4555 S. Federal Demolition, Dec. 2002-Jan. 2003

[sheffergirls]

wow i grew u9 in 4555 #1408 my gma was in 4500 a #405..cant believed i teared u9 at this footage...i still have very vivid dreams of living there i was born there my fam lived there from the early 60s - late 70s...thanks for this!!!

we got out before the real hell started..

[sheffergirls]

wow i grew u9 in 4555 #1408 my gma was in 4500 a #405..cant believed i teared u9 at this footage...i still have very vivid dreams of living there i was born there my fam lived there from the early 60s - late 70s...thanks for this!!!

[fnell1959]

I used to live 4037 Federal

[stewbie59]

Man, I used to live at 4535 S. Federal apt# 206. I remember the incinerator, broken and SLOW elevators, the pee - stairways and the "bad boys"! Such childhood memories...too precious!

[azrailroader]

Also, Cabrini's last high rise is down to the last family as of 12/05/10, and they have 5 more days to move out.

[azrailroader]

The projects were designed to fail. They could have made them work if they wanted to, but it's hard when everyone involved is corrupt and on the take. They could've made the one strike policy from the get go; after all, this was public housing, and the public has the right to make conditions for living there. Think of all the money they spent to build and maintain these buildings, just to tear them down 40 years later. What a colossal waste of resources.

[philavanhg]

ALL THE PEOPLE THAT USED TO LIVE IN THESE BUILDINGS, WHERE DO THEY LIVE NOW?

[barbarabell2011]

What an horrible place to call home. I lived near these buildings and I attended highschool with some of the residents. It was a very horrible place to live. Anyone who lived on 43rd Street knows the reality of what living in the projects was like. Many young people lost their lives just being innocent bystanders of the shootings and drive-bys.

[OfficialDaddyHustlin]

@artistmac can you tell me if there are any

projects left at all in chicago, like rowhouses? I

know the high-rises are gone, but I haven't been

to the chi in a long time; so i don't know what's

gone, and what's still there?

[artistmac]

Dearborn , LeClaire Courts, Altgeld, the Washington Park and Cabrini Rowhouses, Bridgeport Homes and Wentworth Gardens are still standing. Lathrop is hanging on by a thread. The Marshall Field Apartments up on Sedgwick are still there. ABLA is being eaten up by the Med Center expansion and gentrification. Part of the Lakefront Properties was imploded in 1998; part is mixed-income apartments, as was Hilliard . Ickes; mostly gone. Horner, Stateway, Robert Taylor and Ida B. Wells are history.

[OfficialDaddyHustlin]

Wow!! Thank you very much!!!

[MysticGoddess999]

Chicago will forever be my home!!!

[Brutananadilewski007]

Fuck Daley and fuck those racist bastards that took away all the PJs! Stateway, RTs, Rockwell, ABLAs, most of Cabrini, Ida Bs, and more, what the fuck!? Yeah maybe some had to go but throwin so many people out of their homes, fuck that. And quandidy is right, it aint just the southern burbs, the northern burbs have changed too, N. Chi, Waukegan, Zion, not to mention all the heroin addicted white kids in the rich burbs on the northside. Those kids would flock from everywhere.

[ChiCapDiva]

You mean 4429, not 4459. :-)

[The83rdgangsta]

Dats how u rememberd Robert Taylor overlookin u ridin down tha highway

[qwandiddy]

This is the reasons why some Suburbans are going bad like Joliet, Bolingbrook, Justice, Kankakee, Park Forest, Aurora- more section 8s selling dope, commit crimes.

[qwandiddy]

Now! Riding on South State between 35th to 53rd is a "GHOST TOWN" like Gary Indiana.

[mskenny]

Many memories in 4525.

[blaqbyrd08]

I had a lotta good times in 4555, a close friend lived there, i lived on 63rd, i would go and spend the weekend in 4555 with family friends. I also seen a lotta bad things in there. Mannnn if those walls could talk.

[soln4suhreborn]

My aunts used to live close to RTH one at 47th & Prairie & the other at 53rd & Prairie.. I lived farther south on 69th & Stony though. One of the aunts used to live in RTH off of Federal but I can't remember which street off of Federal. I moved down south and everytime I come home it's strange not seeing the RTH on the other side of the train tracks and Wentworth Ave while you ride down the Dan Ryan after remembering them being there all those years.

[queeney1977]

i use to live in 4500 on the 12th floor in 1201 the life experience i got livin there is like no other, my children would be tramatized if they had to deal with some of the things i did, but i wouldnt trade it for the world, because that time in my life really made me who i am today. so dont go jugding people cause u dont know there story my family came from the suburbs until life hit us hard and we were forced to move be careful cause those times are comin again and u might be the one moving

[macdaddy112003]

damn u aint lieing maaa! glad u stilll alive!! raise them kids good they dont eva wanna see that shit!!

[barettmario]

@queeney1977 my great gramma nacy use to stay on the 8th flow apartment 806 for 25 years i stay in 4444 behind 4500 on the third flow apartment 308

[Skeptic121]

The Robert Taylor Homes and similar hell holes were not built to help poor black folks. They were built to help politically connected contractors and union construction workers.

[macdaddy112003]

AMEN

[jdawgsworld]

hopefully these were replaced with better structures...

[TheEvilOyo]

nothing but empty lots, daley is a shitbag.

[jdawgsworld]

that sux...yet the masses scream for shelter...sad

[obbk220]

30,000 african american lived here

and it was built for southern migrant in 1961

[chicagojeff]

Mani use to work in those buildings.. ican't believe they're all gone.. its good they are.. but its soo much history for a lot of people..

[southsidesoxside]

Why would anyone want to make the Robert Taylor Homes into condos? Most of the buildings were damaged due to neglect and blackened due to arson attempts. Plus the smell of urine isn't very pleasant. It was just a nasty housing project.

[artistmac]

The old buildings in Printer's Row in the South Loop were in the same shape 30 years ago. You should see them now.

So were the warehouses west of Greektown north of the Eisenhower Expressway.

The CHA's former Victor Olander hi-rises along the lake were rehabbed, made into market rate rental units and renamed Lake Parc Place.

Buildings are buildings. It's what people decide to do with them that makes all the difference.

[southsidesoxside]

Yeah but I doubt anyone would want to move into them with the history of the Robert Taylor Homes. Same thing with Stateway Gardens which was right next to Robert Taylor.

[artistmac]

Really? Then Lincoln Park would have never lived down its history as a down-at-the-heels, high-crime Puerto Rican neighborhood. These days, one's only risk walking down Armitage from the lake to Ashland is tired feet.

Run-down houses that sold for $20,000 in the late '50's are selling for 30 and 40 times that today. It's a hot neighborhood and a yuppie port-of-entry. And for the most part, the same buildings are still there, rehabbed and gleaming. I stand by my previous comment.

[southsidesoxside]

That's fine I just think that the neighborhood cleaned up once the projects were demolished. The real hood on the south side is between California and Pulaski from the Ike down to 75th or so.

[jnieves77]

@southsidesoxside U ain't heard about the story in 1994 where a dude got cut up with a circular saw in the hallway have u? mn just imagine that shit i man. U here about people gettin shot in the projects but gettin cut up with a circular saw is jus overborad. the Project was nothing nice to fuck with and i f i lived in one i would've been learning how to make bombs because i would've been blowing up shit if i got into it with some people real shit.

[southsidesoxside]

@jnieves77 That kind of stuff doesn't surprise me man. There was so much crime in the housing projects that you don't remember them all, cabrini green, robert taylor, henry horner over by the united center, any of them. The Robert Taylor homes were right across the Dan Ryan from where I live, I live right by 47th and Halsted and the RTH's were the straight up ghetto.

[efleischer]

i feel bad for all the people who relied on livin there and had to do what needed ta be dun to put that food on tha table whether huslin or peeps who sell mary kay bath products they did tha same shit here in jerZ.Thats someones home! people dont look at it for what it is.

[KillaCastro6438]

i remember them bigs ass dub sacks they had, a nigga rollin like 6 blunts out that bitch

[eharl001]

There was no 4459 it was 4429.

[tpoconno]

good blows here, but they were always on hold.

[harbinmeister]

Federal govt pays to build, state/city govt/federal govt pays to police/educate ghetto, they lose control, fed. govt pays to demolish said ghetto = 900 trillion dollar debt ceiling/broke government

ergo, vote Ron Paul

[Hooftimmer]

Where did all those people go? Were there rats running everywhere? Do you have a vid of the power plant being torn down?

[artistmac]

Most of them left long before the decision was made to tear the buildings down. They went to Section 8 housing in other neighborhoods in the city and suburbs. The lease-compliant ones are eligible for units in the replacement housing that's coming. No rats. I wish I'd had a vidcam when they were tearing the plant down; all those exposed steam pipes were a sight to see.

[thamick1579]

I think mixed income is the best answer

[tonwil06]

I don't think so. They have been trying it in Detroit when they tore down the Jeffries Projects.The project niggaz moved into once stable Detroit neighborhoods & started braking into long time resident's homes.So they took off into metro-detroit & the once stable neighborhoods went to shit!! I've seen it with my own eyes.I've bet the same thing is about to happen in Chi-town when those niggaz are spreaded out.

[queeney1977]

thats exacly what happened my grandma live in the 100's been there for over 67 years had to go buy a steel screen door for her house. they unleashed some bad people on unsapecting elders who cant defend themselves I say they should never build anything like that again, and I lived there myself.

[artistmac]

True. But it would definitely have had to go back to being mixed-income, the way it was in the beginning. And the CHA would have had to really enforce the terms of the leases and evict repeat violators.

But they'd have really had trouble selling market-rate condos in buildings with Robert Taylor's history. And that was the CHA's goal this time around.

[thamick1579]

They should have left them up and renovated them

[IBMeddling]

I was thinking the same thing. They could have make 2 apartments and join them into a nice large apartment and made condo's.

[mrwoods123]

Hard to do that with all those rats and roaches in the buildings, along with the smell of urine. Plus no one wants to move into a condo that was once a project building.