many Cabrini-Green residents were pressured into joining gangs to protect themselves. Individual gangs 'controlled' individual buildings. Gunfire often erupted between the gangs and people got in the crossfire, including seven-year old Dantrell Davis, who was killed as he was walking to elementary school with his mother in 1992. Another well-publicized incident was of a girl brutally raped and poisoned in a stairwell in 1997. (See timeline below.)

After too many children fell over the railings of the exterior porches, the porches were completely enclosed with a steel mesh along the entire height of the buildings. But this meant it was easier for the gunmen to see the policeman from inside the building than it was for the policeman to see the gunmen through the steel. Tall buildings are difficult to police in themselves and the steel netting made the situation even worse (in 1970 two policemen were killed by gunfire). The steel also made residents feel as if they were in a prison. Many were afraid to leave their apartments, despite the cockroach infestation. Rotting garbage in trash chutes (once piled up to the 15th floor), the smell of urine in hallways, malfunctioning elevators, graffiti on walls, and frequently bursting pipes added to the misery of living there. On the exterior, the concrete buildings look cheaply built. Boarded-up windows and burned out areas of the facade enhance the feeling of urban decay. People who do not live in Cabrini-Green are so afraid of it that many plan their trips so as to avoid even passing the project in a car.

Hopelessness is present throughout Cabrini-Green as 93 percent of the residents are unemployed. The Chicago Housing Authority has decided to destroy Cabrini-Green and some of the buildings have already been demolished with more to come. Cabrini-Green once housed 15,000 people but this number is now down to about 5,000. Many of the residents will move into a nearby mixed-income development. Many have already moved to Bloomington, Illinois.

Chicago Mayor Jane Byrne moved into a fourth-floor apartment in 1981 to try to make the complex safer. Backed by police and bodyguards, she stayed for three weeks and after she left, the violence returned.

Television and Movies

Cabrini-Green was also the setting for the film Candyman, made in 1992. The film chronicles the legendary life of the infamous Candyman (played by Tony Todd), a black slave 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 on the site that 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.

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.

Chronology

• 1962 - The complex is completed.
• July 17, 1970 - Sergeant James Severin and Officer Tony Rizzato of the Chicago Police Department are fatally shot.
• 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.
• September 27, 1995 - Demolition begins.
• 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 went on to live, though the attack blinded her. "Girl X" was later identified as Toya Currie.
• 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.

External links

• Official site (http://www.thecha.org/housingdev/cabrini_green_homes.html)
• Voices of Cabrini (http://www.voicesofcabrini.com/) (Documentary film)
• CBS News: Tearing Down Cabrini-Green (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/12/11/60II/main532704.shtml)
• Chicago Tribune: Cabrini-Green Columns (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-010625cabrinicolumns,0,3008139.storygallery)
• Chicago Anti-(gay)-Bashing Network (http://www.cabn.org/archives/gay_bashed_by_police/080703police_guilty.html)