SAH Archipedia New Content: Chicago’s Public Housing

We are pleased to announce the publication of ten new building entries in SAH Archipedia. Focusing on the complicated history of Chicago’s public housing sites, these entries were written by Lake Forest College students under the direction of Professor Cristina Groeger and in collaboration with the Society of Architectural Historians. The entries include the Chicago Housing Authority’s (CHA) development known as the ABLA Homes, an acronym for four separate public housing projects: Jane Addams Homes, Robert Brooks Homes, Loomis Courts, and Grace Abbott Homes. Other featured sites include Altgeld Gardens, Dearborn Homes, Wentworth Gardens, the Henry Horner Homes, and Trumbull Park Homes. Many of these buildings have since been demolished or renovated to accommodate the CHA’s work in the early 2000s to redevelop its public housing sites into mixed-income housing.

This project was funded by Lake Forest College’s Humanities 2020, a 4-year $1.1M grant from the Mellon Foundation. The grant is a partnership initiative to enhance and advance humanities education through deep engagement with issues of racism in Chicago; to demonstrate the mutual benefit that partnering institutions will derive from collaboration; and to produce meaningful public benefits for the Chicagoland area.