Bro-J note:
I lived in Robert Taylor Homes on the South Side of Chicago, when they were new in the early 1960s. The housing project was, in my opinion, a horrible mistake. It deteriorated into a crime burdened soul sucking complex of housing where fresh air was tainted with an ever present odor of fear. It's decline was breathtakingly fast, already far distant from salvageable when we moved out just a little more than a year after we moved in. Chicago officials decided to tear it all down a few years ago, and that prompted these thoughts:
It's a 14th floor view of early '60s Chicago.
21st century Chicagoans of means, would write large checks for those views.
But, these are early 60s views from the projects, where you can see everything in the city, but a way out.
The housing authority cleared out the old ghetto to build a brand spanking new one.
From people living on top of each other, to people living on top of each other, literally.
Sixteen stories, 10 apartments on each floor.
You could see the top of far off skyscrapers at eye level.
It was much harder to see your way out
Taylor Homes balkanized the South Side.
White brick buildings and red brick buildings.
Rivalries created with brick color as a reason, for people who found it difficult to find reason for so many other things .. terrible things … in their lives.
14th floor views could catch glimpses of the Lake, but not even a hint of a way out.
That's not to say there weren't good times.
Good people, doing good things, with good results.
But the stink of a small evil overpowers the gentle calming aromatics of a huge expanse of lives lived gently, lived simply.
A struggle to see things in perspective,
When it's so hard to see a way out.
Some of us, many of us, did make it out.
I'm sure it was as much luck as work and determination.
Fortunate for us that even though we couldn't see some things,
We knew they were still there.
We couldn't see them, but we could smell, hear, just know there was a way out.
Looking from the fourteenth floor may not have shown the way out,
But there was a lighted path on the ground, just following those who may not have had the views to get out, but never lost the vision.
21st century Chicagoans of means, would write large checks for those views.
But, these are early 60s views from the projects, where you can see everything in the city, but a way out.
The housing authority cleared out the old ghetto to build a brand spanking new one.
From people living on top of each other, to people living on top of each other, literally.
Sixteen stories, 10 apartments on each floor.
You could see the top of far off skyscrapers at eye level.
It was much harder to see your way out
Taylor Homes balkanized the South Side.
White brick buildings and red brick buildings.
Rivalries created with brick color as a reason, for people who found it difficult to find reason for so many other things .. terrible things … in their lives.
14th floor views could catch glimpses of the Lake, but not even a hint of a way out.
That's not to say there weren't good times.
Good people, doing good things, with good results.
But the stink of a small evil overpowers the gentle calming aromatics of a huge expanse of lives lived gently, lived simply.
A struggle to see things in perspective,
When it's so hard to see a way out.
Some of us, many of us, did make it out.
I'm sure it was as much luck as work and determination.
Fortunate for us that even though we couldn't see some things,
We knew they were still there.
We couldn't see them, but we could smell, hear, just know there was a way out.
Looking from the fourteenth floor may not have shown the way out,
But there was a lighted path on the ground, just following those who may not have had the views to get out, but never lost the vision.
No comments:
Post a Comment