Cabrini Green: was it really little hell (Chicago, Time: crime, home)

[jmims]

I just returned from a trip to Chicago. Before I went I read
a lot about the Cabrini green complex. I was shocked at what I read.
I couldn't believe the amount and type of crimes committed there. I know its been demolished but what I
want to know is just how bad was this area when the complex was around? Was it really a horrific war zone as portrayed ?

[Lud Kissel]

Yes

[K 22]

Whenever I hear about Cabrini Green, I always think about "Good Times", the sitcom from the mid-late 70s.

[UrbanAdventurer]

I'm sure it was one if the most dangerous places in America at one point...

[rubbersoul89]

oh yeah, it was pretty bad.

[Larry Siegel]

Yes. I know at least one woman who lived there. First the employed moved out. Then the unemployed and disabled who got benefits. Then the welfare population. (People with even very limited incomes have options, and don't care to live around filth and crime.) That left the hard-core criminals to prey on each other. The city waited way too long to tear it down.

[chicagobear]

When I would take a taxi home from the airport, the drivers would refuse to go down Division Street for fear of getting shot.

[ChicagoMeO]

the "projects" as they were called were scattered around the city.. I can't remember which, maybe it was Cabrini, but it was beautiful when it began. White people were there. People had flower boxes on the lawn.

Ok onto the future - it did not stay that way. Imagine - hallways that smelled like strong urine from people, your view on your hallway being black cage wire, kids falling out of windows because the screens were broken, graffiti all over the walls, elevators not working OFTEN and you had to walk down 12 flights of stairs if you lived up top, fear of being a victim of a crime daily, the walls were big cinder blocks (pretty ugly); thats enough to make me not want to stay there. i visited a friend's mother on Larrabee when I was a teen, so i got to see it. I survived.

[Chi-town Native]

Street gang members literally used cop cars for target practice from the rooftops. What else needs be said?

[Chicago60614]

Yeah, cops refused to go there, firemen refused to go there and most people would avoid driving down Division. Even when I moved here in 2001 and they were still up I was always a little weirded out driving down that area of Division just based on what I heard and always seeing large groups of people hanging around near the street just staring at you. That all ended quickly after 2001 though. Not sure how it was in the 90's.

People had stories from the 80's when the buses would go down Division and dozens of kids with water and other stuff would hurl them at the bus just as something to do. Most traffic avoided the area and those who grew up in Cabrini were really quite isolated from "the public" for living right in the middle of the city. I would have hated to be a bus going through that route every day. Lots of random shootings from up in the towers. Practice.