Robert Taylor Homes

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Robert Taylor Homes is a housing project in the Bronzeville neighborhood of the South Side of Chicago, alongside the Dan Ryan Expressway on State Street between 39th and 54th streets. It was completed in 1962 and named for Robert Rochon Taylor, the son of the first African-American architect accredited in the United States.

At one time, this was the largest housing project in the world. It was composed of 28 high-rise buildings of 16 stories, mostly arranged in U-shaped clusters of three, stretching for two miles. As of April 2006, 27 of the buildings were demolished and only one remains standing. The Chicago Housing Authority plans to move out all residents by the end of 2006. A mixed-income redevelopment will occupy the site of the Robert Taylor Homes in the future.

The history and economy of this housing development was studied by Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh in his book American Project (ISBN 0-674-00830-8).

Contents

[edit] History

During their prime The Robert Taylor Homes hosted 27,000 people in 4,300 apartments. Six of the poorest US census areas with populations above 2,500 are found there. Including children who are not of working age, ninety-five percent of the housing development's 27,000 residents are unemployed and list public assistance as their only income source, and 40 percent of the households are single-parent, female-headed households earning less than $5,000 per year. Its landlord, the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA), has estimated that $45,000 in drug deals take place daily. Take a casual drive by the housing project: twenty-four drab, sixteen-story concrete high-rises, many blackened with the scars of arson fire, sit in a narrow two-block by two-mile stretch of slum. The city's neglect shows in littered streets, poorly enforced building codes, and scant commercial or civic amenities. Police intelligence sources say that the latest increase in homicides is the result of gang "turf wars", as gang members and drug dealers fight over control of given neighborhoods. Residents of the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) Robert Taylor Homes say that the drug dealers are actually fighting over control of the very buildings that they live in. During a recent weekend, more than three-hundred separate shooting incidents were reported, in the vicinity of the Robert Taylor Homes. Twenty eight people were killed during the same weekend, with twenty six of the twenty eight incidents believed to be gang related.

[edit] Problems

Robert Taylor Homes faced many of the same problems that doomed other high-rise housing projects in Chicago such as Cabrini-Green. These problems include drugs, violence, and the perpetuation of poverty. Here, poverty was concentrated on an isolated site.

While police admit that the increase in shootings occurs almost every spring, they also say that the number of incidents this year is expanding, with a proportionate increase in murder rates. Gang members, using high-powered semi-automatic and automatic weapons, often "spray" a given street corner or playground in hopes of wounding or killing rival gang members. In certain neighborhoods on Chicago's South and West sides, gang motivated "Drive-By" shootings are a common occurrence. Unfortunately, all too often, bystanders and otherwise blameless kids are caught in the hail of gunfire.

The Robert Taylor Homes were also home to many famous celebrities such as as Mr. T and Kirby Puckett. The Robert Taylor Homes is the site where, in May 2006, a white 21-year-old woman from California was thrown or jumped out of a seventh-story window [1] after she was released from the local jail, leading to severe injuries. Rats and roaches make an everyday appearance in these southside apartments. Many feel that Chicago's biggest contributor to their crime rate not only being higher than Los Angeles and New York but numerically being higher is their housing projects. An Example is that in 1994 the city of Chicago recorded 923 homicides with a population of around 2,783,726 in 1990. During the same year (1994) Los Angeles, With a population of 3 million plus, recorded 782; while New York, with almost triple the population of Chicago, recorded 2,016. Today, Chicago's murder rate has sunk to the lowest the city has seen since the 60's. In 2004, a record low 448 homicides took place. Even with the population growing, the homicide rate continues to shrink. Source http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/mithistory/blacks-at-mit/taylor.html

[edit] Education

Robert Taylor Homes is served by Beethoven K-8 and Phillips Academy High School. Both are operated by Chicago Public Schools.

DuSable High School is known for having residents from Robert Taylor Homes, yet the complex is now zoned to Phillips.

[edit] External links

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