Neighborhood History Project

CABRINI GREEN - CHICAGO

By: Phuong Nguyen & James Truty

Location...

Cabrini-Green places at the Near North Side Neighborhood, Chicago City.It is bordered by Scott Street on the north, Larrabee Street on the east, Division Street on the south, and Haslsted Street on the west.

General History

Every one knew about Cabrini-Green such as one of the most infamous public housing projects in Chicago city and even in America with murders, fights and a dark history. Some informations below can tell you it's history and the reason why it became infamous like people often said about it...

IMMIGRANTS AND THE BEGINNING....

Swedish first arrived to Chicago between the years of 1850s and 1880s and also first inhabited the territories.Like the Chicago boomed in 1880, the Swedish immigrants made Chicago become one of the largest communities all over the world at that time. They largely settled around the Chicago River in the Near North Side neighborhood that's now known with the name "Cabrini-Green" .They were also accompanied by a large arrival of Irish immigrants.

In the great numbers of the Sicilians moved in, displacing the incumbent Swedish and Irish populations, for a brief period from the turn of the century to the 1920s, the area was called "Little Sicily."

According to the CHA( Chicago Housing Authority), the early residents of the Cabrini row houses were predominantly of Italian ancestry.
In 1962, a majority of residents in the completed complex were mostly black. "White flight" from the complex escalated over the following decade; in 1970s its population was almost entirely black.

CABRINI-GREEN DURING WORLD WARS ...!!!

WORLD WAR 1
During the great onset of World War I, European immigrations stalled, and the Great Migration of African Americans to midwestern and northeastern cities began.Cabrini-Green had been one of the most impoverished neighborhoods on the north side of the Chicago, and with the beginning of the Great Depression, conditions worsened for the neighborhood's new arrivals. In fact, the western portion of the Near North side, while very accessible to both the Chicago River and the city's bustling downtown Loop, has always been a landing place for people often migrants that are in rather desperate circumstances. The housings were integrated and many residents were held jobs.

WORLD WAR 2
Those changed in the years in and after World War 2,when the nearby factories that provided the neighborhood's economic base closed and laid off thousands of people. By the start of the World War 2, city's officials recognized a need to assuage the growing despair in the Near North.
The Cabrini Row Houses were built to help returning war veterans and impoverished residents , and they housed approximately 600 families. Then, in 1958 the Cabrini extension was added to the project, adding the fifteen red and tan high-rise buildings with about 2,000 units. During World War II, the Chicago Housing Authority razed "Little Hell" and built a low-rise apartment project for war workers, naming it the Frances Cabrini Homes after the first American canonized by the Catholic Church. . War veterans shared the tenements with African Americans, Sicilians, Puerto Ricans, and Irish immigrants for the first 15 years.

AND IN THE RECENT PAST...
Lawns were paved over to save on maintenance, failed lights were left for months, and apartments damaged by fire were simply boarded up instead of rehabilitated and reoccupied.
During the worst years of Cabrini-Green's problems, vandalism increased substantially. Gang members and miscreants covered interior walls with graffiti and damaged doors, windows, and elevators. Many residents urinated in the hallways which were rarely cleaned.
While Cabrini-Green was deteriorating during the postwar era, causing industry, investment, and residents to abandon its immediate surroundings, the rest of Chicago's Near North Side underwent equally dramatic upward changes in socioeconomic status. First, downtown employment shifted dramatically from manufacturing to professional services, spurring increased demand for middle-income housing; the resulting gentrification spread north along the lakefront from the Gold Coast, then pushed west and eventually crossed the river.
By the 1980s, Cabrini-Green become the most notorious public housing project in the city or even in the country.
Anyway, as the industrial areas surrounding Cabrini-Green were replaced, the land on which Cabrini-Green placed was becoming more desirable.
In the year of 1990s, developers had converted thousands of acres of former industrial lands near the north branch of the Chicago River (and also the north, south, and west of Cabrini-Green) to office, retail, and housing.

CABRINI-GREEN 'S POPULATION.....

FUTURE PLANS
Left the dark history,Cabrini-Green has been becoming more bright and beautiful such as one of the most famous neighborhood area of Chicago city.Over time, Cabrini-Green's location became increasingly desirable to private developers.
In 1999, the CHA created a 10-year plan, it would effectively destroy the Cabrini-Green housing projects, replace them with mixed-income housings that will be built for former tenants of Cabrini-Green as well as new middle-class applicants.The CHA seemed every one to be beyond repaired and has begun to raze all of them, except for the original Cabrini Row Housings, which will stay, the new mixed-income housing will be low-rise constructions that provide residences in a wide range of prices.

The neighborhood is now home of many Chicago's nicest restaurants, shops, stores, high buildings which are changing the nature of the neighborhood. Like Gold Coast, River North, Old Town, and Lincoln Park, Cabrini-Green is easily one of the most sought-after neighborhoods in all neighbor of Chicago.

THESE PICTURES BELOW WILL TELL YOU HOW CABRINI-GREEN LOOKS LIKE IN THE RECENT PAST AND PRESENT. WITH A BEAUTIFUL LOOKING LIKE THAT, NO ONE CAN BELIEVE THAI IT WAS CALLED A "LITTLE HELL" OF CHICAGO ....

The Haymarket Tragedy-1886

The Haymarket Tragedy-1886

On May 3, 1886, violence erupted at the McCormick Reaper Works during an assembly of strikers. That evening a small group of anarchists met to plan a rally the next day in response to the McCormick incident.
The rally began about 8:30 p.m. May 4 at the Haymarket, a site on Randolph between Halsted and Des Plaines Street, but due to low attendance it was moved a half block away to Des Plaines Street north of Randolph Street. After 10 p.m., as the rally drew to a close, 176 policemen led by Inspector John Bonfield moved in demanding immediate dispersal of the remaining 200 workers. Suddenly a bomb exploded. In the chaos that followed shots were fired by police and perhaps by workers. One police officer was killed by the bomb, six officers died later and sixty others were injured. No official count was made of civilian deaths or injuries probably because friends and/or relatives carried them off immediately. Medical evidence later showed that most of the injuries suffered by the police were caused by their own bullets.
All well known anarchists and socialists were rounded up and arrested in the days following the riot. Thirty one of them were named in criminal indictments and eight held for trial.
Although the bomb thrower has never been identified the eight indicted men were convicted by a court which held that the "inflammatory speeches and publications" of these eight incited the actions of the mob. The Illinois and U.S. Supreme Courts upheld the verdict.
On November 11, 1887 four of the accused were hanged. One committed suicide in jail, two had their sentences commuted to life in prison and one remained in prison even though there was no case against him.
After John P. Altgeld became Governor in 1893, the petitions for pardon that had been presented to and refused by his predecessor Richard Oglesby, were again introduced. After a careful review of the case Altgeld granted a full pardon on June 26, 1893. In his remarks he claimed the jury was selected to convict and the judge so prejudiced against the defendants that a fair trial was impossible.
Two Chicago area monuments were erected to commemorate the Haymarket Riot. One stands in German Waldheim Cemetery (Forest Park, IL). It depicts Justice preparing to draw a sword while placing a laurel wreath on the brow of a fallen worker. At the base of the monument are the final words August Spies spoke before his execution: "The day will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you are throttling today." The monument was dedicated on June 25, 1893, before a crowd of 8,000.
"In the name of the people I command peace" reads the inscription below the police officer depicted on the second monument. Since its dedication in 1889 peace has been somewhat elusive.
The monument was originally situated in the middle of Haymarket Square, where street car lines were forced to swerve around it. On May 24, 1890 an attempt was made to blow it up. In 1900 the monument was regarded as a traffic hazard and moved to Union Park at Randolph and Ogden Ave. On May 4, 1903 the city seal and state crest were stolen from its base. A disgruntled streetcar driver ran his vehicle into it, knocking it off its base on May 4, 1927, claiming he was tired of seeing it. On May 4, 1928, after repairs were completed, it was moved further into Union Park. The statue was again moved on May 4, 1958 and placed at Randolph St. at the Kennedy Expressway, 200 feet from its original location. The Chicago City Council granted the monument landmark status on May 4, 1965. In October, 1969 a dynamite bomb exploded at the feet of the figure damaging it from the calves down. In November black printers ink was tossed on it, doing further damage. Another bomb was exploded there in October 1970. After each incident the monument was restored, but after the 1970 incident Mayor Richard Daley placed a round-the-clock police guard at the site. When this proved too costly, the statue was moved to Police Headquarters at 11th and State Street in 1972. In October, 1976 the monument was again moved. It was rededicated at the Police Academy and can only be seen by making arrangements in advance. Peace.

CHICAGO GREAT FIRE

What do we know about the Great Chicago Fire?
Historians agree that on Sunday evening, October 8, 1871, the Chicago Fire did indeed start in the barn of Mr. and Mrs. Patrick and Catherine O'Leary. While the blaze ironically spared the O'Leary home, located on the city's West Side at 137 De Koven Street, much of the rest of Chicago was not so fortunate. Before the fire died out in the early morning of Tuesday, October 10, it had cut a swath through Chicago approximately three and one-third square miles in size. Property valued at $192,000,000 was destroyed, 100,000 people were left homeless, and 300 people lost their lives.
In November and December of 1871 the Board of Police and Fire Commissioners held an inquiry. The purpose of this investigation was to determine, among other things, the cause of the fire. The board interviewed fifty people, including Mr. and Mrs. O'Leary. A shorthand reporter took down over 1100 pages of handwritten testimony. Despite all this, the board members failed to ascertain the fire's cause, stating merely in their report that "whether it originated from a spark blown from a chimney on that windy night, or was set on fire by human agency, we are unable to determine."
So did Mrs. O'Leary and her cow cause the fire, or is this merely a nineteenth-century urban legend? An analysis of the original transcripts of this inquiry, 1871 Chicago real estate records, and other period source materials provide powerful evidence that the latter may be the case. Furthermore, these same records provide a fascinating theory as to who really did cause the fire.

CHICAGO - My favorite City...(^.^)

CHICAGO-one of the biggest and greatest cities in United State of America and all over the world. It 's also a beautiful and modern city with many high buildings. Chicago places in the North side of America, next to the Michigan Lake in Illinois state. It 's a young but very fascinating city which has attracted the attention of many capable historians. Everyone around the world knows about Chicago with the name "Windy City" or "City of the big shoulders",a city with many great shopping malls,big hotels, famous universities,airports, companies and beautiful Michigan lake.The people in Chicago come from all around the world, that 's the reason why you can see many people with many religions here,they come from many different places and different countries.They 're work hard and always busy...In conclusion,CHICAGO is a wonderful city,where you can spend all your times of your life to study, work and ...relax.