jrcart

Ya, Cabrini Green is gone, I think one building remains, in its place are million dollar townhomes and condos. "The ghetto" now is pretty much anything south of 55/ MCCormick Place, Cabrini Green was always kind of outta place, it was pretty much Dearborn and Division street which is about two blocks from the gold coast which is some of the most expensive real estate in the country, never made much sense to me.

user z478747

....bet I can guess why it was there! Same reason there is subsidized housing too close to my neighborhood ......and the crime rate in the area continues to increase! Wonder why? But I digress...

alexander stemer

When they built it, Division Street was a neighborhood of eastern European immigrants. More spoke Polish than English, on certain blocks. On the half block east of the store I grew up behind, there was a Turkish bath house, a drug store, and 14 taverns.
Most people lived in 1-2 bedroom apartments, didn't have a car, and negotiated everything, including sales tax.
When they started Cabrini, Peurto Ricans were just beginning to enter the neighborhood. My guess is that the Irish and Italian forces wanted Cabrini far from their neighborhoods. Hyde Park, Little italy, and back-of-the yards were all American, so moving blacks north was moving them away.
It took a while for everyone to realize that the city had just built vertical ghetto's. But, while it started in the 50's, it didn't get really bad til the drug wave hit in the late 60's.
Tough problem, which many solved by moving to the burbs to raise kids. But when the kids went away, they were stuck in "Borington" and the push back to the Gold Coast began. AS