Project Preservation

So I'm looking over this freely distributed Chicago newspaper (advertisement vehicle) and notice a little article about some preservation group or another ( I wasn't that interested) distributed their list of the top seven most endangered pieces of architecture in Chicago this year. With all the gentrification going on these people feel pressured to get their message out and get people motivated. What struck me was the lack of Housing projects on the list.

Just a few years back you could drive down the Dan Ryan Expressway and see Housing Projects Walling it in on either side. It gave the drive a sort of dreary tunneled feel. Most of those buildings are gone now. I don't know what we did with the people. I think we showed em the door to the suburbs or maybe it was some secret late night boxcar shipment out of country into Canada or Mexico. Probably Mexico go down with a car full of residents from the projects and throw the doors open and then offer free rides and fake social security numbers to anyone willing to work for minimum wage while paying taxes and social security they will never get back. Anyway you see it the people are gone and the town homes and condos have been going up at a steady pace (and lets not forget the huge expansion of the University of Illinois at Chicago campus).

So these historic preservation people are worried about buildings like the old Goodman theatre and a historic eye and ear clinic site. While the buildings arguably have historical significance I say they stand for little that Chicago hasn't already preserved time and time again. If the sites have no practical use why not bulldoze and put up a mini mart or maybe (now here's a wild thought) a manufacturing business and provide a few jobs. Chicago used to be the sipping nexus of the country wouldn't it be nice to actually make and sell something from here again.

Now lets step back and talk about the projects. What other well intentioned yet monumentally bad idea is so perfect a working symbol to historically preserve. Why not keep just one dark dilapidated monstrosity to serve as a mute warning to all those who would dump massive amounts into well intentioned but not well thought out or executed ideas. Maybe there would be a dedication plaque: Here we penned up humans by the hundreds in the name of their own welfare. The jumpstart apartments were more like cells that trapped people in a culture of poverty. Here the elevators don't work and the stair wells smell of urine. While many lived here few would call it home.

Then we could have people give guided tours like they do at alcatraz. Point out the gang signs the burned out units. Take ten people into a unite that was meant for two people to live in but house seven. Ask people to pee on the stairs on their way out to keep up the smell?

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