Notorious public housing projects

[JivecitySTL]

Every big city has them, or at least they used to. Post pics of the largest, most infamous housing project in your city! Let's keep it to no more than 5 pics per poster.

I'll start with Pruitt-Igoe in Saint Louis (now demolished):

[Steely Dan]

5 of chicago's most notorious projects. most have now been demolished.


cabrini green

source: http://tigger.uic.edu/depts/ahaa/ima...ean/index.html


robert taylor

source: http://tigger.uic.edu/depts/ahaa/ima...ean/index.html


ABLA

source: http://tigger.uic.edu/depts/ahaa/ima...ean/index.html


henry horner

source: http://tigger.uic.edu/depts/ahaa/ima...ean/index.html


??????

source: http://tigger.uic.edu/depts/ahaa/ima...ean/index.html

[dave8721]

Miami's most notorious would be Liberty Square in the Liberty City ghetto

(aerial map)
http://wikimapia.org/#lat=25.8337811...5&z=15&l=0&m=b

Pictures of its opening in the 1930's as the first (segregated) black public housing in the South:


The sprawling complex of 2 story buildings has been ground zero for Miami's gang culture for 50 years:

[TarHeelJ]

Atlanta's Techwood Homes was the first and oldest housing project in the U.S., opening in 1936. It was notoriously crime-ridden and was demolished prior to the 1996 Olympics (with the exception of a few historically significant structures). A mixed-income neighborhood called Centennial Place was built on the site.


http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/displa...splayProfile=0


http://www.flickr.com/photos/panorya...n/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/panorya...n/photostream/

[TexasBoi]

Was there not a website that showed all of the project homes from around the country and world a few years ago? I can't seem to find that website anymore.

[Nantais]

Great thread, I've always had a weird fascination for housing projects.

Here are the two most iconic ones from my hometown, Nantes in western France :

Le Sillon de Bretagne, 95 m and 31 floors, located in Saint-Herblain, a western suburb of Nantes. It was said to be the largest public housing building in Europe at the time of its construction (early 1970's) with some 900 flats in one single building. Quickly the building gained a bad reputation, becoming synonymous with social and violence issues. By the 1980's, the white middle-class people who lived in it started to leave and were partially replaced by poor immigrant families from north Africa first, then from subsaharian Africa.
In the late 1980's, the upper floors were converted into offices and the number of flats was reduced from 900 to 750 (soon to be reduced again to 616 with an upcoming renovation).








The second one in Nantes is the famous Unité d'Habitations by Le Corbusier. Five Unités were built, the most famous one being the Unité in Marseilles (the first one to be built). This one, located in Rezé (a southern suburb of Nantes) was the second to be built, from 1952 to 1955. My father spent a part of his childhood in this building :









Now, some housing projects in the city I currently live in, Nanterre (a western suburb of Paris) :

The Tours Aillaud (aka Tours Picasso or Tours Nuage) are among the highest public housing towers of France with 39 floors. Built in the 1970's, they quickly got a pretty bad reputation (lot of drug dealing issues) :



source :http://www.dmin-dmax.fr/texteAlpa/vues_avec_Alpa.htm



Other spectacular pics on flickr :
Pic by Pasc Lem :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/57233603@N00/3387581717/
Pic by Philippe2032 :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/philipp...er/3471140059/


And a pic of my own project, seen from my flat, also in Nanterre, not far from the Tours aillaud :


pic taken this afternoon by a very freezing weather. Actually this project is not really public housing because most of the flats are privately owned and rented.

[BevoLJ]

I never had any idea about this, but just now I went to go see what the history of public housing is Austin was. Came to find out that Austin was actually the site of the first public housing under the 1937 Housing Act. I think Atlanta had built one a few years earlier and it was the first actual publicly funded project. It was a young senator from Austin Lyndon Baines Johnson who would later be our President who convinced FDR that under the new deal they should try building public housing. They decided to build three projects in Austin to see how it would work. They were all built in segregated neighborhoods. One in each a Latino, Black and White neighborhoods. Oddly enough I believe it was LBJ who 30 years later as the president desegregated them.

The first one to be built under the 1937 Housing Act which was the Latino one called Santa Rita Courts (40 units), the second was the African American one called Rosewood Courts (60 units), and the third the white one called Chalmers Courts (86 units). All were built in 1939 are still in operation.

Here are their pictures but they aren't as big and fascinating as those other ones from the big cities. Remember in 1930's Austin was just a small town of 50k people.

Santa Rita Courts

http://www.hacanet.org/haca_communit...ita_courts.php

Rosewood Courts

http://www.hacanet.org/haca_communit...ood_courts.php

Chalmers Courts

http://www.hacanet.org/haca_communit...ers_courts.php

[philvia]

ahhh public housing in nyc, where to begin @_@

the largest public housing project in america: the queensbridge houses. built in 1939 with 3,142 units.


Tilden houses in Brownsville, Brooklyn, NY... brownsville has the highest concentration of public housing in the city. completed 1961 with 998 apartments.


Red Hook houses, red hook, brooklyn, ny. it is the largest NYCHA development in brooklyn and almost 70% of the entire neighborhood lives in this project. completed in 1955, it houses 1,470 units.


the Baruch houses in lower east side, manhattan, ny. it is the largest public housing project in manhattan. composed of 17 buildings encompassing 27.5 acres, it was completed in 1959 with 2,194 units. this is only one of about 20 NYCHA developments in the lower east side *sigh*


the embarrassing grand total of new yorkers living in nycha developments is 417,328.

[SkyscrapersOfNewYork]

still waiting for a great redevelopment......


http://stuytownluxliving.com/lux-liv...le-housing.jpg


http://cdn.wn.com/pd/e7/18/b4dd5b349...724_grande.jpg

[Innsertnamehere]

what they need to do with those is re-introduce the street grid, and build 300-500ft buildings, and something to replace MSG.

[tallboy66]

The Jeffries.
They tore down half of them and were planning single family a low density apartments, if anyone has more recent pics I'd like to see.


Can't remember the name of these but they are along I-75 a little East and South of the Jeffries/Lodge Freeway ones.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by SkyscrapersOfNewYork

still waiting for a great redevelopment......


http://stuytownluxliving.com/lux-liv...le-housing.jpg

These aren't projects.

This is Stuyvesant Town. Regular market-rate housing.

I doubt you can get a one bedroom for less than $2,800 a month or so.

The complex is quite nice, BTW, with fountains, artwork and nice apartment layouts.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by philvia

the largest public housing project in america: the queensbridge houses. built in 1939 with 3,142 units.

It might be the largest these days, but according to wikipedia, the Robert Taylor homes in chicago was the largest single public housing project in the history of the nation, with over 4,000 units. They have of course all been demolished, along with vast majority of all the former highrise public housing in the city.

[ColDayMan]

Cincinnati has entire neighborhoods that are public housing. English Woods and Winton Place both come to mind immediately. By far the most significant is Laurel Homes, the second largest Public Works Administration public housing project in the country in 1933. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987 (unfortunately). It wiped out a good chunk of the West End, along with I-75.


http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2258/...8a2_z.jpg?zz=1


http://cache1.asset-cache.net/


http://cache3.asset-cache.net/

(though the area around it is "coming back" with mixed-use income housing like below)

http://www.cincinnatidevelopmentfund.org/

The west-central portion of the city is where I'd say 90% of the housing projects are including their own neighborhood identification (some are just massive):


http://www.city-data.com/forum/

For notorious-ness, English Woods is half empty, half still ghetto.


http://cincinnati.com/blogs/

There are others like Fay, Winton, etc but the only other notable one that pop in my mind visually are the Stanley Rowe blocks in the West End. Basically, project towers surrounded by 1800's rowhouses/townhomes. A shame, really.


http://www.cintimha.com/

[hammersklavier]

Philadelphia's Richard Allen homes (sorry for tiny pics but it means I can post more, right?):





Then




Now

(All pics this site.)

At Temple, when we're drunk and trudging from the party back to whatever dorm or apartment we came from, we go through this place and think "wow, what a random hole of suburbia!" That's where the nickname now applied to the place--the Allen hole comes from.

[SkyscrapersOfNewYork]

Originally Posted by Crawford

These aren't projects.

This is Stuyvesant Town. Regular market-rate housing.

I doubt you can get a one bedroom for less than $2,800 a month or so.

The complex is quite nice, BTW, with fountains, artwork and nice apartment layouts.

o ya....well....they look like projects nuff said


heres another the old Robert Fulton houses in Chelsea

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...es-chelsea.JPG



question...why cant cities just use eminent domain to tear theses monstrosities down and build some nice shiny towers?

[ColDayMan]

Columbus has some of the "better" looking housing projects in the state, I'd say. Shit, I'd live in some of them!

The Sawyer Towers are actually quite nice inside and have some nice skyline views.


http://www.dispatch.com/

The Bollinger, one of the most prominent in the city, is smack dab in the middle of the Short North, the city's most "yuppie" area.


http://mw2.google.com/mw-panoramio/p...m/20740369.jpg

But the majority of Columbus' housing projects were actually torn down and replaced with:



But the last of the relics is slated for demolition soon:


http://www.forgottenoh.com/Poindexter/

Its cousin across town is still around though...


http://www.dispatch.com/

[ColDayMan]

Dayton, though, has PLENTY of housing projects left in the city. Lawd does it!

DeSoto Bass is the largest and most dangerous. I'd venture to say 90% of the southwest side of the city is strictly projects.


http://realdaytonohio.blogspot.com/

Germantown is also a large collection of multi-story pj's


http://realdaytonohio.blogspot.com/

And lawd, Parkside. Well, it ain't pretty.


http://realdaytonohio.blogspot.com/


www.urbanohio.com/forum/


www.urbanohio.com/forum/

[MonkeyRonin]

Regent Park in Toronto, largest public housing complex in the country with 3-4,000 units.




Currently being redeveloped into a mixed-income (and higher density) neighbourhood:


By Taller, Better on SSC

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by SkyscrapersOfNewYork

question...why cant cities just use eminent domain to tear theses monstrosities down and build some nice shiny towers?

Because there are 11,250 fairly expensive apartments? You realize how expensive that would be to expropriate all of that? And for what reason, that the buildings aren't modern and pretty enough?