by Ben Austen
I was lucky to have writer friends who listened to me over the past several years talk about my progress on this book, and lack of it, and who offered the needed commiseration and counsel: Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah, Claire Gutierrez, Ethan Michaeli, Micah Maidenberg, Matt Power (pouring libations for you Cooley High–style), Mark Binelli, Meg Rabinowitz, Paul Kramer, Will Howell, Yuval Taylor, Amanda Little. Maya Dukmasova and Bill Healy helped with research and insight. I am indebted to Gideon Lewis-Kraus for a major assist early in the process of this book and to DJ Pat Rosen for a couple near the end. I was fortunate to connect with Robert Gordon, who drew the incredible maps at the start of this book, and with the photographer Jon Lowenstein. A huge thank-you to Wells Tower and Audrey Petty who read portions of this book, and who were steady sources of support and inspiration. And an impossible-to-repay debt to Adam Ross, who was there with me every step of the way of this endeavor.
To Jonathan Jao, I am deeply thankful for his editing, encouragement, and guidance. I thank Sofia Groopman and the others at HarperCollins who shepherded this book to publication. Many people think they have the best literary agent; I really do in Chris Parris-Lamb, whose careful reading of my writing and passion for this book kept me believing it was worth completing.
The most heartfelt thanks go to my family. My two brothers from other mothers, fellow writers, insightful readers, and my constant companions in this thing called life: Khalil Muhammad and Sascha Penn. My brilliant brother, Jake; my parents, Ralph and Ernestine; Jacqueline Stewart, Maiya and Noble Austen, and Carol House. And the reasons I’m anything: Danielle, Lusia, and Jonah, who turn a house into a home.
Bibliography and Notes on Sources
In 2010, I began reporting an article for Harper’s Magazine about the closing of the last of Cabrini-Green’s twenty-three high-rises. I started working on this book soon after that. I spent hundreds of hours interviewing the people who appear in these pages. I spoke as well to numerous other Cabrini-Green residents, to officials from the Chicago Housing Authority and other city agencies, to local politicians, teachers, and principals, to social service providers, affordable housing advocates, community activists, lawyers, architects, police officers, clergy, business owners, developers, building managers, and residents from the surrounding area. My reporting took me to community meetings, public forums, court records, police reports, and people’s homes. And I benefited greatly from the generosity of many journalists, researchers, academics, filmmakers, and photographers who were kind enough to speak with me about their own work and share their resources.
For the purposes of writing this book at least, the media’s long fascination with Cabrini-Green and the Near North Side slum that preceded it proved tremendously useful. I relied on reporting that appeared in the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Chicago Defender, the Chicago Reporter, the former Chicago Daily News, the Chicago Reader, DNAinfo Chicago, Residents’ Journal, Chicago magazine, Crain’s Chicago, the website Forgotten Chicago, and radio station WBEZ. For television news and other video footage featuring Cabrini-Green, I used the collections at the Museum of Broadcast Communications, Vanderbilt University’s Television News Archive, and the Media Burn Archive. I found reports, correspondences, pamphlets, maps, and other historical documents in the archives of the Chicago Housing Authority, the records at the Metropolitan Planning Council, and in the holdings of the Chicago Public Library, the Chicago History Museum, the University of Chicago, and the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Here, more specifically, are the sources that were most instructive for each chapter.
CHAPTER ONE: PORTRAIT OF A CHICAGO SLUM
In writing this chapter, I relied on early Chicago Housing Authority pamphlets and publications, numerous accounts in the local Chicago press (some dating back to the nineteenth century), the notes and records of J. S. Fuerst (kindly lent to me by his daughter, Ruth Fuerst), and, of course, the many conversations I had with Dolores Wilson. The following published sources were especially useful:
Abbott, Edith. The Tenements of Chicago, 1908–1935. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1936.
Bowly, Devereux, Jr. The Poorhouse: Subsidized Housing in Chicago, 1895–1976. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1978.
Chicago Housing Authority. Cabrini Extension Area: Portrait of a Chicago Slum. Chicago Housing Authority, 1951.
Cronon, William. Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West. New York: W. W. Norton, 1991.
Drake, St. Clair, and Horace R. Cayton. Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1945.
Fuerst, J. S., and D. Bradford Hunt. When Public Housing Was Paradise: Building Community in Chicago. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2003.
Guglielmo, Thomas A. White on Arrival: Italians, Race, Color, and Power in Chicago, 1890–1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Hunt, D. Bradford. Blueprint for Disaster: The Unraveling of Chicago Public Housing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.
Meyerson, Martin, and Edward C. Banfield. Politics, Planning, and the Public Interest: The Case of Public Housing in Chicago. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1955.
Michaeli, Ethan. The Defender: How the Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America: From the Age of the Pullman Porters to the Age of Obama. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016.
Petty, Audrey. High Rise Stories: Voices from Chicago Public Housing, Voice of Witness. San Francisco: McSweeney’s, 2013.
Philpott, Thomas Lee. The Slum and the Ghetto: Immigrants, Blacks, and Reformers in Chicago, 1880–1930. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Pub. Co., 1991.
Vale, Lawrence J. Purging the Poorest: Public Housing and the Design Politics of Twice-Cleared Communities. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013.
Wright, Richard. 12 Million Black Voices: A Folk History of the Negro in the United States. New York: Viking Press, 1941.
Zorbaugh, Harvey Warren. The Gold Coast and the Slum: A Sociological Study of Chicago’s Near North Side. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1929.
CHAPTER TWO: THE REDS AND THE WHITES
For this chapter, I used CHA publications from the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s, including the agency’s yearly statistical reports, along with hundreds of newspaper accounts from that era. Particularly helpful were the “North Side Observer” columns in the Chicago Defender written by Margaret Smith. I relied also on interviews with Dolores Wilson and other early residents of high-rise public housing in Chicago, and with Richard M. Daley and many public housing experts.
Art Institute of Chicago, et al. Chicago Architecture and Design, 1923–1993: Reconfiguration of an American Metropolis. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1993.
Black, Timuel D. Bridges of Memory: Chicago’s Second Generation of Black Migration. Chicago: Northwestern University Press, 2007.
Bowly, Devereux, Jr. The Poorhouse: Subsidized Housing in Chicago, 1895–1976. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1978.
Butler, Jerry, and Earl Smith. Only the Strong Survive: Memoirs of a Soul Survivor. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000.
Cohen, Adam, and Elizabeth Taylor. American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley: His Battle for Chicago and the Nation. Boston: Little, Brown, 2000.
Fuerst, J. S., and D. Bradford Hunt. When Public Housing Was Paradise: Building Community in Chicago. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2003.
Guglielmo, Thomas A. White on Arrival: Italians, Race, Color, and Power in Chicago, 1890–1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Hirsch, Arnold R. Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, 1940–1960. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.
Hunt, D. Bradford. Blueprint for Disaster: The Unraveling of Chicago Public Housing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.
Mayfield, Todd, and Travis Atria. Traveling Soul: The Life of Curtis Mayfield. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2016.
Meyerson, Martin, and Edward C. Banfield. Politics, Planning, an
d the Public Interest: The Case of Public Housing in Chicago. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1955.
Royko, Mike. Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago. New York: Dutton, 1971.
Vale, Lawrence J. From the Puritans to the Projects: Public Housing and Public Neighbors. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000.
———. Purging the Poorest: Public Housing and the Design Politics of Twice-Cleared Communities. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013.
Werner, Craig Hansen. Higher Ground: Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield, and the Rise and Fall of American Soul. New York: Crown Publishers, 2004.
Whitaker, David T. Cabrini-Green in Words and Pictures. Chicago: W3, 2000.
CHAPTER THREE: CATCH-AS-CATCH-CAN
Kelvin Cannon and others who grew up in the William Green “Whites” in the 1960s and ’70s told me of their adventures beneath the Ogden Avenue overpass and their fears of its fabled witch. The website Forgotten Chicago did a deep dive into the history and erasure of parts of Ogden Avenue. I spoke as well to Jesse White and several of his former tumblers and Boy Scouts, including Richard Blackmon and Perry Browley. Many Cabrini-Green residents and teachers from the neighborhood schools I interviewed shared their memories of the rioting after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, but I also learned much from the recollections assembled in David Whitaker’s book cited below. The Defender covered King’s trips to Cabrini-Green and the school boycotts there. I benefited again from CHA historical records, and I need to mention the debt I owe to D. Bradford Hunt’s magisterial history of the rise and fall of Chicago public housing, Blueprint for Disaster, which I cite below and throughout this bibliography.
Cohen, Adam, and Elizabeth Taylor. American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley: His Battle for Chicago and the Nation. Boston: Little, Brown, 2000.
Hunt, D. Bradford. Blueprint for Disaster: The Unraveling of Chicago Public Housing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.
Vale, Lawrence J. Purging the Poorest: Public Housing and the Design Politics of Twice-Cleared Communities. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013.
Whitaker, David T. Cabrini-Green in Words and Pictures. Chicago: W3, 2000.
CHAPTER FOUR: WARRIORS
For this chapter I made use of the onslaught in coverage of Cabrini-Green after the murders there in 1970 of two police officers. Hundreds of stories appeared in the media, and the CHA documented carefully its initiatives to improve the now-infamous public housing development. Residents of Cabrini-Green shared with me their recollections of this pivotal moment in their experiences there. Kelvin Cannon’s memories were invaluable for this chapter, as were interviews I did with Dolores Wilson, Jesse Jackson, Burt Natarus, and many others. A longtime alderman of the Cabrini-Green area, Natarus donated his papers to the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the archive helped me with this chapter and others.
Blackmon, Richard, Jr. Pass those Cabrini Greens, Please!!! (With Hot Sauce). Chicago: 714 Productions, Inc., 1994.
Cohen, Adam, and Elizabeth Taylor. American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley: His Battle for Chicago and the Nation. Boston: Little, Brown, 2000.
Dawley, David. A Nation of Lords: The Autobiography of the Vice Lords. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press, 1973.
Freidrichs, Chad, Brian Woodman, and Jaime Freidrichs. The Pruitt-Igoe Myth. DVD. [United States]: First Run Features, 2011.
Hagedorn, John, and Perry Macon. People and Folks: Gangs, Crime and the Underclass in a Rustbelt City. Chicago: Lake View Press, 1998.
Hirsch, Arnold R. Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, 1940–1960. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.
Hunt, D. Bradford. Blueprint for Disaster: The Unraveling of Chicago Public Housing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.
Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Random House, 1961.
Marciniak, Ed. Reclaiming the Inner City: Chicago’s Near North Revitalization Confronts Cabrini-Green. Washington, D.C.: National Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs, 1986.
Vale, Lawrence J. Purging the Poorest: Public Housing and the Design Politics of Twice-Cleared Communities. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013.
CHAPTER FIVE: THE MAYOR’S PIED-À-TERRE
Jane Byrne’s stay at Cabrini-Green was a sensation, the subject of a thousand reports in the media that explored it from all angles. Every person I spoke with who lived or worked at Cabrini-Green or even followed the news during that time had a Mayor Byrne story or opinion to share. The Media Burn Archive has great documentary footage of Byrne’s stay at Cabrini-Green. In addition to interviewing Dolores Wilson for this chapter, I also learned a good deal from conversations with Tara and Guana Stamps, Slim Coleman, Helen Shiller, Demetrius Cantrell, Jimmy Williams, Carol Steele, and Charles Price. And also from the sources listed below.
Byrne, Jane. My Chicago. New York: W. W. Norton, 1992.
Cohen, Adam, and Elizabeth Taylor. American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley: His Battle for Chicago and the Nation. Boston: Little, Brown, 2000.
Hampton, Henry, et al. Eyes on the Prize II: History of the Civil Rights Movement from 1965 to the Present. Alexandria, VA: PBS Video and Blackside, Inc., 1990.
Marciniak, Ed. Reclaiming the Inner City: Chicago’s Near North Revitalization Confronts Cabrini-Green. Washington, D.C.: National Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs, 1986.
Stamets, Bill. Chicago Politics: A Theatre of Power. Digital file. Chicago: 1987.
United States Commission on Civil Rights. Illinois Advisory Committee. Housing, Chicago Style: A Consultation Sponsored by the Illinois Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights. Washington, D.C.: The Commission, 1982.
CHAPTER SIX: CABRINI-GREEN RAP
I based parts of this chapter on the long interviews I had with Annie Ricks, and on my interviews with Kelvin Cannon, Demetrius Cantrell, Jimmy Williams, Doug Shorts, Jesse White, Jackie Taylor, and other Cabrini-Green residents who had small parts in Cooley High. The tension on the set of Good Times was documented at the time in interviews given by cast members. Nicholas Lemann’s book, cited below, helped as well, and was somewhat of an inspiration for my own book.
Lemann, Nicholas. The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America. New York: Vintage Books, 1992.
CHAPTER SEVEN: CONCENTRATION EFFECTS
Kelvin Cannon described for me his arrest and time in prison, and parts of his biography were corroborated by other residents, police officers, and written accounts that celebrated his rise from unpromising origins. By the 1980s, Cabrini-Green was a fixture in the civic imagination, so I was able to use numerous reports on its further decline amid the revitalization of the surrounding central communities. The developers of Atrium Village toured me around the development. I learned more about the activism around the Chicago 21 plan and Harold Washington’s ascent to the mayor’s office from Helen Shiller (and from the Keep Strong leftist magazine she helped publish), Jesse Jackson, Jon DeVries, and Bill Stamets’s amazing footage on Chicago politics which I cite below. I’d have to do a more careful survey of my notes to tally up all the city officials and consultants who cited William Julius Wilson’s work on the deleterious effects of concentrated poverty as their reason to push for the demolition of Chicago’s high-rise public housing.
Bennett, Larry. The Third City: Chicago and American Urbanism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010.
Grimshaw, William J. Bitter Fruit: Black Politics and the Chicago Machine, 1931–1991. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.
Hunt, D. Bradford. Blueprint for Disaster: The Unraveling of Chicago Public Housing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.
Kleppner, Paul. Chicago Divided: The Making of a Black Mayor. DeKalb, Ill.: Northern Illinois University Press, 1985.
Marciniak, Ed. Reclaiming the Inner City: Chicago’s Near North Revitalization Confronts Cabrini-Green. Washington, D.C.: National Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs, 1986.
Rivlin, Gary. Fire on the Prairie: Chicago’s Harold Washington and the Politics of Race. New York: H. Holt, 1992.
Sampson, Robert J. Great American City: Chicago and the Enduring Neighborhood Effect. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013.
Squires, Gregory D., et al. Chicago: Race, Class, and the Response to Urban Decline. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987.
Stamets, Bill. Chicago Politics: A Theatre of Power. Digital file. Chicago: 1987.
Whitaker, David T. Cabrini-Green in Words and Pictures. Chicago: W3, 2000.
Wilson, William J. The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.
———. When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor. New York: Knopf, 1996.
CHAPTER EIGHT: THIS IS MY LIFE
I based parts of this chapter on my numerous conversations with Willie J. R. Fleming and other Cabrini-Green residents close to him. I interviewed Vince Lane, and I was able to learn more about his work as head of the CHA from discussions with reporters, researchers, and residents, and also from the extensive coverage of his controversial tactics and their meaning amid a perceived urban crisis. The following sources were also especially useful.
Burns, Ken, et al. The Central Park Five. DVD. [Arlington, Virginia]: PBS, 2013.
Didion, Joan. “New York: Sentimental Journeys.” The New York Review of Books. January 17, 1991.
Hunt, D. Bradford. Blueprint for Disaster: The Unraveling of Chicago Public Housing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.