Project Cabrini Green

Yesterday I walked past the last standing high-rise of the Cabrini Green housing development. The demolition of this building began last Wednesday, and already the windows have been knocked out leaving each room exposed to the elements and to the view of outsiders.

As I looked inside, I saw that some rooms and hallways are tagged with graffiti; others are adorned with carefully painted colors indicating the most recent occupant’s aesthetics. I felt intrusive and strange peering into these now vacated rooms. I can’t quite imagine the violation I’d feel having a stranger stare into the exposed windows of my childhood home. I also can’t imagine how much that stranger would fail to understand the memories and stories I associate with each room and hallway.

Not surprisingly, the demolition of the Cabrini Green buildings is controversial amongst its former residents. During the demolition process, a group of art students from the Art Institute of Chicago have been working on a public art installation with young people who formerly lived in the Cabrini Green houses. This public art piece tries to capture the myriad of sentiments that youth who formerly resided in the housing project feel toward Cabrini Green, the demolition, the Chicago Housing Authority, and life in Chicago.

Students from Cabrini Connections have been involved in this art project, entitled "Project Cabrini Green," and last month Cabrini Connections hosted a two-day workshop for the project. As the Project Cabrini Green website explains: “On March 28th, two days before the beginning of the demolition, 134 self-contained, battery-powered LED modules were placed inside 134 of the building's vacated apartments. The lights will blink every day from 7pm to 1am CDT, for the four week duration of the demolition, and will be gradually erased with the building. Each blinking light has a unique pattern. These patterns are a visual translation of poems written and recorded by the youth who attended workshops developed and instructed by Tichy, Appel, and students from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.”

You can listen to the recorded poetry and spoken word of these students by going to the Project Cabrini Green website, clicking “Home” and then selecting any of the blinking lights. In addition, a live-feed video of the demolition can be viewed on this site over the next few weeks.

Project Cabrini Green is a reminder that the Cabrini Green housing development will long be remembered by its former occupants and by the community. It will be interesting to see the ongoing legacy of Cabrini Green in the years to come. Although the houses will be entirely demolished within the month, the families and former occupants still need support and services. Cabrini Connections has been an important source of support for students and families in the Cabrini area since 1993. Hopefully, the doors to the program will remain open as a positive outlet for former residents of this community in the years to come.

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Today is the last day to support a Cabrini Madness team! If you are so compelled, please visit the Cabrini Connections website to learn more about the program and how you can get involved.

Cabrini--Not Just Torn Down Buildings

A few weeks ago when I was walking home from work, I noticed a large crowd gathered outside of the convenience store on my block. I saw a student from Cabrini Connections and asked him what had happened. Soon, I learned that the owner of the store, Bassam Naoum or "Ollie" as he was known, had been shot and killed over the weekend. It wasn't a robbery because nothing in the store or register had been taken.

I attended a vigil that night outside of the store along with well over a hundred people. I quickly discovered that Ollie had been a beloved part of the Cabrini community. We heard one poignant story after another of how Ollie would give neighborhood kids free snacks when they couldn't afford them, would say "pay me back later" to families needing food, and would always employ members of the community.

People at the vigil demonstrated disbelief, outrage and deep sadness about Ollie's tragic death. Several of the speakers made calls to action urging that the "violence must stop." Although I never had the privilege of knowing Ollie personally (I had only been into the store a handful of times), I was deeply moved by the strong outpouring of grief upon his death and the obvious impact Ollie clearly had on the Cabrini community.

A few days after the vigil, I found a column in the Chicago Tribune with the headline "Ollie's Death Marks Cabrini's End." While the column contains interesting information, I find the message conveyed in the headline and in sections of the article disquieting. Just because buildings are torn down doesn't mean that people disappear, unmet needs and social services are satiated, or that individuals no longer identify with the Cabrini community. On the contrary, attending the vigil along with a huge crowd of people from the area gave me a sense that Cabrini is far from gone.

As Dan Bassill's recent blog post discusses in detail, hundreds of families and school-aged students still live in the Cabrini neighborhood, and many more will be living in the area once plans for the Cabrini transformation are complete. When people think of Cabrini Green as a bunch of torn down buildings, it completely masks the urgent needs of the people living in this area. It also masks the urgent needs of programs and organizations serving these people.

Cabrini Connections has a long history of serving 7th-12th grade youth from the Cabrini area by matching them with caring adult tutors and mentors, offering assistance with high school and college applications, and giving them enrichment and learning opportunities. View the weekly "student spotlights" to learn about some of the almost 80 teens the program currently serves. Also stay tuned to CabriniBlog to keep up with what the program is doing.

The vigil for Ollie was almost three weeks ago now. Every day since, I walk by the store and there are still fresh flowers, new cards to Ollie, and candles lit in his honor. Cabrini Green doesn't seem dead to me at all.