Talk:Cabrini–Green Homes

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Candyman's reign of terror[edit]

I'm surprised at the lack of coverage in the article for Cabrini Greens most notoroius resident, Candyman. As seen in Clive Barker's shocking documentary "Candyman", he was responsible himself for many gruesome murders as well as forcing a college lecturer Helen Lyle to kidnap a baby and decapitate a dog. Candyman was distinguished by having a hook for a hand, and it was common belief among the poorly educted residents of Cabrini Green that if you said his name 5 times in a mirror, he would appear.

So let's get this article up to speed people, it's very poorly written as it is and without Candyman Cabrini Green would just be another failed housing project. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.130.212.141 (talk) 16:59, 4 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Expansion[edit]

(Specifically, the section on tenant activism needs expansion--need information on pre-1996 tenant activism)

Overall perspective lacking[edit]

There seems to be some overall perspective lacking here. Nothing mentioned on why this kind of dense high-rise housing was built in the first place: racism.

The Chicago Housing Authority had planned much less dense housing, scattered about in various areas of the city. But political pressure ('we don't want those people in our neighborhood') forced the CHA to construct additional housing within their already existing space. So they were forced to go to this kind of high-rise construction, even though it was known that this was not good for communities, especially those with children.

It seems to me that this is an important part, but it's completely left out of this article. T-bonham (talk) 02:33, 29 August 2011 (UTC) And as it turns out, those racist thoughts were well based, just read the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.8.145.85 (talk) 13:06, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV[edit]

WhileNPOV in several places, I think the overall tone is not too far from wrong. :(

I grew up in Chicago during the '60s and '70s and my mother was a police woman on the streets of the city. Cabrini-Green was notorious.

All we have to do to bring NPOV into this is to cite some sources and look for counterpoints if we are able to find them.

Can we get a picture of one of the buildings? Dralwik 15:21, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

still NPOV[edit]

Most of what I've done has added, not changed, what was there before--so the intro part still violates NPOV, although I hope I've done better by talking about context and plans. Also, I'll see about getting some historic photos up, as I do have them around (on paper, of course). paytonc 4 Aug 05

World famous?[edit]

The first sentence reads: "Cabrini-Green, comprising (...) one of the most notorious and infamous housing projects in the world.". Shouldn't that read "of the US"? I did not want to change it right away, as I am not familiar with the subject and it may indeed be famous all over the world... Jope 15:52, September 7, 2005 (UTC)

Vcrs[edit]

I am new to Wikipedia & still trying to figure out how all this works, so, apologies if I have made mistakes. Here's where I'm coming from.

It's true, Cabrini-Green was a horrible, horrible place to live. I know someone who worked there as an after-school tutor and remembers being stuck in the basement because there was so much gunfire they couldn't leave the building. She also said there was only one elevator in the big high-rises and it was always broken, so disabled people were literally trapped. Good thing there was never a big fire. In response to Jope, I think Cabrini-Green likely was known beyond the U.S. as a symbol of the problems of public housing in the states, for reasons I describe under "reputation" in the article.

But there were several ways the original article distorted the picture away from NPOV, I think.

First, it did not explain why things got so bad. For one thing, there was no reference to the city's role--the city was the landlord, and as such, was responsible for most of the things that were physically wrong with the buildings.

Another omission was that, while there was some reference to the geography of the situation, geography's impact was not really drawn into the explanation of why the residents ended up in such a hellhole. It's important to understand the causal factors in the changing neighborhoods surrounding Cabrini-Green--from the disappearance of jobs to the emergence of a market for drugs.

In my view, the former article's failure to explain how Cabrini-Green got so bad seemed to imply that it's just inevitable that, if you put poor Black people in a building, it will then just fall apart. My explanation tries to assign responsibility for the problems more realistically.

The second major problem with the article was that it did not take the residents' point of view into consideration. This is a huge oversight and sadly typical of the way stories in the U.S. are often told about African-Americans without consulting their perspective.

An outsider might think it's crazy that some residents want to stay at Cabrini-Green, but clearly that is the perspective of some residents, so it should be in the article. (After all, things have improved recently, and also, when you hear that some people see their only alternative as homelessness, it makes a little more sense.)

Although my attempts to include residents' point of view are not adequate and probably not NPOV, it's a beginning. More info about tenant activism would also help portray the diversity of residents--not all were gangsters or helpless victims, although some were.

I know there has been a lot of tenant activism long before 1996, but I ran out of time to research it. Maybe I will get back to it, but if not, someone else can! Vcrs 04:56, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

more pictures please[edit]

I added this article to Wikipedia:Requested pictures. The only current picture is very recent and doesn't capture the hopelessness depicted in the article. Tempshill 06:48, 29 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is a good idea. I don't have any old pix showing the now-demolished buildings, but I could definitely go take some of the situation at the moment. I've walked through there a couple times recently; it's pretty bleak. Thanks Tempshill. Vcrs 22:57, 12 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I added one of the demolition, how's that look? --W.marsh 04:58, 19 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Girl X"[edit]

Do we have ANY proof of the bit claiming to know what her real name is/was? 68.39.174.238 04:31, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is what I'm referring to. 68.39.174.238 04:32, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Nevermind, I missed the link about a line down D:... 68.39.174.238 04:36, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Language[edit]

I'd expect an encyclopedia to use terms like 'police officer' rather than 'cop'. -- 18.252.6.96 03:35, 13 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why does this article use an M-dash (—) rather than a hyphen (–) in the title? ---ChicagoSlim — Preceding unsigned comment added by ChicagoSlim (talk • contribs) 14:07, 21 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Gangsta City?[edit]

The section on the film "Gangsta City" seems poorly-written and in violation of NPOV. It reads like ad copy. Thoughts?


is "Gangsta City" on dvd? --76.16.97.155 02:17, 1 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How many people lived here.[edit]

In paragraph 1, the article claims that 20,000 people once lived in Cabrini-Green. Later in the article the max figure drops to 15,000. Can we get a more accurate maximum size? >25% error seems like too much. 167.191.250.81 01:49, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The following link from the Chicago Housing Association clears this up, as it states 15,000 people. I have edited the article appropriately, although I am not sure how to add it as a citation. Could someone please do this? Thanks. RainnIceberg http://www.thecha.org/housingdev/cabrini_green_homes.html

I watched the Gangsterland on the history channel and it said there was much more people than 15,000 I think they said 75,000 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.118.125.146 (talk) 06:18, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Chronology[edit]

The later entries in the chronology section should be removed. Although news stories on the days when they occurred they are not relevant to Cabrini Green as a whole. Incidents such as the recent ones listed (2006-2007) probably number in the thousands over the last 30 years. 38.98.158.6 09:36, 8 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Problems in Bloomington and Harvey, IL???[edit]

The part about residents moving to Bloomington and Harvey and causing trouble at the high schools seems suspicious to me. I did a quick search and found nothing to support it, and it's casually written, sounds speculative and I almost deleted it because it looked like graffiti. Maybe someone with a better knowledge of local media who could confirm these "facts" could add citations.

NhInsideWriter 19:58, 8 August 2007 (UTC) NhInsideWriter[reply]

Geo coordinates wrong[edit]

The latitude/longitude is a few to several blocks Northeast of the actual projects. I don't know how to correct that so I hope someone else can please. 216.19.186.49 11:33, 5 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]


That is correct Bloomington is becoming a wild place —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.118.102.22 (talk) 21:44, 24 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Last Paragraph of 'Recent history and future plans'[edit]

This section seems to imply that the crime was a result of African Americans living there. I think it should be rephrased.

"Crime has dramatically decreased as the area's population has shifted; in the first half of 2006, only one murder occurred. Since most of the new housing post-dates 2000, no census figures are yet available, but the area is no longer predominantly African American." 24.14.107.138 (talk) 15:02, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

article needs a section on "Brother Bill"[edit]

He was on television a lot in the 1990's here is some background information from Time Magazine. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,988191,00.html?promoid=googlep --Ted-m (talk) 21:40, 9 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I added a small section, expansion needed. here are more sites with photos http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0004/silence33a.htm http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/grantpick/brotherbill/

--Ted-m (talk) 21:48, 9 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

K-SO/Gettogurl[edit]

Is the addition of the information about "K-SO" really important for this article? It doesn't seem to add anything, nor contribute to the history of Cabrini-Green. With the amount of references to the person's new book, it almost reads like a sales pitch. Keistje (talk) 07:46, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Um, I also removed the poems by Gettogurl (and the links). I left a link to the ISBN number in case someone's interested in following up. Paytonc (talk) 06:44, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Unique"?[edit]

I'm an outsider, but this stood out to me:

In February 2006, a unique partnership between CHA, Holsten, Kimball Hill Urban Centers and the Cabrini Green LAC Community Development Corporation began a 790-unit, $250-million redevelopment of the 18-acre (73,000 m2) Cabrini Extension site, to be called Parkside at Old Town.

Frankly, that reads as though it came straight from a press release. What's "unique" about a group of organisations working together on a redevelopment? Not much, surely. Loganberry (Talk) 01:14, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Neighborhood[edit]

I see my edits were reverted [1]. Cabrini-Green is a Chicago neighborhood. The housing projects in this neighborhood were the Cabrini Extension North, Cabrini Extension South, and the William Green Homes. The Frances Cabrini Rowhouses still remain and new housing developments Parkside of Old Town, and The Larrabee are now located in the area. Since the Cabrini extensions were demolished Cabrini-Green neighborhood name is not widely used in the area by some. This article should have the settlement (neighborhood) Infobox and reworked so that the many housing developments are separated into there own sub articles. --Nickvet419 (talk) 23:28, 28 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The salient issue is that this article is specifically about (and was always about) the housing project, not whatever the neighborhood might be today. If you want to do an article about the neighborhood, it should be separate. Ryecatcher773 (talk) 05:30, 29 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

photo[edit]

https://www.flickr.com/photos/davidwilson1949/8736241791/in/album-72157614049704111/ Victor Grigas (talk) 20:50, 30 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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Infobox and article disagree on boundaries of the project[edit]

The infobox and article disagree on where the boundaries of the projects were.

The infobox says:

Bordered by the apex of Clybourn Avenue (North), Larrabee Street (East), Chicago Avenue (South), Halsted Street (West)

The opening paragraph of the article says:

It was bordered by the intersection of Clybourn Ave and Halsted Street on the north, North Larrabee Street on the west, Chicago Avenue on the south, and Hudson Street on the east.

It's hard to find authoritative sources on this, but this page in the Encyclopedia of Chicago looks credible. Its map isn't very detailed, but it seems to show the borders of the projects being W North Ave (north), N Halsted St (west), W Chicago Ave (south), and N Larrabee St (east).

In addition, several of the named streets seem to be subtly misnamed according to Google Maps:

  • Clybourn Avenue is shown as N Clybourn Ave
  • Larrabee Street is shown as N Larrabee St
  • Chicago Avenue is shown as W Chicago Ave
  • Halsted Street is shown as N Halsted St
  • Hudson Street is shown as N Hudson Ave

I'm loath to make changes myself since I've never been to Chicago, let alone lived there. Anyone closer to the source able to confirm what these should say?

Stephen Hui (talk) 16:01, 26 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

No one commented on this for a week, so I went ahead and made the change. Stephen Hui (talk) 05:45, 2 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Tones of racisim[edit]

"Crime has dramatically decreased as the area's black population has shifted"

Is this meant as a comparison? Is the suggestion here that the Black population is directly linked to the crime rate? 199.247.32.30 (talk) 17:37, 14 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I have concerns about this passage as well. There must be another way to state this. 69.130.79.170 (talk) 00:52, 1 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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