Pruitt–Igoe was named for St. Louisans Wendell O. Pruitt, an African-American fighter pilot in World War II, and William L. Igoe, a former US Congressman. Originally, the city planned two partitions: Pruitt for black residents and Igoe for whites, as St. Louis public housing was segregated until 1955.
Full Answer
What were the Igoe Apartments and Pruitt Homes?
Whites were assigned the Igoe Apartments, named for William L. Igoe, an Irish-American Congressman from St. Louis, while Blacks lived in the Pruitt Homes, named for Wendell O. Pruitt, a Tuskegee Airman from St. Louis. Some residents had already moved in when segregation came to an end with the Brown v. the Board of Education decision in 1954.
Who lives in Pruitt-Igoe public housing?
Although white tenants lived in Pruitt-Igoe when it first opened, the tenant population of Pruitt-Igoe was almost entirely black by the mid-1960s. In general, popular stereotypes about public housing in the United States obscure the reality that many residents experience.
What is the Pruitt-Igoe Myth?
The Pruitt-Igoe Myth is a 2011 documentary film detailing the history of the Pruitt–Igoe public housing complex in St. Louis, Missouri, and the eventual decision to raze the entire complex in 1976.
What is Pruitt-Igoe known for?
The Wendell O. Pruitt Homes and William Igoe Apartments, known together as Pruitt–Igoe ( / ˈpruɪt ˈaɪɡoʊ / ), were joint urban housing projects first occupied in 1954 in the US city of St. Louis, Missouri. Living conditions in Pruitt–Igoe began to decline soon after completion in 1956.
Who owns the Pruitt-Igoe site?
The site is owned by 20th and Cass LLC, tied to McKee's companies, which exercised an option with the city to purchase the site in 2016. The site was the location of the troubled Pruitt-Igoe public housing complex, which was demolished in the 1970s.
What was Pruitt-Igoe made of?
concreteThey were built of concrete and clad in brick. Each building was 170 feet in length and contained between 80 and 90 units, though some buildings had up to 150. The complex totaled 2,870 apartments (1,736 in Pruitt and 1,132 in Igoe) and housed more than 10,000 people at full occupancy.
Where was Pruitt-Igoe built?
St Louis, MissouriThe Pruitt-Igoe Housing Project was located in the predominantly African American and economically depressed Desoto-Carr neighborhood just north-west of downtown St Louis, Missouri. By 1956, the project totaled 33 high-rise buildings that consisted of the Wendell Oliver Pruitt Homes (1,736 units) and the William L.
Who was the architect for the Pruitt-Igoe project?
After a number of false dawns, in 1950, Minoru Yamasaki of Leinweber, Yamasaki & Hellmuth began the work of designing what became the Pruitt-Igoe development of 33, 11-storey blocks containing 2,870 apartments over a 57-acre site.
Why was Pruitt Igoe a failure?
Because Pruitt-Igoe's upkeep depended entirely on rent from the project's low-income tenants, excessive vacancies would imperil its financial and physical condition.
How do you pronounce Pruitt Igoe?
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Why did people move from the south to St Louis?
In the early part of the century, many African Americans migrated from the South to the city for industrial jobs, as part of the Great Migration. St. Louis did not escape the Great Depression and its high unemployment. During World War II the city hosted war industries that employed thousands of workers.
When was Cabrini Green built?
Cabrini–Green HomesCoordinates41°54′1.5″N 87°38′24.5″WStatus140 of 584 Units (Rowhouses; Renovated)ConstructionConstructed1942; Cabrini Rowhouses 1957; Cabrini Extensions 1962; William Green Homes7 more rows
What did the Housing Act of 1949 do?
The Housing Act of 1949 was passed to help address the decline of urban housing following the exodus to the suburbs. The legislation provided governance over how federal financial resources would shape the growth of American cities.
What is Pruitt Igoe's remains?
Pruitt-Igoe's Remains. An urban forest overtakes what was the greatest failure of utopic urban housing. Intended as a paradise, Pruitt-Igoe is remembered today as America’s most notorious housing project. “Modern architecture died in St Louis, Missouri on July 15, 1972, at 3.32 pm,” wrote architecture critic Charles Jencks ...
When was Pruitt Igoe completed?
Completed in 1954, the 33 11-story buildings replaced entire neighborhoods ...
How many tenants lived in Pruitt Igoe in 1965?
By 1965, 9,962 tenants lived in Pruitt-Igoe. Seven years later (1972) the vacancy was 27 percent, the highest of any public housing project in the nation. The concentration of poverty combined with the high vacancy rate generated conditions that exacerbated crime and violence in the project. By the early 1970s, Pruitt-Igoe had come ...
When was Pruitt Igoe demolished?
In 1972, the federal government gave the St. Louis Housing Authority permission to begin bulldozing and dynamiting the project, making it the first public housing facility in the nation to be demolished. By 1976, all of the buildings were gone. Currently, the former site of Pruitt-Igoe remains vacant and appears as an urban forest.
Why did Pruitt Igoe tenants strike?
Louis housing projects in a nine-month rent strike led by Bertha Gilkey, a Pruitt-Igoe resident, to protest intolerable living conditions and the mismanagement of funds. In 1972, the federal government gave the St. Louis Housing Authority permission to begin bulldozing ...
What was the impact of Pruitt Igoe on the city of Desoto Carr?
Although some residents initially liked the housing units, soon after its completion, Pruitt-Igoe became associated with crime, poverty, and segregation. By the end of World War II, the Desoto-Carr and Mill Creek Valley neighborhoods were targeted by city officials as sites for urban renewal. With passage of the National Housing Acts ...
What is the Pruitt Igoe myth?
The Pruitt-Igoe Myth. The Pruitt-Igoe Myth is a 2011 documentary film detailing the history of the Pruitt–Igoe public housing complex in St. Louis, Missouri, and the eventual decision to raze the entire complex in 1976. The documentary argues that the violent social collapse within the Pruitt-Igoe complex was not due to ...
Where is the Pruitt Igoe building?
The film begins with a former resident of the Pruitt–Igoe public housing complex returning to the site of the buildings in the north side of St. Louis, and noting that in spite of the decades since the planned demolition of the buildings, the site remains largely vacant. It continues by detailing the decision by the city to replace 19th century tenement housing with high-rise public housing, ultimately designed by Minoru Yamasaki (later the famed designer of the World Trade Center) in the modernist style as thirty-three 11-floor buildings.
How was the fate of the Pruitt-Igoe project determined?
Instead, the explanation offered is that the fate of the Pruitt-Igoe project was determined by the declining population and industrial base in St. Louis after World War II.
When was Pruitt Igoe razed?
Louis, Missouri, and the eventual decision to raze the entire complex in 1976.
What is the Pruitt Igoe myth?
Louis, public welfare policies, racial segregation, and flawed assumptions made by the project’s planners better explain what happened. As one speaker in the film states, “The bigger story is in fact the decline of the city overall.”
Why was Pruitt Igoe demolished?
In the 1970s, the city of St. Louis demolished the Pruitt-Igoe public housing towers due to high vacancy and crime rates. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Policy Development and Research. The Myths of Pruitt-Igoe.
What is the film "Pruitt Igoe" about?
The film provides an alternative to the popular explanations of Pruitt-Igoe’s demise. According to the film, these narratives have blamed modernist architecture , attacked public assistance programs, and stigmatized public housing residents themselves in the course of explaining Pruitt-Igoe’s failure. As Bryan Greene, HUD General Deputy Assistant ...
When was Pruitt Igoe razed?
On July 15, 1972, the city of St. Louis admitted defeat and demolished 3 of the project’s 33 towers. By 1976, the razing of Pruitt-Igoe was complete. Today, half of the property is occupied by two St. Louis city schools; in the other half, an overgrown urban forest has sprung up amid the rubble.
Was Pruitt Igoe a black or white town?
Board of Education that Pruitt-Igoe was planned as an integrated project. Although white tenants lived in Pruitt-Igoe when it first opened, the tenant population of Pruitt-Igoe was almost entirely black by the mid-1960s.
Is Pruitt Igoe a high rise?
Moreover, although public housing is often characterized as high rises such as Pruitt-Igoe or Chicago’s Cabrini-Green, the vast majority of public housing developments are much smaller. According to the HUD Picture of Subsidized Households, in 2013 only 13 percent of public housing developments had 250 units or more.
Why is Pruitt Igoe so famous?
Pruitt-Igoe has become an icon because of its monumental size, its television appeal, and the juxtaposition of its early promise and ultimate abandonment. Single-family homes, duplexes and apartments were emptying and being demolished across the city, but nothing compares to a building implosion for dramatic television.
What is the Pruitt Igoe myth?
The Pruitt-Igoe Myth: an Urban History. Pruitt-Igoe. The name looms large in the minds of residents of St. Louis, but also in the world of architecture, social welfare, government planning and criminology. The Pruitt-Igoe housing project failed.
What was Alex's point in 2011?
The point that Alex was making back in 2011 was that much of St. Louis' housing stock was in really, really bad shape by the time Pruitt Igoe was built - and not just housing inhabited by African American people, though I don't think anyone would deny the terrible treatment of African American people at that time.
What was Pruitt Igoe's feeling?
To her, Pruitt-Igoe was "exciting" and "another world". There was a genuine feeling of joy, a belief that things were different. It was a time when America believed that a modern age was upon us and that we could simply build things that would dictate solutions. {Pruitt-Igoe under construction – via Pruitt-Igoe flickr }.
Can a man live in Pruitt Igoe?
Federal policy at the time dictated that no "able-bodied man" could live in Pruitt-Igoe. The average apartment was home to one mother and five children. Families were told that fathers would have to leave the state for them to be eligible to live in the project.
Can federal funds be used to build Pruitt Igoe?
Federal funds could be used to build Pruitt-Igoe, but not to maintain it. This issue is still very much with St. Louis today in the form of transit funding. At the beginning, social activists, downtown business interests and the construction trade lobby got what they wanted.
Did Pruitt Igoe have a white section?
Pruitt Igoe actually had a white section and a black secition (Pruitt was black and Igoe was white, or vice version, can't remember). White flight from Pruitt Igoe mirrored white flight elsewhere and was one of the myriad reasons the complex failed.
What is the Pruitt Igoe myth?
The Pruitt-Igoe Myth is particularly poignant in interviews with former residents who recall, as children, preferring to play in nearby vacant fields—and observe the insects—over the planned courtyards and playgrounds of the “to wers in the park” built in the style of Le Corbusier.
When was Pruitt Igoe demolished?
Progressives have long sought a revisionist history of Pruitt-Igoe, the 32-building public housing complex in St. Louis famously demolished in 1972. An historian interviewed in Chad Freidrichs’s new documentary, The Pruitt-Igoe Myth, describes the stakes well: “We don’t want people to think of Pruitt-Igoe as a failure if they’re going ...
Who played a role in the decision to demolish Pruitt-Igoe?
The sociologist Nathan Glazer, who, as a federal official, played a role in the decision to demolish Pruitt-Igoe, recalls the flaws in its design.
Was Pruitt Igoe's failure a fault of concept?
The first is a variation of the progressive belief that “real socialism was never tried”—that is, the failure of Pruitt-Igoe and public housing generally was not a fault of concept, but of implementation. Freidrichs overlooks what are likely essential features—not isolated failures—of public ownership.
