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Today in America,
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the gap between rich and poor continues to grow.
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Once again, we're in the midst of a debate--
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can public assistance and housing programs
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help close the gap?
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I'm Natasha del toro, and tonight,
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we'll go back to an earlier experiment.
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In the 1950s, the Pruitt-Igoe towers
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promised relief to St. Louis's poor people
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living in overcrowded tenements.
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Less than 2 decades later,
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the public housing complex was demolished.
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Why did the Pruitt-Igoe project fail?
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This is "America reframed."
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Narrator: In 2005, columnist Sylvester Brown
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began a series of articles on the Pruitt-Igoe
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public housing development, where he once resided
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as a child.
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The north side St. Louis site,
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on which Pruitt-Igoe once stood, is now vacant.
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I was driving down Jefferson Avenue
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and I happened to notice the trees.
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And I've driven by Pruitt-Igoe before,
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but I really never paid attention to it.
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There were full-grown trees and the question hit me,
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"how long does it take to grow a tree?"
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So, I pulled over and I just looked at those trees
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and there were so many, many, many trees,
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and I thought, "wow, you know, it's been
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at least 30 years since I been in there."
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And I was supposed to get a police escort and I said,
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"eh, I'm not gonna do all that."
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I wanted my first revisit to Pruitt-Igoe to be alone.
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It was like a little, mini forest.
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There was tall grass, white-tip weeds,
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trees all over the place.
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(Police sirens in distance)
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And I followed this dusty, little path
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and I walked up this path, and I sat on this big mound
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of concrete and dirt, I just sat there,
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and I reflected, and the sun was goin' down.
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I remembered it as a child, looking out
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my 10th-story window and watching the sun go down.
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So the memories started to come back.
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And as I was sitting there, I heard this (Blowing sound)
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And I looked across and there was this black dog just running.
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(Barking)
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I started runnin' out of there and I had this idea
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that this slobbery dog's gonna jump on my back.
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But I made it out of there, and I remember
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sitting outside there, panting, and being afraid
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and I was afraid again,
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feeling this fear I felt when I was six years old,
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the danger of being at Pruitt-Igoe.
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Film narrator: These developments are run
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by the St. Louis housing authority.
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This is a far cry from the crowded, collapsing
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tenements that many of these people have known.
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Here, in bright, new buildings with spacious grounds,
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they can live.
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Live with indoor plumbing, electric lights,
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fresh, plastered walls and the rest of the conveniences
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that are expected in the 20th century.
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In these projects, children can play in safety
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on the wide lawns,
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not in the littered alleys and vacant lots.
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Narrator: It was touted of as a solution,
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a cure for the disease.
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Pruitt-Igoe would rise above the polluted slums,
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lifting its residents out of poverty.
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(Dog barking)
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They would thrive and the city would prosper.
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Everything would be different.
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Well, it was a very beautiful place, like a big hotel resort,
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I'd say, with plenty of green grass, trees,
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shrubbery, and all the works.
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What happened?
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Well, one day we woke up and it was all gone.
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Reporter: In the middle '50s, St. Louis thought
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it had solved its low-cost housing needs,
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but instead, a monster was created.
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But things changed quickly.
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As problems mounted, the decline was steep.
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Those who could move out did.
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Reporter: 12,000 people were originally jammed
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into these 33 buildings, only 2,500 people
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still linger in the remaining shells.
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It became poor, increasingly segregated,
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heavily vandalized, and began to resemble
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the slums it replaced.
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Reporter: Pruitt-Igoe looks like a battle ground.
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Vandalism and neglect have left fear
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among the remaining occupants.
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Crime rates rose, fear grew,
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and conditions worsened.
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Outsiders stayed away, it had become notorious.
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Reporter: Some projects became breeding grounds for crime.
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The Pruitt-Igoe project in St. Louis is a casebook example.
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In St. Louis, Missouri today, the health of an ailing
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neighborhood got some long and badly needed treatment.
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So in St. Louis today, they were hard at work again.
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This time, tearing down what was built before.
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Two decades after opening Pruitt-Igoe,
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the government gave up.
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Reporter: And because they are so desperate,
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they are willing to try desperate things.
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It was a powerful story with a dramatic end.
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The footage was replayed again and again.
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One image seemed to sum up the infamy.
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It circulated worldwide.
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It was reprinted next to photos from earlier years
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and suggested the simple question,
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"what caused the failure?"
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The Pruitt-Igoe myth begins here.
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Reporter: When critics talk of the failures
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of federally-funded, high-rise housing projects,
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they often cite the example of the huge Pruitt-Igoe project
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in St. Louis.
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Some blame the architect.
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Modernist high-rises like Pruitt-Igoe, they said,
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created a breeding ground for isolation,
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vandalism, and crime.
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Reporter: The net result of all this quality design
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was, in fact, the production of an environment of fear.
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Others attacked the welfare state,
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with big government the problem
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and Pruitt-Igoe the result.
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Reporter: Film of that demolition has become
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an anti-public housing clich⸡
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this federal government of ours no longer has an open checkbook.
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Many stated flatly that the residents
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were too poor, uneducated, or rural,
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that they'd caused their own problems
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and had taken Pruitt-Igoe with them.
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Reporter... social as well as economic failure.
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Long after the dust settled and the site was cleared,
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this is the Pruitt-Igoe that remained.
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The mythical Pruitt-Igoe with a fatal flaw,
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doomed to failure from the start.
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Little was said about the laws that built
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and maintained it, the economy that deserted it,
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the segregation that stripped away opportunity,
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the radically changing city in which it stood.
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In the years of Pruitt-Igoe, the American city
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was wrenched apart by devastating forces.
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They were felt most deeply by the residents
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of a large but vulnerable housing project
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on the north side of St. Louis.
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It's a powerful story with a dramatic end.
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And its aftershocks are still with us.
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Film narrator: In the years after the war,
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they came by the thousands...
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Small farmers who couldn't make it on 40 acres.
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Tenants who saw a chance for their children up north.
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They brought them in the hope that in the center
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of so much wealth, there would be a place for them.
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Mechanized labor had changed agriculture in the South.
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Tenant farmers, sharecroppers, and field workers
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could no longer scratch out a living.
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The new migrants arrived with little money or property.
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They were shepherded into the only place
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in which they were welcome,
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distressed neighborhoods, near inner-city jobs,
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known as the slums.
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You really had these people called slumlords,
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who took advantage of the fact that the poor basically
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had to live in the center of cities,
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close to where their jobs were.
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You had acres and acres of housing that was unsafe
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and unsanitary.
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By unsanitary, it meant a complete lack
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of the basic plumbing facilities.
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And by unsafe, it meant you could be burned to death.
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And the slumlords knew that they could just jam
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as many people as possible into it.
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So, it was a very profitable system,
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but it was also completely destructive,
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not just for the people who were stuck in the slums,
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but for the whole urban community,
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and there is a despair that private enterprise
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could ever deal with this issue.
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The door was open for a public option.
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Housing reformers pressed lawmakers to replace
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the slums with clean, modern housing,
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to re-energize the depression-era housing program
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that had been stalled by the war.
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They found an unlikely ally in civic leaders and politicians,
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who began to see the ring of slums as an eyesore
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that blighted the aging downtown area.
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Eager developers desired valuable inner city land,
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while anxious business interests
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worried fearful consumers
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were being driven away by the slums.
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The downtown interests just wanted the slums to go away.
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They didn't particularly care what happened to the people,
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but because they were wealthy and powerful,
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they were a very important part of the coalition
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that passed the 1949 housing act.
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(Building collapsing)
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The federal government would put up the money
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to buy slum property, using eminent domain, if necessary,
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to condemn not just individual houses,
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but whole blocks and whole sets of blocks,
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to knock them down and to rebuild
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on a modern and humane scale.
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The essence of public housing was that the public sector
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could do a better job.
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People who had been living where they literally
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never saw the sun, now, they would have
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more magnificent views than the richest people in St. Louis.
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It enabled the most disadvantaged people
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in our cities to be liberated from the slums.
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To residents weary of the poverty
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and desperation of the depression,
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the sacrifices of the war,
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for a city so haunted by its celebrated past,
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yearning for a renaissance,
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a new, modern St. Louis, rebuilt from the ground up,
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would be the salvation of the city.
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St. Louis' post-war project of downtown renewal
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was one of the most ambitious in the nation.
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Some plans never materialized.
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Others were breathtaking, in conception and execution.
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Just to the north and west of downtown,
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construction began on a newly-cleared 57-acre site
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in 1952.
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The Wendell Pruitt and William Igoe homes
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became a proud symbol of St. Louis' rebirth.
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A modern break with the crumbling past
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that surrounded it.
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Woman: My family came from a very small house
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and I would say it was like a shack, actually.
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There were three rooms and there were twelve in my family.
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The sleeping conditions were quite crowded.
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My mom slept in the kitchen, if you can believe that.
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She had a roll-away bed in the kitchen,
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next to the pot belly stove.
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Woman: Some friends came by and said,
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"you got a new project up here,
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we're going to put an application, you wanna come?"
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Right on the corner, there, of Jefferson and old Fowler,
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it was the first building they opened up in Pruitt.
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It was like an oasis in the desert.
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All this newness, I'd be the first person
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to occupy my unit, that was a thrill for me.
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And then they put me on the 11th floor,
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where I was, you didn't live any higher than the 2nd floor,
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and they were puttin' me on the 11th floor with elevators.
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But once I moved in on the 11th floor with the elevators,
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I called it the "poor man's penthouse."
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I didn't wanna live on another floor.
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I never thought I would live in that kind of a surrounding.
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Jacquelyn: When we first moved in, it was probably
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one of the most exciting things of my life.
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It was like another world.
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Everybody had a bed.
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My mom had her own bed,
258
00:15:24,608 --> 00:15:28,612
and I was so happy to see her
259
00:15:28,612 --> 00:15:33,016
just in a room to herself, with a door.
260
00:15:35,285 --> 00:15:38,688
Woman: We moved there really close to Christmas.
261
00:15:38,688 --> 00:15:41,992
It was like a Christmas present.
262
00:15:41,992 --> 00:15:44,861
There was snow on the ground, there was lights
263
00:15:44,861 --> 00:15:47,464
all over the place, cars back and forth,
264
00:15:47,464 --> 00:15:49,199
people walkin' back and forth
265
00:15:49,199 --> 00:15:51,434
and everybody had Christmas lights.
266
00:15:51,434 --> 00:15:53,570
Everybody had Christmas lights, it seemed like they all
267
00:15:53,570 --> 00:15:55,305
came home about the same time,
268
00:15:55,305 --> 00:15:56,873
just as soon as the sun would go down,
269
00:15:56,873 --> 00:15:59,543
the Christmas lights would start to come on.
270
00:15:59,543 --> 00:16:02,345
Then it was, "wow, look at this."
271
00:16:03,847 --> 00:16:08,485
I can still see it, it was really nice.
272
00:16:10,720 --> 00:16:14,724
I tell you, when I drive down on Jefferson,
273
00:16:14,724 --> 00:16:18,895
I always have to park and just look.
274
00:16:20,230 --> 00:16:25,769
It brings back wonderful memories.
275
00:16:25,769 --> 00:16:32,475
I'm very truthful when I say, "my memories of Pruitt-Igoe
276
00:16:32,475 --> 00:16:36,546
are probably some of the best memories I have."
277
00:16:38,081 --> 00:16:40,217
I remember a warm sense of family
278
00:16:40,217 --> 00:16:41,718
and a warm sense of community.
279
00:16:41,718 --> 00:16:43,820
Pruitt-Igoe was a place that I remembered
280
00:16:43,820 --> 00:16:46,489
as this wonderful building of different smells
281
00:16:46,489 --> 00:16:50,460
of pies and cookies and cakes and all these eclectic dishes
282
00:16:50,460 --> 00:16:54,064
that were being cooked by the residents
283
00:16:54,064 --> 00:16:55,498
on the 11th floor.
284
00:16:55,498 --> 00:16:57,067
It was a place where we played hard.
285
00:16:57,067 --> 00:17:01,004
Ran up and down these little breezeways and up and down
286
00:17:01,004 --> 00:17:03,540
the steps and running around,
287
00:17:03,540 --> 00:17:05,342
so it was a place where kids could really,
288
00:17:05,342 --> 00:17:07,377
really get a chance to play hard.
289
00:17:07,377 --> 00:17:10,146
Pruitt and Igoe was a safe place for me.
290
00:17:10,146 --> 00:17:13,516
I mean, I don't care what people said about it
291
00:17:13,516 --> 00:17:18,154
that lived outside there, if you didn't live in there
292
00:17:18,154 --> 00:17:22,792
you thought it was a bad place, but growin' up in there
293
00:17:22,792 --> 00:17:27,631
was--you knew the people
294
00:17:27,631 --> 00:17:30,267
and you were never alone.
295
00:17:30,267 --> 00:17:32,102
I have to say, you were never alone,
296
00:17:32,102 --> 00:17:33,970
because there's somebody across the hall,
297
00:17:33,970 --> 00:17:36,940
there's somebody down under you, there's somebody up over you.
298
00:17:36,940 --> 00:17:38,508
There's people here, there's lights here,
299
00:17:38,508 --> 00:17:41,278
there's life here, and so I'm not alone
300
00:17:41,278 --> 00:17:42,579
and I'm not afraid.
301
00:17:42,579 --> 00:17:44,948
I like people, I like neighborhoods,
302
00:17:44,948 --> 00:17:46,549
I like driving, and I like to hear music,
303
00:17:46,549 --> 00:17:49,419
I like to see people on their front porches,
304
00:17:49,419 --> 00:17:51,388
I like to see kids playing in parks,
305
00:17:51,388 --> 00:17:54,457
I like to see schools, I like to see libraries,
306
00:17:54,457 --> 00:17:57,794
I like to see--you know, and at one time, Pruitt-Igoe had that.
307
00:17:57,794 --> 00:18:02,666
It had this, this life, this engaging, electric life.
308
00:18:02,666 --> 00:18:08,004
There were friendships and bonds formed there
309
00:18:08,004 --> 00:18:11,474
that have just lasted a lifetime.
310
00:18:11,474 --> 00:18:16,279
I know, I know a lot of bad things came out of Pruitt-Igoe,
311
00:18:16,279 --> 00:18:21,017
I know they did, but I don't think
312
00:18:21,017 --> 00:18:23,620
they outweigh the good.
313
00:18:23,620 --> 00:18:26,423
I really, really don't
314
00:18:26,423 --> 00:18:30,026
because at first, Pruitt-Igoe was just
315
00:18:30,026 --> 00:18:34,297
a wonderful place, it was--it was wonderful.
316
00:18:34,297 --> 00:18:39,669
I think Pruitt-Igoe would be here today had it been
317
00:18:39,669 --> 00:18:46,409
maintained like it was when they first opened it up.
318
00:18:47,877 --> 00:18:51,047
When we first moved into Pruitt and Igoe,
319
00:18:51,047 --> 00:18:55,151
it was clean, always clean.
320
00:18:55,151 --> 00:18:58,021
The maintenance men were always sweepin',
321
00:18:58,021 --> 00:19:00,423
the elevator was always clean,
322
00:19:00,423 --> 00:19:04,160
and I remember there was a quilted kind of a cloth
323
00:19:04,160 --> 00:19:06,363
that went on the elevator when you moved in,
324
00:19:06,363 --> 00:19:08,331
so you wouldn't scratch it up,
325
00:19:10,066 --> 00:19:12,969
but the maintenance started to just go down
326
00:19:12,969 --> 00:19:15,071
and down and down and down until it seemed
327
00:19:15,071 --> 00:19:18,441
like nobody cared anymore about Pruitt and Igoe.
328
00:19:18,441 --> 00:19:21,277
The maintenance men stopped cleanin' the elevators.
329
00:19:21,277 --> 00:19:23,580
The kids got to where they would go in the elevator
330
00:19:23,580 --> 00:19:25,648
as their personal restroom.
331
00:19:25,648 --> 00:19:28,585
I mean there's many times, these urine-smelled elevators,
332
00:19:28,585 --> 00:19:31,821
they'd stop and you'd push the button all day long
333
00:19:31,821 --> 00:19:33,156
and nobody would come,
334
00:19:33,156 --> 00:19:34,557
so you'd be in this dark elevator--
335
00:19:34,557 --> 00:19:36,926
I remember me and my brother often times--
336
00:19:36,926 --> 00:19:38,361
stuck on this stupid,
337
00:19:38,361 --> 00:19:40,697
urine-smelled elevator and couldn't get out,
338
00:19:40,697 --> 00:19:43,633
so what we learned to do was to push the doors open,
339
00:19:43,633 --> 00:19:45,902
find a little cable and pull ourselves up
340
00:19:45,902 --> 00:19:48,138
to our floor and pull ourselves out of there.
341
00:19:48,138 --> 00:19:50,507
In fact, we became the guys who people would call
342
00:19:50,507 --> 00:19:52,342
when you needed to get somebody out of the elevator.
343
00:19:52,342 --> 00:19:53,843
We'd come and we'd push the doors open.
344
00:19:53,843 --> 00:19:55,445
"You're down on that floor."
345
00:19:55,445 --> 00:19:58,248
We'd go down there and we'd help get them out of there.
346
00:20:02,152 --> 00:20:04,387
Man: You've been under considerable fire
347
00:20:04,387 --> 00:20:07,190
because of what is alleged to be,
348
00:20:07,190 --> 00:20:08,958
I'd say poor housekeeping practices
349
00:20:08,958 --> 00:20:10,660
on the part of the housing authority.
350
00:20:10,660 --> 00:20:12,629
How do you respond to that, what do you think
351
00:20:12,629 --> 00:20:14,731
is really the thing that's wrong here?
352
00:20:14,731 --> 00:20:19,102
Well, in dealing
with public housing,
353
00:20:19,102 --> 00:20:22,806
the problem that we find
the most pressing,
354
00:20:22,806 --> 00:20:26,076
is one I've talked about
for quite a while, publicly.
355
00:20:26,076 --> 00:20:30,413
The fact that, uh, we simply do not have enough money
356
00:20:30,413 --> 00:20:34,517
to operate as well as we should, perhaps.
357
00:20:34,517 --> 00:20:36,286
What about this incinerator, here, behind us,
358
00:20:36,286 --> 00:20:39,022
do you have difficulty with things like that?
359
00:20:39,022 --> 00:20:41,191
Well, this is a building which will be cleaned.
360
00:20:41,191 --> 00:20:44,661
Every building cannot be cleaned at exactly the same moment.
361
00:20:44,661 --> 00:20:47,430
People working all day, cleaning inside and outside.
362
00:20:47,430 --> 00:20:50,166
The incinerator is rather small,
363
00:20:50,166 --> 00:20:51,634
but it was built that way
364
00:20:51,634 --> 00:20:53,069
and there's not much we can do about it.
365
00:20:53,069 --> 00:20:54,637
We do the best we can and in most cases,
366
00:20:54,637 --> 00:20:55,972
it works quite well.
367
00:20:57,440 --> 00:21:00,143
Man: We pulled up with the moving van.
368
00:21:00,143 --> 00:21:03,279
The stench from the garbage piling up,
369
00:21:03,279 --> 00:21:06,749
in front of the incinerator, wafted out of the elevator
370
00:21:06,749 --> 00:21:10,820
and I knew at that point that there was somethin'
371
00:21:10,820 --> 00:21:17,127
drastically different about this living arrangement.
372
00:21:17,127 --> 00:21:19,329
The sight of all these huge buildings
373
00:21:19,329 --> 00:21:23,133
and all of these people and just the overall
374
00:21:23,133 --> 00:21:25,435
non-upkeep of the place,
375
00:21:25,435 --> 00:21:27,337
it was a shock for me, as a kid,
376
00:21:27,337 --> 00:21:30,840
and I never really recovered from that first day.
377
00:21:34,844 --> 00:21:36,813
Robert: Almost from day one, these buildings
378
00:21:36,813 --> 00:21:39,516
were under-maintained.
379
00:21:39,516 --> 00:21:42,385
There was never an adequate provision
380
00:21:42,385 --> 00:21:45,855
for the maintenance, that was so important
381
00:21:45,855 --> 00:21:49,058
to these very complex structures.
382
00:21:50,760 --> 00:21:53,062
Government paid for building them,
383
00:21:53,062 --> 00:21:55,131
but the maintenance had to come out
384
00:21:55,131 --> 00:21:59,269
of money from the rents of the tenants.
385
00:21:59,269 --> 00:22:03,139
And the tenants couldn't afford the very highly-skilled
386
00:22:03,139 --> 00:22:06,843
maintenance people to keep these buildings operating.
387
00:22:09,479 --> 00:22:14,150
So, in this very basic way, I think the public sector
388
00:22:14,150 --> 00:22:18,087
failed the people who were living in these buildings.
389
00:22:20,256 --> 00:22:23,393
From the first, public housing had enemies.
390
00:22:23,393 --> 00:22:26,196
Banks, realtors, and chambers of commerce
391
00:22:26,196 --> 00:22:28,665
lined up against it, fearing its effect
392
00:22:28,665 --> 00:22:31,100
on their bottom line.
393
00:22:31,100 --> 00:22:33,670
Public housing was labeled as un-American,
394
00:22:33,670 --> 00:22:37,707
as a communist erosion of the free market.
395
00:22:37,707 --> 00:22:39,576
But clearing slums
396
00:22:39,576 --> 00:22:41,110
and constructing large buildings
397
00:22:41,110 --> 00:22:42,779
was popular with downtown business interests
398
00:22:42,779 --> 00:22:44,614
and building trades.
399
00:22:44,614 --> 00:22:47,650
Clearance allowed for profitable redevelopment.
400
00:22:47,650 --> 00:22:51,221
Construction meant lucrative building contracts and jobs.
401
00:22:52,722 --> 00:22:56,092
And so the law was written and the slums were cleared,
402
00:22:56,092 --> 00:22:59,229
the towers built and valuable land redeveloped,
403
00:22:59,229 --> 00:23:00,997
all with federal funding.
404
00:23:03,466 --> 00:23:07,470
But the enemies of public housing had their say as well.
405
00:23:07,470 --> 00:23:10,773
No federal funds for operation and maintenance.
406
00:23:10,773 --> 00:23:14,377
The projects became dependent on their tenants income.
407
00:23:16,279 --> 00:23:18,548
In the beginning, low- and middle-income applicants
408
00:23:18,548 --> 00:23:21,751
flooded into Pruitt-Igoe's new apartments.
409
00:23:21,751 --> 00:23:25,555
Rental incomes were strong, grounds were maintained,
410
00:23:25,555 --> 00:23:26,789
elevators worked,
411
00:23:26,789 --> 00:23:29,859
security staff patrolled the area.
412
00:23:29,859 --> 00:23:31,761
It thrived in the crowded city.
413
00:23:33,863 --> 00:23:35,465
But the city was changing.
414
00:23:40,536 --> 00:23:42,405
Man: One of the big questions for planners
415
00:23:42,405 --> 00:23:45,241
and policy makers and politicians, during and after
416
00:23:45,241 --> 00:23:47,210
world war ii, was, "what would the future
417
00:23:47,210 --> 00:23:50,847
of St. Louis look like in terms of its population?"
418
00:23:50,847 --> 00:23:52,715
Between 1930 and 1940, St. Louis
419
00:23:52,715 --> 00:23:56,085
actually declined slightly and that put the fear of God
420
00:23:56,085 --> 00:23:58,588
in the city planners and the politicians.
421
00:23:58,588 --> 00:24:02,792
So, growth becomes almost a kind of psychology.
422
00:24:02,792 --> 00:24:05,628
They really wanted to believe that that was an anomaly,
423
00:24:05,628 --> 00:24:07,797
that that was a depression-era problem,
424
00:24:07,797 --> 00:24:10,233
and the growth trajectory was actually going to be upward
425
00:24:10,233 --> 00:24:12,335
after world war ii, so that there would be
426
00:24:12,335 --> 00:24:15,305
about a million people by 1970.
427
00:24:15,305 --> 00:24:18,408
And if you were going to fit a million people into the city,
428
00:24:18,408 --> 00:24:22,178
then you had to have some kind of large-scale housing.
429
00:24:23,780 --> 00:24:25,181
The problem is though,
430
00:24:25,181 --> 00:24:27,317
that there are two trends going on at once.
431
00:24:27,317 --> 00:24:29,385
One of the trends is upward growth
432
00:24:29,385 --> 00:24:32,422
and the other trend is large numbers of people,
433
00:24:32,422 --> 00:24:35,992
who have enough means, leaving the city.
434
00:24:35,992 --> 00:24:37,960
And planners mistook which one
435
00:24:37,960 --> 00:24:39,562
was the dominant trend.
436
00:24:42,031 --> 00:24:46,169
St. Louis' population peaked in the 1950s.
437
00:24:46,169 --> 00:24:49,372
The growth that had defined the war years had ended.
438
00:24:51,908 --> 00:24:54,110
Yet, well out of earshot of downtown gridlock
439
00:24:54,110 --> 00:24:57,780
and demolition, a new kind of city was being developed
440
00:24:57,780 --> 00:24:59,549
on a massive scale.
441
00:25:03,252 --> 00:25:05,621
But it was not the urban high-rise envisioned
442
00:25:05,621 --> 00:25:07,423
by city planners.
443
00:25:07,423 --> 00:25:11,027
Instead, the new American dream was built on cheap lots
444
00:25:11,027 --> 00:25:13,262
on the margins of cities,
445
00:25:13,262 --> 00:25:16,666
and one-story ranches that came to dominate the landscape
446
00:25:16,666 --> 00:25:18,768
of the suburbs.
447
00:25:18,768 --> 00:25:20,336
Film narrator: Two thirds of the people in our country
448
00:25:20,336 --> 00:25:22,505
now live in a metropolitan area,
449
00:25:22,505 --> 00:25:26,275
mostly, the growth is out here, in the suburbs.
450
00:25:26,275 --> 00:25:30,046
There are many good things about living in this new world.
451
00:25:30,046 --> 00:25:31,781
It has given millions of families
452
00:25:31,781 --> 00:25:35,885
pleasant, well-planned homes, a place to have a garden,
453
00:25:35,885 --> 00:25:38,755
with light and air and space.
454
00:25:38,755 --> 00:25:42,625
In the post-war years, a new lifestyle was emerging,
455
00:25:42,625 --> 00:25:46,062
as a centuries-old engine of American urban growth
456
00:25:46,062 --> 00:25:50,566
ground to a halt and then reversed.
457
00:25:50,566 --> 00:25:54,804
Criticized for conformity, condemned for endless sprawl,
458
00:25:54,804 --> 00:25:59,542
idealized, desired, labeled American dream or nightmare,
459
00:25:59,542 --> 00:26:03,112
the sudden rise of the suburb, for good or ill,
460
00:26:03,112 --> 00:26:07,016
reshaped the American city.
461
00:26:07,016 --> 00:26:11,287
Robert: What people didn't see in 1949
462
00:26:11,287 --> 00:26:15,057
was that the cities were emptying out.
463
00:26:15,057 --> 00:26:17,493
They were losing their middle class,
464
00:26:17,493 --> 00:26:21,531
they were losing their industrial base.
465
00:26:21,531 --> 00:26:24,567
With the loss of population and jobs, you have the loss
466
00:26:24,567 --> 00:26:28,237
of tax base and you enter into this vicious circle,
467
00:26:28,237 --> 00:26:31,207
where within the cities, there was a deterioration
468
00:26:31,207 --> 00:26:33,976
of basic services,
469
00:26:33,976 --> 00:26:36,479
whereas in the suburbs, every single year,
470
00:26:36,479 --> 00:26:39,482
there was a growth in the value of your house,
471
00:26:39,482 --> 00:26:42,952
more services, more jobs that were close
472
00:26:42,952 --> 00:26:46,722
to where you were living, better schools.
473
00:26:46,722 --> 00:26:49,792
The federal government basically committed itself
474
00:26:49,792 --> 00:26:54,997
to making the suburbs affordable for the American middle class
475
00:26:54,997 --> 00:26:58,334
and for the white working class.
476
00:26:58,334 --> 00:27:03,272
Essentially, we had a national pro-suburban policy
477
00:27:03,272 --> 00:27:07,076
during the years when Pruitt-Igoe was being built.
478
00:27:08,411 --> 00:27:11,080
The urban flight, draining American cities,
479
00:27:11,080 --> 00:27:13,382
was made possible by the same federal law
480
00:27:13,382 --> 00:27:19,088
that built Pruitt-Igoe, the 1949 housing act.
481
00:27:19,088 --> 00:27:22,225
With expanded fha loans, buying a new suburban home
482
00:27:22,225 --> 00:27:24,894
became less expensive than renting in the city
483
00:27:24,894 --> 00:27:27,597
for most families.
484
00:27:27,597 --> 00:27:31,033
As poor migrants from the South continued to flood in,
485
00:27:31,033 --> 00:27:34,237
the middle class exodus was nearly complete.
486
00:27:37,073 --> 00:27:39,742
For St. Louis, post-war urban decline
487
00:27:39,742 --> 00:27:42,979
was especially quick and hard.
488
00:27:42,979 --> 00:27:45,014
While other cities annexed unused land
489
00:27:45,014 --> 00:27:50,152
and expanded outward, St. Louis was locked in.
490
00:27:50,152 --> 00:27:52,054
The city's borders had been legally fixed
491
00:27:52,054 --> 00:27:54,857
in the 19th century.
492
00:27:54,857 --> 00:27:57,460
Its toughest years were ahead.
493
00:28:02,198 --> 00:28:05,001
By 1980, the city of St. Louis would lose half
494
00:28:05,001 --> 00:28:08,037
its mid-century population.
495
00:28:08,037 --> 00:28:10,139
The planners had expected an overcrowded city
496
00:28:10,139 --> 00:28:12,375
of a million people.
497
00:28:12,375 --> 00:28:14,877
They built massive projects, like Pruitt-Igoe,
498
00:28:14,877 --> 00:28:17,346
expecting them to fill,
499
00:28:17,346 --> 00:28:20,149
but the plans were collapsing,
500
00:28:20,149 --> 00:28:21,884
St. Louis was in free fall.
501
00:28:24,654 --> 00:28:27,490
An affluent St. Louis county, the suburbs directly
502
00:28:27,490 --> 00:28:29,825
to the west of the city, a powerful,
503
00:28:29,825 --> 00:28:32,261
new central business district emerged,
504
00:28:32,261 --> 00:28:34,931
just outside city limits.
505
00:28:34,931 --> 00:28:38,267
Dozens of tiny suburban townships formed,
506
00:28:38,267 --> 00:28:40,803
determined to maintain their independence.
507
00:28:42,538 --> 00:28:45,141
Reporter: Though it's only a crossroads on the highway
508
00:28:45,141 --> 00:28:46,943
north of St. Louis, you can hardly miss black Jack
509
00:28:46,943 --> 00:28:48,377
as you pass through it.
510
00:28:48,377 --> 00:28:51,013
Citizens proudly proclaim its location,
511
00:28:51,013 --> 00:28:54,584
right here, where two huge Blackjack oaks used to stand.
512
00:28:54,584 --> 00:28:56,953
Sixty-five feet in subdivisions developed under the density
513
00:28:56,953 --> 00:29:00,556
development procedures, fled out in ordinance number twelve,
514
00:29:00,556 --> 00:29:02,358
the zoning ordinance.
515
00:29:02,358 --> 00:29:05,127
Reporter: Tiny black Jack incorporated itself as a city
516
00:29:05,127 --> 00:29:07,897
last August and promptly passed a zoning law
517
00:29:07,897 --> 00:29:11,000
prohibiting the construction of new apartment buildings.
518
00:29:11,000 --> 00:29:16,072
Among them, a proposed low- to middle-income housing project.
519
00:29:16,072 --> 00:29:17,773
The people of black Jack are afraid,
520
00:29:17,773 --> 00:29:19,609
and what they are afraid of is visible
521
00:29:19,609 --> 00:29:22,445
only a few Miles away at the giant Pruitt-Igoe
522
00:29:22,445 --> 00:29:24,513
housing complex in St. Louis.
523
00:29:24,513 --> 00:29:26,782
Vandalism and crime are commonplace.
524
00:29:26,782 --> 00:29:29,285
The citizens of black Jack fear that a project
525
00:29:29,285 --> 00:29:32,622
in their neighborhood might become a suburban Pruitt-Igoe,
526
00:29:32,622 --> 00:29:35,658
destroying their property values and their safety.
527
00:29:35,658 --> 00:29:38,961
The people who are out here are middle-income,
528
00:29:38,961 --> 00:29:40,529
behave like middle-income.
529
00:29:40,529 --> 00:29:42,598
They worry about their schools,
530
00:29:42,598 --> 00:29:45,401
they worry about their lawns,
531
00:29:45,401 --> 00:29:47,703
their property, and so forth.
532
00:29:47,703 --> 00:29:50,773
They don't want to bring in, shall we say "trash?"
533
00:29:50,773 --> 00:29:53,409
Trash people?
534
00:29:53,409 --> 00:29:54,577
What kind of people?
535
00:29:54,577 --> 00:29:55,978
Well, people--
536
00:29:55,978 --> 00:29:59,682
not necessarily just poor, but they're just, uh--
537
00:30:02,852 --> 00:30:05,121
well, you won't be able to walk in the neighborhood then.
538
00:30:05,121 --> 00:30:07,523
I said it'd be people like that.
539
00:30:46,095 --> 00:30:48,931
Valerie: Christmas was like no other place
540
00:30:48,931 --> 00:30:52,334
because there was so many other kids around to play with
541
00:30:52,334 --> 00:30:54,036
and show off your stuff.
542
00:30:55,938 --> 00:30:58,808
I remember when my mother gave me a record player
543
00:30:58,808 --> 00:31:01,277
and she couldn't afford to buy me a brand-new one,
544
00:31:01,277 --> 00:31:03,412
so she went to the pawn shop and she got me
545
00:31:03,412 --> 00:31:05,648
a record player from the pawn shop.
546
00:31:05,648 --> 00:31:11,687
And, baby--she left, we pulled the record player to the door
547
00:31:11,687 --> 00:31:14,056
and Martha Reeves and the vandellas
548
00:31:14,056 --> 00:31:17,293
made "dancing in the street."
549
00:31:17,293 --> 00:31:19,462
We pulled the record player to the door.
550
00:31:19,462 --> 00:31:21,130
Went outside, turned the record player up as high
551
00:31:21,130 --> 00:31:25,634
as it would go and then people just came from everywhere.
552
00:31:25,634 --> 00:31:27,570
It was a party, always in the evening.
553
00:31:27,570 --> 00:31:30,806
It didn't have to be any special day.
554
00:31:30,806 --> 00:31:35,244
Somebody, somewhere had their music blastin',
555
00:31:35,244 --> 00:31:37,313
and that was on Christmas day,
556
00:31:37,313 --> 00:31:39,615
and, uh, I won't ever forget that.
557
00:32:05,474 --> 00:32:07,376
My relationship with Pruitt-Igoe was that
558
00:32:07,376 --> 00:32:08,911
of a research assistant.
559
00:32:08,911 --> 00:32:14,917
I went to Washington university, to graduate school in 1964.
560
00:32:14,917 --> 00:32:17,119
I was working on a national institute of mental health
561
00:32:17,119 --> 00:32:20,990
funded study on social problems in public housing.
562
00:32:20,990 --> 00:32:25,461
My role was to study women and girls in Pruitt-Igoe.
563
00:32:25,461 --> 00:32:29,265
I was 20 years old, I had just gotten out of college.
564
00:32:29,265 --> 00:32:31,367
Some of the girls were 18 years old
565
00:32:31,367 --> 00:32:34,203
and I was two years older, but yet, my life
566
00:32:34,203 --> 00:32:36,605
was vastly different.
567
00:32:36,605 --> 00:32:40,576
As time passed, I did wonder, would my life have been similar
568
00:32:40,576 --> 00:32:42,011
to that of the girls had my parents
569
00:32:42,011 --> 00:32:45,381
migrated from Mississippi to St. Louis?
570
00:32:45,381 --> 00:32:47,550
Would my opportunities have been different?
571
00:32:49,418 --> 00:32:51,787
I guess to put it bluntly, I never saw the people
572
00:32:51,787 --> 00:32:55,891
in Pruitt-Igoe as that different from the lives of poor people
573
00:32:55,891 --> 00:32:58,561
I had grown up with in Mississippi,
574
00:32:58,561 --> 00:33:00,696
except for one thing.
575
00:33:00,696 --> 00:33:03,465
The strong, tightly-knit communities and families
576
00:33:03,465 --> 00:33:06,635
in which I grew up had begun to shatter
577
00:33:06,635 --> 00:33:08,537
around the people who were displaced
578
00:33:08,537 --> 00:33:12,541
in a northern city with few supports,
579
00:33:12,541 --> 00:33:15,978
and the policy of the housing authority was to move
580
00:33:15,978 --> 00:33:18,480
the poorest of the poor, the most dependent families,
581
00:33:18,480 --> 00:33:20,015
to Pruitt-Igoe.
582
00:33:23,419 --> 00:33:27,289
Jacquelyn: Before we moved into Pruitt-Igoe,
583
00:33:27,289 --> 00:33:32,728
the welfare department came to our home,
584
00:33:32,728 --> 00:33:38,467
they talked with my mother about moving into
585
00:33:38,467 --> 00:33:41,737
the housing project, but the stipulation
586
00:33:41,737 --> 00:33:48,244
was that my father could not be with us.
587
00:33:48,244 --> 00:33:52,348
They would put us into the housing project
588
00:33:52,348 --> 00:33:57,820
only if he left the state.
589
00:33:57,820 --> 00:34:00,222
My mother and father discussed it
590
00:34:00,222 --> 00:34:03,525
and they decided that it was best
591
00:34:03,525 --> 00:34:08,831
for the twelve children for the father to leave the home,
592
00:34:08,831 --> 00:34:13,102
and that's how we got into the projects.
593
00:34:14,370 --> 00:34:16,538
The welfare department had a rule
594
00:34:16,538 --> 00:34:21,110
that no able-bodied man could be in the house if a woman
595
00:34:21,110 --> 00:34:24,179
received aid for dependent children.
596
00:34:24,179 --> 00:34:27,082
If a man lost his job, if he's looking for work,
597
00:34:27,082 --> 00:34:31,854
he still had to leave the home and there was even a night staff
598
00:34:31,854 --> 00:34:34,256
of men who worked for the welfare department,
599
00:34:34,256 --> 00:34:36,358
whose job was to go to the homes
600
00:34:36,358 --> 00:34:39,795
of the welfare recipients and they searched to find
601
00:34:39,795 --> 00:34:43,098
if there was a man in the home.
602
00:34:43,098 --> 00:34:46,368
Sometimes men came back at night to be with their families.
603
00:34:46,368 --> 00:34:49,204
Some were found in the closet, hiding.
604
00:34:51,373 --> 00:34:54,877
Sylvester: I remember, vividly, my mother telling us,
605
00:34:54,877 --> 00:34:57,513
"if white people come to the house
606
00:34:57,513 --> 00:34:59,415
and ask you guys questions,
607
00:34:59,415 --> 00:35:02,051
tell them that your father is not here.
608
00:35:02,051 --> 00:35:04,053
Tell them that your father has never been here,
609
00:35:04,053 --> 00:35:05,888
you have not seen your father."
610
00:35:05,888 --> 00:35:08,657
I trusted her, I knew there was a reason that we had
611
00:35:08,657 --> 00:35:11,060
to do this charade and I participated
612
00:35:11,060 --> 00:35:13,329
in the charade, I sat there and looked those people
613
00:35:13,329 --> 00:35:18,334
in the eye and told them-- with pure earnestness
614
00:35:18,334 --> 00:35:21,437
that no, I have not seen my father and no, my daddy
615
00:35:21,437 --> 00:35:23,005
does not live here,
616
00:35:23,005 --> 00:35:25,474
and, um--but I knew that I was lyin' and that made
617
00:35:25,474 --> 00:35:29,011
me wonder, "who are these people and how do they have the power
618
00:35:29,011 --> 00:35:31,347
to make my mother lie?"
619
00:35:37,720 --> 00:35:41,290
"We're giving you money.
620
00:35:41,290 --> 00:35:47,563
We want to be able to control...
621
00:35:47,563 --> 00:35:49,765
You.
622
00:35:49,765 --> 00:35:51,467
We're giving you money,
623
00:35:51,467 --> 00:35:57,673
so we have the right to make stipulations as to how
624
00:35:57,673 --> 00:36:02,177
you use it and what you use it for."
625
00:36:02,177 --> 00:36:04,980
There were so many restrictions.
626
00:36:06,248 --> 00:36:08,817
We couldn't have a telephone.
627
00:36:08,817 --> 00:36:12,888
We couldn't have a television.
628
00:36:12,888 --> 00:36:18,260
And we were really left at the mercy of the system.
629
00:36:20,162 --> 00:36:24,933
Brian: In the project, it seemed to be strategically planned
630
00:36:24,933 --> 00:36:29,204
to create an environment that people felt isolated,
631
00:36:29,204 --> 00:36:32,474
that people felt, uh, restricted,
632
00:36:32,474 --> 00:36:36,412
that people felt, you know, inhuman almost.
633
00:36:38,080 --> 00:36:41,750
You're bad, we have to restrain you,
634
00:36:41,750 --> 00:36:44,653
we have to curtail what you're doing.
635
00:36:44,653 --> 00:36:47,689
It was void of humanity.
636
00:36:47,689 --> 00:36:50,392
It was void of caring.
637
00:36:50,392 --> 00:36:53,062
It seemed more like a prison environment that
638
00:36:53,062 --> 00:36:55,431
you have to escape from.
639
00:36:59,168 --> 00:37:03,605
They were treated in some ways like they were prisoners.
640
00:37:03,605 --> 00:37:05,908
If we are going to support you
641
00:37:05,908 --> 00:37:10,279
and to give you a few measly dollars to live on,
642
00:37:10,279 --> 00:37:13,449
then we're going to extract blood from you.
643
00:37:15,084 --> 00:37:18,554
You're going to live according to the rules we set,
644
00:37:18,554 --> 00:37:21,356
and the rules just happen to be very punitive.
645
00:37:23,692 --> 00:37:26,662
There was this whole undertone of morality, that they had
646
00:37:26,662 --> 00:37:29,498
poor morality, they were immoral by virtue
647
00:37:29,498 --> 00:37:31,200
of lifestyles they lived.
648
00:37:34,803 --> 00:37:37,372
Poverty never created immorality.
649
00:37:37,372 --> 00:37:39,074
Poverty created want.
650
00:37:41,510 --> 00:37:43,846
(Turning on TV)
651
00:37:45,247 --> 00:37:47,716
When we first moved in the projects,
652
00:37:47,716 --> 00:37:52,087
we couldn't have a television.
653
00:37:52,087 --> 00:37:54,890
And then my mother got a letter
654
00:37:54,890 --> 00:37:58,260
that we could have TV.
655
00:37:58,260 --> 00:38:01,730
Woman: Barbie's dream house is a wish come true
656
00:38:01,730 --> 00:38:03,132
for both of you, and look...
657
00:38:03,132 --> 00:38:07,836
I was always interested in the family programs.
658
00:38:07,836 --> 00:38:11,440
Programs with fathers.
659
00:38:11,440 --> 00:38:14,042
"My little Margie,"
660
00:38:14,042 --> 00:38:18,947
where the father was so involved with his daughter.
661
00:38:18,947 --> 00:38:21,517
- Margie? - Come on in, dad.
662
00:38:21,517 --> 00:38:24,052
Margie, you know I've always
tried to be both
663
00:38:24,052 --> 00:38:25,787
mother and father to you.
664
00:38:25,787 --> 00:38:27,289
You've been wonderful, dad.
665
00:38:27,289 --> 00:38:29,024
Do you remember that little
game we always play
666
00:38:29,024 --> 00:38:32,794
when you have a problem that you
can't tell your father?
667
00:38:32,794 --> 00:38:34,997
But I haven't got any problems.
668
00:38:34,997 --> 00:38:38,634
Now come, tell me what's wrong.
669
00:38:38,634 --> 00:38:41,203
When I looked at those sitcoms,
670
00:38:41,203 --> 00:38:46,308
I just felt like this is the way white people live
671
00:38:46,308 --> 00:38:52,381
because black people, from my experience,
672
00:38:52,381 --> 00:38:55,684
did not live that way.
673
00:38:55,684 --> 00:38:57,886
And I never questioned, I never wondered why,
674
00:38:57,886 --> 00:39:01,523
I just figured this is how it is.
675
00:39:08,230 --> 00:39:11,667
Woman: We have our home here and if the colored move in
676
00:39:11,667 --> 00:39:13,202
and run real estate values down
677
00:39:13,202 --> 00:39:15,204
it's bound to create tension,
678
00:39:15,204 --> 00:39:18,106
and you will have, well, I think their aim
679
00:39:18,106 --> 00:39:21,343
is mixed marriages and becoming
680
00:39:21,343 --> 00:39:22,611
equal with the whites.
681
00:39:22,611 --> 00:39:25,080
I just could not live beside them.
682
00:39:25,080 --> 00:39:27,616
I don't feel that they should be oppressed,
683
00:39:27,616 --> 00:39:32,487
but I moved here--one of the main reasons was because
684
00:39:32,487 --> 00:39:35,090
it was a white community,
685
00:39:35,090 --> 00:39:38,193
and that's the only place I intend to live.
686
00:39:40,796 --> 00:39:44,533
Joseph: Public housing in St. Louis was always used
687
00:39:44,533 --> 00:39:47,502
as a segregation tool.
688
00:39:47,502 --> 00:39:49,338
The city did everything in its power
689
00:39:49,338 --> 00:39:54,042
in order to prevent what was called "negro deconcentration."
690
00:39:54,042 --> 00:39:56,111
That is African Americans moving out
691
00:39:56,111 --> 00:39:59,348
of particular neighborhoods.
692
00:39:59,348 --> 00:40:05,187
Every project is imagined as a white or black project, solely,
693
00:40:05,187 --> 00:40:08,590
and they're actually placed on the map in St. Louis
694
00:40:08,590 --> 00:40:10,959
in ways that deepen the pockets
695
00:40:10,959 --> 00:40:13,061
of segregation in one place or the other.
696
00:40:13,061 --> 00:40:15,063
It's a way to really radically separate
697
00:40:15,063 --> 00:40:16,999
whites from blacks in ways that no other
698
00:40:16,999 --> 00:40:20,569
kind of legislation or other tool had ever been able to do.
699
00:40:22,671 --> 00:40:26,074
Pruitt was settled in 1954, right after
700
00:40:26,074 --> 00:40:29,745
the brown vs. Board decision, and so, very quickly
701
00:40:29,745 --> 00:40:32,748
the projects had to be desegregated.
702
00:40:32,748 --> 00:40:36,752
And what happens is that whites actually just leave in droves
703
00:40:36,752 --> 00:40:39,454
and it in effect becomes an all-black project,
704
00:40:39,454 --> 00:40:41,623
almost immediately.
705
00:40:41,623 --> 00:40:44,559
So, by the time you get to the Pruitt-Igoe moment,
706
00:40:44,559 --> 00:40:47,763
you have a city that is hyper-segregated, in fact,
707
00:40:47,763 --> 00:40:50,098
in a region that's hyper-segregated.
708
00:40:54,102 --> 00:40:56,905
The color line wound through a fractured city,
709
00:40:56,905 --> 00:40:59,207
submitting the widespread prejudice that inhabited
710
00:40:59,207 --> 00:41:03,178
backyards, board rooms, and the halls of government.
711
00:41:05,247 --> 00:41:08,216
It was reflected in neighborhood property values,
712
00:41:08,216 --> 00:41:11,520
in the terms of mortgages, in the way realtors
713
00:41:11,520 --> 00:41:13,855
steered prospective buyers,
714
00:41:13,855 --> 00:41:16,058
and countless other tactics that preserved
715
00:41:16,058 --> 00:41:18,627
the racial barrier.
716
00:41:18,627 --> 00:41:20,796
Whites who chose to ignore the color line
717
00:41:20,796 --> 00:41:23,865
faced a severe financial penalty.
718
00:41:23,865 --> 00:41:27,135
Blacks usually had no choice in the matter.
719
00:41:29,371 --> 00:41:31,640
Through it all, the key programs
720
00:41:31,640 --> 00:41:33,008
of the 1949 housing act,
721
00:41:33,008 --> 00:41:35,477
slum clearance and public housing,
722
00:41:35,477 --> 00:41:38,880
were being used to reshape cities throughout the country,
723
00:41:38,880 --> 00:41:41,183
redistributing land and populations
724
00:41:41,183 --> 00:41:43,051
to suit those in power.
725
00:41:46,154 --> 00:41:48,056
Poor districts on desirable urban land
726
00:41:48,056 --> 00:41:51,093
were cleared for redevelopment, but were rarely replaced
727
00:41:51,093 --> 00:41:53,295
with affordable housing.
728
00:41:53,295 --> 00:41:56,798
These neighborhoods were disproportionately black.
729
00:41:56,798 --> 00:41:59,301
Residents were scattered to segregated pockets
730
00:41:59,301 --> 00:42:01,770
throughout the city.
731
00:42:01,770 --> 00:42:04,005
New ghettos formed as the old were demolished.
732
00:42:05,707 --> 00:42:08,410
Urban renewal found a new name:
733
00:42:08,410 --> 00:42:09,511
Negro removal.
734
00:42:11,346 --> 00:42:12,814
In the segregated city,
735
00:42:12,814 --> 00:42:14,850
blacks paid more for worse housing
736
00:42:14,850 --> 00:42:16,651
with fewer amenities:
737
00:42:16,651 --> 00:42:20,155
Older hospitals, higher food prices,
738
00:42:20,155 --> 00:42:21,590
less police protection.
739
00:42:23,892 --> 00:42:26,161
The city was changing.
740
00:42:26,161 --> 00:42:28,130
The northern black ghetto had arrived.
741
00:42:33,468 --> 00:42:39,374
Robert: The urban economy in 1949 appeared very strong,
742
00:42:39,374 --> 00:42:42,844
not only with the population of big cities peaking,
743
00:42:42,844 --> 00:42:46,648
but also their industrial production
744
00:42:46,648 --> 00:42:49,551
so that it appeared that all you had to do
745
00:42:49,551 --> 00:42:51,887
was solve the housing problem
746
00:42:51,887 --> 00:42:55,991
and there would be plenty of jobs within every big city.
747
00:42:57,893 --> 00:42:59,795
What nobody could see
748
00:42:59,795 --> 00:43:03,598
was that this was the peak period,
749
00:43:03,598 --> 00:43:07,402
and that the urban industrial economy, uh,
750
00:43:07,402 --> 00:43:10,405
was about to really fall off a cliff.
751
00:43:10,405 --> 00:43:13,175
How many places have you tried to get a job here?
752
00:43:13,175 --> 00:43:16,344
Well, I tried a lot of factories and warehouse
753
00:43:16,344 --> 00:43:19,581
and stores and filler stations and things.
754
00:43:19,581 --> 00:43:21,082
What do they tell you?
755
00:43:21,082 --> 00:43:24,052
Well, uh, some job I call in
756
00:43:24,052 --> 00:43:25,854
and I guess they got some rules,
757
00:43:25,854 --> 00:43:27,923
found out I'm a colored man and said, "we filled up,
758
00:43:27,923 --> 00:43:29,691
we don't need nobody else."
759
00:43:29,691 --> 00:43:33,929
Robert: The American city has been, in the past,
760
00:43:33,929 --> 00:43:38,166
a wonderful mechanism for assimilation
761
00:43:38,166 --> 00:43:40,969
of immigrant and migrant groups
762
00:43:40,969 --> 00:43:45,440
because it was essentially on an upward trend.
763
00:43:45,440 --> 00:43:50,745
What happened after 1945 was that that wonderful mechanism
764
00:43:50,745 --> 00:43:53,982
of opportunity began to fail.
765
00:43:56,218 --> 00:43:58,920
This economy still flourished,
766
00:43:58,920 --> 00:44:02,724
but it flourished outside the city,
767
00:44:02,724 --> 00:44:05,160
and as a result, you had a mismatch
768
00:44:05,160 --> 00:44:07,996
between where the jobs were
769
00:44:07,996 --> 00:44:10,799
and where the people who needed the jobs were living
770
00:44:10,799 --> 00:44:12,434
or forced to live.
771
00:44:15,170 --> 00:44:19,007
In the days of, say, the Italian and Jewish ghettos,
772
00:44:19,007 --> 00:44:20,575
these ghettos were close
773
00:44:20,575 --> 00:44:25,380
to those critical entry-level industrial jobs.
774
00:44:25,380 --> 00:44:27,349
The black ghetto, for the first time,
775
00:44:27,349 --> 00:44:31,620
was very far from where jobs were moving.
776
00:44:34,523 --> 00:44:37,859
They moved to the city, as the black migrants did.
777
00:44:37,859 --> 00:44:40,595
Instead of finding themselves in the midst
778
00:44:40,595 --> 00:44:43,365
of this wonderful, expanding urban economy,
779
00:44:43,365 --> 00:44:45,267
they found themselves in the midst of an economy
780
00:44:45,267 --> 00:44:46,535
that was dying.
781
00:44:48,103 --> 00:44:50,972
Have you had any chance to work which you've turned down
782
00:44:50,972 --> 00:44:52,774
since you came to St. Louis?
783
00:44:52,774 --> 00:44:55,710
No, sir, I haven't turned down any jobs,
784
00:44:55,710 --> 00:44:58,113
what would you take? Would you take any job?
785
00:44:58,113 --> 00:45:00,649
At the time, I would.
786
00:45:00,649 --> 00:45:03,618
You have people to support, family?
787
00:45:03,618 --> 00:45:07,022
Wife and two children.
788
00:45:07,022 --> 00:45:09,758
Do you think somehow you're gonna get some work soon?
789
00:45:11,326 --> 00:45:12,727
(Voice breaking) I don't know.
790
00:45:46,795 --> 00:45:49,698
Jacquelyn: Now in the projects, everybody's wall
791
00:45:49,698 --> 00:45:51,499
was the same color:
792
00:45:51,499 --> 00:45:54,135
White paint and that was it.
793
00:45:54,135 --> 00:45:57,772
But my mother, because she didn't have money
794
00:45:57,772 --> 00:46:01,176
for school supply and a lot of paper,
795
00:46:01,176 --> 00:46:03,912
she went to central hardware,
796
00:46:03,912 --> 00:46:06,448
she got a can of black paint
797
00:46:06,448 --> 00:46:09,017
and painted one of the walls
798
00:46:09,017 --> 00:46:11,186
and got chalk and eraser.
799
00:46:11,186 --> 00:46:14,990
And that was our homework wall.
800
00:46:14,990 --> 00:46:16,958
So we would work our problems out,
801
00:46:16,958 --> 00:46:18,727
we'd practice our penmanship.
802
00:46:18,727 --> 00:46:21,429
We did everything on that wall.
803
00:46:21,429 --> 00:46:23,698
And we had gotten a notice
804
00:46:23,698 --> 00:46:27,636
from the administration office
805
00:46:27,636 --> 00:46:30,672
that they were going to inspect.
806
00:46:30,672 --> 00:46:35,143
I was so afraid they were gonna put us out of the project.
807
00:46:35,143 --> 00:46:38,813
And when the lady saw that black wall,
808
00:46:38,813 --> 00:46:44,019
she said, "Mrs. Blair, what is this?"
809
00:46:44,019 --> 00:46:46,688
So my mother just told her, she said,
810
00:46:46,688 --> 00:46:50,258
"I don't have money for paper
811
00:46:50,258 --> 00:46:53,828
and I want my children to do well in school,
812
00:46:53,828 --> 00:46:56,131
and they have to practice."
813
00:46:56,131 --> 00:46:59,300
The lady was just floored.
814
00:46:59,300 --> 00:47:02,504
She couldn't believe that that was the reason,
815
00:47:02,504 --> 00:47:05,040
and she said, "you know what?
816
00:47:05,040 --> 00:47:08,443
You are trying to raise your children.
817
00:47:08,443 --> 00:47:10,979
You leave this wall black,
818
00:47:10,979 --> 00:47:13,048
and if you wanna paint another wall,
819
00:47:13,048 --> 00:47:14,749
that's fine with us."
820
00:47:15,984 --> 00:47:18,753
I ventured out after a while
821
00:47:18,753 --> 00:47:21,523
to the merry-go-round, to the swings,
822
00:47:21,523 --> 00:47:26,061
and got into a bunch of kids and, uh...
823
00:47:26,061 --> 00:47:28,363
This one kid, for whatever reason--
824
00:47:28,363 --> 00:47:33,401
I don't know, I think, uh, in that environment, uh,
825
00:47:33,401 --> 00:47:34,636
you could sense fear.
826
00:47:34,636 --> 00:47:36,771
But he sensed I feared him,
827
00:47:36,771 --> 00:47:40,008
and he--he beat me up pretty good.
828
00:47:40,008 --> 00:47:41,342
And I cried.
829
00:47:41,342 --> 00:47:43,645
And I went to get my mom.
830
00:47:43,645 --> 00:47:45,413
A month or so after we moved in,
831
00:47:45,413 --> 00:47:47,382
my mother sent me and my older brother
832
00:47:47,382 --> 00:47:49,184
to the store.
833
00:47:49,184 --> 00:47:50,852
We were gonna go buy some stuff.
834
00:47:50,852 --> 00:47:54,456
We came downstairs, these gang of kids stopped us,
835
00:47:54,456 --> 00:47:57,258
slapped us around, took some of our money.
836
00:47:57,258 --> 00:47:59,527
And I remember looking up
837
00:47:59,527 --> 00:48:01,029
as we were walkin' away from those boys,
838
00:48:01,029 --> 00:48:03,832
my mother was looking out the tenth floor window.
839
00:48:03,832 --> 00:48:05,667
And we came back and there was my mother
840
00:48:05,667 --> 00:48:07,502
downstairs by the steps,
841
00:48:07,502 --> 00:48:09,637
foldin' her arms, stompin' her feet.
842
00:48:09,637 --> 00:48:12,240
She said--we walked up to her, she said, "I saw what happened."
843
00:48:12,240 --> 00:48:14,008
She said, to my older brother,
844
00:48:14,008 --> 00:48:15,810
"we're gonna go find that boy, and you're gonna fight him.
845
00:48:15,810 --> 00:48:18,079
You're gonna fight him now."
846
00:48:18,079 --> 00:48:21,683
My mom, she knew what I was facing, I guess,
847
00:48:21,683 --> 00:48:22,784
lookin' back on it.
848
00:48:22,784 --> 00:48:26,254
Uh, she took me down, cryin',
849
00:48:26,254 --> 00:48:27,989
lookin' for this kid.
850
00:48:27,989 --> 00:48:32,293
And she wanted me to defend myself and fight him.
851
00:48:32,293 --> 00:48:33,661
Especially after my father left,
852
00:48:33,661 --> 00:48:36,464
my mother insisted that her boys fight.
853
00:48:36,464 --> 00:48:39,267
She--for some reason, she knew that we had to,
854
00:48:39,267 --> 00:48:40,769
I guess, mark our territory.
855
00:48:40,769 --> 00:48:42,971
Went down the hall, there was this group of kids.
856
00:48:42,971 --> 00:48:44,906
My mother pushed my brother, he went in there,
857
00:48:44,906 --> 00:48:48,109
pulled the kid out, got into this big raucous fight.
858
00:48:48,109 --> 00:48:49,711
I mean, it was a hard fight.
859
00:48:49,711 --> 00:48:51,412
The kid's older brother came out the door
860
00:48:51,412 --> 00:48:52,647
with a pair of brass knuckles.
861
00:48:52,647 --> 00:48:54,249
Handed it to his younger brother.
862
00:48:54,249 --> 00:48:56,885
My mother said, "you go get him."
863
00:48:56,885 --> 00:48:59,020
And we--she took me down by the hand
864
00:48:59,020 --> 00:49:00,155
into the crowd of kids,
865
00:49:00,155 --> 00:49:02,056
and that just wasn't my makeup.
866
00:49:02,056 --> 00:49:05,360
And I saw the kid off to my right, you know?
867
00:49:05,360 --> 00:49:08,696
And I just pretended like I--I never saw him.
868
00:49:08,696 --> 00:49:13,468
And so, that was my way of avoidin' that confrontation.
869
00:49:13,468 --> 00:49:16,271
My brother fought the fight of his life,
870
00:49:16,271 --> 00:49:18,573
and, uh, after that fight,
871
00:49:18,573 --> 00:49:20,441
we got a little bit of respect.
872
00:49:20,441 --> 00:49:21,810
The people in that-- in the building
873
00:49:21,810 --> 00:49:23,778
knew that the brown boys could scrap.
874
00:49:23,778 --> 00:49:25,613
But it was--still it kind of stuck with me
875
00:49:25,613 --> 00:49:29,117
that this was the only time my mother told us to fight.
876
00:49:31,519 --> 00:49:35,223
I saw examples of enormous strength and integrity,
877
00:49:35,223 --> 00:49:39,227
examples of mothers who wanted the very best for their children
878
00:49:39,227 --> 00:49:42,764
and were constantly groping for ways with which to do that.
879
00:49:42,764 --> 00:49:46,434
They preached self-sufficiency to their children all the time.
880
00:49:46,434 --> 00:49:48,903
Now you've gotta be able to make it on your own,
881
00:49:48,903 --> 00:49:51,706
especially in a poor environment where there were a lot of people
882
00:49:51,706 --> 00:49:53,374
who could prey upon you.
883
00:49:53,374 --> 00:49:57,712
And sometimes the boys were challenged to act like a man.
884
00:49:57,712 --> 00:50:00,982
I heard that expression quite a lot of times.
885
00:50:00,982 --> 00:50:03,952
So mentally, these guys were always jockeying, you know,
886
00:50:03,952 --> 00:50:07,088
for position on who's gonna be the top dog.
887
00:50:08,990 --> 00:50:11,192
Nobody wanted to be on the bottom.
888
00:50:14,395 --> 00:50:19,167
The air of violence and anger--
889
00:50:19,167 --> 00:50:22,070
that's somethin' that you learned to project as a kid.
890
00:50:22,070 --> 00:50:24,939
There was a way that you had to carry yourself.
891
00:50:24,939 --> 00:50:28,009
It was understood that if you didn't stand up,
892
00:50:28,009 --> 00:50:31,079
if you showed any weakness, if you didn't let people know,
893
00:50:31,079 --> 00:50:33,615
that they would take advantage of you.
894
00:50:34,983 --> 00:50:37,719
And all too often, it created an environment
895
00:50:37,719 --> 00:50:39,420
where people were frightened of one another
896
00:50:39,420 --> 00:50:41,789
and someone's ending up laying on the ground.
897
00:50:43,324 --> 00:50:44,926
So what I would do is
898
00:50:44,926 --> 00:50:47,562
go across away from the projects,
899
00:50:47,562 --> 00:50:49,063
and there were fields over there,
900
00:50:49,063 --> 00:50:51,432
there was vacant lots with--with weeds.
901
00:50:51,432 --> 00:50:54,235
And I had this fascination with insects.
902
00:50:55,770 --> 00:50:59,941
What a spider would do to this insect,
903
00:50:59,941 --> 00:51:01,643
praying mantises,
904
00:51:01,643 --> 00:51:05,246
how they ate other insects.
905
00:51:05,246 --> 00:51:08,416
You felt empowered to be able to outthink these insects
906
00:51:08,416 --> 00:51:10,551
or be quick enough to catch a grasshopper,
907
00:51:10,551 --> 00:51:13,688
so it gave me a sense of control.
908
00:51:13,688 --> 00:51:15,556
It gave me a sense of power.
909
00:51:18,059 --> 00:51:19,794
That would be my escape.
910
00:51:19,794 --> 00:51:23,031
I would be maybe a hundred feet from the projects,
911
00:51:23,031 --> 00:51:25,366
but it was like I was a world away
912
00:51:25,366 --> 00:51:27,068
in a world all my own.
913
00:51:30,104 --> 00:51:31,873
Right across the street, on the other hand,
914
00:51:31,873 --> 00:51:34,108
it seemed like it was an environment
915
00:51:34,108 --> 00:51:37,178
created by people that didn't like these people.
916
00:51:37,178 --> 00:51:38,813
They didn't like me.
917
00:51:38,813 --> 00:51:42,784
They didn't like the other people that lived there.
918
00:51:42,784 --> 00:51:46,387
The one thing you always ask yourself is why?
919
00:51:46,387 --> 00:51:48,957
Why is it like this?
920
00:51:48,957 --> 00:51:51,693
Why do I live here?
921
00:51:51,693 --> 00:51:53,261
What did I do wrong?
922
00:51:57,732 --> 00:52:01,202
I think it created a mindset for the inhabitants
923
00:52:01,202 --> 00:52:02,971
that they weren't cared about,
924
00:52:02,971 --> 00:52:05,673
and I think that that manifested itself
925
00:52:05,673 --> 00:52:08,576
in a way that caused more harm to the tenants
926
00:52:08,576 --> 00:52:11,112
than any other entity.
927
00:52:12,513 --> 00:52:15,783
The vandalism that existed in Pruitt-Igoe
928
00:52:15,783 --> 00:52:18,052
came from that environment;
929
00:52:18,052 --> 00:52:21,856
things allowed to just deteriorate
930
00:52:21,856 --> 00:52:23,925
and people not really caring.
931
00:52:28,696 --> 00:52:30,365
And so management decided,
932
00:52:30,365 --> 00:52:34,135
well, instead of trying to enhance their existence,
933
00:52:34,135 --> 00:52:38,272
we'll just make things so they can't be destroyed.
934
00:52:38,272 --> 00:52:40,074
Everything had to be protected:
935
00:52:40,074 --> 00:52:43,011
Light fixtures, no light exposed.
936
00:52:43,011 --> 00:52:45,346
There were shields around them with mesh metal
937
00:52:45,346 --> 00:52:47,415
protecting the bulb.
938
00:52:47,415 --> 00:52:49,917
You know, the fact that it was indestructible
939
00:52:49,917 --> 00:52:53,521
made you want to try to destroy things.
940
00:52:53,521 --> 00:52:55,890
There was a screen around the light bulbs
941
00:52:55,890 --> 00:52:57,692
that kept you from breakin' 'em,
942
00:52:57,692 --> 00:52:59,761
but you know, kids will be kids.
943
00:52:59,761 --> 00:53:01,429
Find a way to break it.
944
00:53:01,429 --> 00:53:03,931
And we just put water in it, threw it up,
945
00:53:03,931 --> 00:53:06,067
and the light would get hot and would get hot
946
00:53:06,067 --> 00:53:08,903
and it would break, and lights are out.
947
00:53:08,903 --> 00:53:11,472
They took all the lights off the elevator and put 'em--
948
00:53:11,472 --> 00:53:14,509
they recessed 'em up into the ceiling,
949
00:53:14,509 --> 00:53:17,045
and then they tried to cover that up with plexiglas.
950
00:53:17,045 --> 00:53:22,617
But sometimes people would try to set that plexiglas on fire.
951
00:53:22,617 --> 00:53:25,086
Sometimes instead of taking the trash
952
00:53:25,086 --> 00:53:27,288
and putting it inside the incinerator,
953
00:53:27,288 --> 00:53:29,157
they just set it on fire right out there
954
00:53:29,157 --> 00:53:30,625
in the middle of the floor.
955
00:53:30,625 --> 00:53:31,959
You gettin' off the elevator
956
00:53:31,959 --> 00:53:33,261
or you were on the elevator,
957
00:53:33,261 --> 00:53:35,029
the elevator fills up with smoke.
958
00:53:35,029 --> 00:53:36,631
There's no place to go, and especially
959
00:53:36,631 --> 00:53:37,865
if they've put the lights out.
960
00:53:41,135 --> 00:53:42,670
Lookin' back at it,
961
00:53:42,670 --> 00:53:45,540
we did a lot of crazy things down there.
962
00:53:47,675 --> 00:53:50,645
After I moved away from Pruitt and Igoe,
963
00:53:50,645 --> 00:53:53,314
I went on to become a police officer
964
00:53:53,314 --> 00:53:54,982
with St. Louis city,
965
00:53:54,982 --> 00:53:57,752
and I had the opportunity to work
966
00:53:57,752 --> 00:54:01,289
where you are in these buildings straight up and down.
967
00:54:01,289 --> 00:54:03,658
I do remember people callin' the police
968
00:54:03,658 --> 00:54:05,626
and tryin' to come into the buildings,
969
00:54:05,626 --> 00:54:08,396
and they would drop just anything they could find--
970
00:54:08,396 --> 00:54:10,198
trash, throw trash out the window.
971
00:54:10,198 --> 00:54:11,632
I remember that.
972
00:54:11,632 --> 00:54:13,868
I remember them throwin' fire bombs out
973
00:54:13,868 --> 00:54:15,036
onto the police cars.
974
00:54:15,036 --> 00:54:16,437
I remember they did that.
975
00:54:16,437 --> 00:54:19,207
So there is enough blame to go around.
976
00:54:19,207 --> 00:54:21,542
(Siren wailing)
977
00:54:21,542 --> 00:54:23,778
Brain: I don't think people rationalize
978
00:54:23,778 --> 00:54:25,813
that somebody's house could burn down
979
00:54:25,813 --> 00:54:27,315
or people could be killed.
980
00:54:27,315 --> 00:54:29,283
I think they just saw that fire truck
981
00:54:29,283 --> 00:54:32,019
or that police car or that ambulance
982
00:54:32,019 --> 00:54:34,388
as the enemy.
983
00:54:34,388 --> 00:54:37,391
It was just bitter people, angry people,
984
00:54:37,391 --> 00:54:39,927
and that was a way of makin' a statement.
985
00:54:39,927 --> 00:54:41,496
"We're not happy here,
986
00:54:41,496 --> 00:54:43,364
and we want you to know it,
987
00:54:43,364 --> 00:54:45,133
and way you're gonna know it is
988
00:54:45,133 --> 00:54:48,069
these bricks and bottles will rain down on you
989
00:54:48,069 --> 00:54:50,204
no matter who it's savin',
990
00:54:50,204 --> 00:54:53,875
no matter how relevant or important it is.
991
00:54:53,875 --> 00:54:58,279
We want you to understand you're not welcome here."
992
00:54:58,279 --> 00:55:00,648
And so after a while, they just stopped showin' up.
993
00:55:03,951 --> 00:55:08,789
By the mid-sixties, Pruitt-Igoe was falling apart.
994
00:55:08,789 --> 00:55:10,525
Runaway maintenance costs,
995
00:55:10,525 --> 00:55:13,027
rising vandalism and crime,
996
00:55:13,027 --> 00:55:15,329
growing numbers of vacancies
997
00:55:15,329 --> 00:55:19,300
in an increasingly poor and emptying city.
998
00:55:19,300 --> 00:55:22,503
Joseph: Public housing was set up as a system
999
00:55:22,503 --> 00:55:25,139
that depended on an overcrowding crisis.
1000
00:55:25,139 --> 00:55:28,109
Once populations begin to move out of the city,
1001
00:55:28,109 --> 00:55:31,012
that begins to increase the vacancy rates
1002
00:55:31,012 --> 00:55:32,513
in the rental markets,
1003
00:55:32,513 --> 00:55:34,248
and so people begin to look elsewhere
1004
00:55:34,248 --> 00:55:37,485
besides public housing for places to live.
1005
00:55:37,485 --> 00:55:39,820
So Pruitt-Igoe had very little money
1006
00:55:39,820 --> 00:55:41,589
to actually pay for maintenance and upkeep
1007
00:55:41,589 --> 00:55:43,357
because it couldn't raise the money
1008
00:55:43,357 --> 00:55:44,492
from the rents of the tenants
1009
00:55:44,492 --> 00:55:47,528
because so many of them had left.
1010
00:55:47,528 --> 00:55:49,931
Grants were given to rehab buildings,
1011
00:55:49,931 --> 00:55:51,365
studies were commissioned,
1012
00:55:51,365 --> 00:55:53,634
but nothing seemed to help.
1013
00:55:53,634 --> 00:55:56,604
The housing authority was faltering.
1014
00:55:56,604 --> 00:55:59,473
The giant project's finances were bringing it down.
1015
00:56:01,342 --> 00:56:02,910
Rents were raised.
1016
00:56:02,910 --> 00:56:04,312
By the end of the decade,
1017
00:56:04,312 --> 00:56:07,782
rents increased three times in one year.
1018
00:56:07,782 --> 00:56:10,051
The residents were stretched.
1019
00:56:10,051 --> 00:56:12,420
Some paid three quarters of their income
1020
00:56:12,420 --> 00:56:14,322
to live in Pruitt-Igoe.
1021
00:56:30,204 --> 00:56:34,208
7 hey, what's happenin', baby? 7
1022
00:56:34,208 --> 00:56:38,179
7 looks like the world is changin' overnight 7
1023
00:56:38,179 --> 00:56:41,949
7 yes, it is now 7
1024
00:56:41,949 --> 00:56:46,754
7 people groovin' on different things 7
1025
00:56:46,754 --> 00:56:48,990
Sylvester: There were a lot of men in Pruitt-Igoe,
1026
00:56:48,990 --> 00:56:52,159
but they didn't belong there.
1027
00:56:52,159 --> 00:56:53,561
Basically Pruitt-Igoe was a place that had
1028
00:56:53,561 --> 00:56:58,266
a lot of young women, a lot of single mothers.
1029
00:56:58,266 --> 00:57:01,235
You had men coming back from the Vietnam war,
1030
00:57:01,235 --> 00:57:03,337
you had broken men, you had unemployed men,
1031
00:57:03,337 --> 00:57:05,273
you had men who weren't supposed to be in the home
1032
00:57:05,273 --> 00:57:08,276
because of the whole welfare system.
1033
00:57:08,276 --> 00:57:11,245
Friends of friends, guys who hung out,
1034
00:57:11,245 --> 00:57:13,814
men who stayed downstairs and drank.
1035
00:57:13,814 --> 00:57:16,984
7 the world is changin' 77
1036
00:57:16,984 --> 00:57:20,121
and there were men who came in,
1037
00:57:20,121 --> 00:57:23,724
waited in the hallways for women to come home from work,
1038
00:57:23,724 --> 00:57:26,894
for the salesmen to come on Fridays,
1039
00:57:26,894 --> 00:57:30,064
and they'd lurk around in the hallways.
1040
00:57:30,064 --> 00:57:31,299
I mean, it was easy to get in there,
1041
00:57:31,299 --> 00:57:34,035
do the dirty deed, and get out.
1042
00:57:34,035 --> 00:57:38,139
Valerie: The reputation that we had we did not deserve.
1043
00:57:38,139 --> 00:57:41,108
People came in from the outside that didn't live in there,
1044
00:57:41,108 --> 00:57:44,211
and you come in and you threw a couple of bucks here and there
1045
00:57:44,211 --> 00:57:46,247
to some kid that's sittin' on the steps.
1046
00:57:46,247 --> 00:57:47,748
He ain't got nothin' to do.
1047
00:57:47,748 --> 00:57:50,584
So his hero just gave him two dollars.
1048
00:57:50,584 --> 00:57:53,287
"Well, no, I won't tell the police where you are.
1049
00:57:53,287 --> 00:57:54,789
But I'm gonna tell you when they come
1050
00:57:54,789 --> 00:57:57,091
because you gonna run by and pat me on my head
1051
00:57:57,091 --> 00:57:58,526
or give me a couple of more dollars
1052
00:57:58,526 --> 00:58:00,361
or maybe you'll buy me some tennis shoes,
1053
00:58:00,361 --> 00:58:02,663
maybe you'll buy us a bag of groceries."
1054
00:58:04,799 --> 00:58:06,667
Sylvester: The crime was real,
1055
00:58:06,667 --> 00:58:11,572
but the people of Pruitt-Igoe were stigmatized by the crime.
1056
00:58:11,572 --> 00:58:13,074
To the average St. louisan,
1057
00:58:13,074 --> 00:58:15,976
the word "Pruitt-Igoe" became this representation
1058
00:58:15,976 --> 00:58:18,646
of the fears of black poverty,
1059
00:58:18,646 --> 00:58:21,048
black drug abuse, black crime.
1060
00:58:23,050 --> 00:58:24,852
Repeated rumors and repeated stories
1061
00:58:24,852 --> 00:58:26,454
and media accounts
1062
00:58:26,454 --> 00:58:30,224
made that much more representative than what it was.
1063
00:58:30,224 --> 00:58:33,060
It was like danger was around the corner,
1064
00:58:33,060 --> 00:58:35,129
danger was always there,
1065
00:58:35,129 --> 00:58:37,465
so that element of fear had crept its way
1066
00:58:37,465 --> 00:58:39,433
into the definition of Pruitt-Igoe.
1067
00:58:55,549 --> 00:58:57,918
Brian: If a person sensed fear in you,
1068
00:58:57,918 --> 00:58:59,587
then you had a problem.
1069
00:59:04,959 --> 00:59:06,327
Anywhere you went,
1070
00:59:06,327 --> 00:59:09,563
you had to have this certain air about you
1071
00:59:09,563 --> 00:59:14,535
of "don't mess with me 'cause I'll hurt you."
1072
00:59:15,936 --> 00:59:19,140
(Crowd shouting angrily)
1073
00:59:19,140 --> 00:59:24,278
It's the mindset of individuals that live in constant fear.
1074
00:59:27,114 --> 00:59:28,716
It changes people.
1075
00:59:30,718 --> 00:59:31,919
(Explosion)
1076
00:59:31,919 --> 00:59:33,888
It created a group of individuals
1077
00:59:33,888 --> 00:59:37,258
that felt as if they had really nothing to lose.
1078
00:59:41,128 --> 00:59:43,464
And I tell you this--
1079
00:59:43,464 --> 00:59:46,367
persons that don't have a decent place to stay
1080
00:59:46,367 --> 00:59:49,069
are becoming motivated enough to want to fight
1081
00:59:49,069 --> 00:59:50,638
for them a place to stay,
1082
00:59:50,638 --> 00:59:54,442
and are willing to take these kinds of chances.
1083
00:59:54,442 --> 00:59:57,878
Where we live, we're taking chances.
1084
00:59:57,878 --> 01:00:00,514
Many times, you don't even know
1085
01:00:00,514 --> 01:00:03,184
that you're sittin' on the keg of dynamite.
1086
01:00:03,184 --> 01:00:06,053
I said as tenants we got to draw a line
1087
01:00:06,053 --> 01:00:07,588
and say, "no more!"
1088
01:00:07,588 --> 01:00:08,722
No more!
1089
01:00:08,722 --> 01:00:10,658
No more!
1090
01:00:10,658 --> 01:00:13,027
We are not no dogs, cats, or rats
1091
01:00:13,027 --> 01:00:17,064
that you can just take us and just put us just anywhere.
1092
01:00:17,064 --> 01:00:21,335
We want some decent place where we can live.
1093
01:00:21,335 --> 01:00:24,371
In all the buildings we're getting calls all the time
1094
01:00:24,371 --> 01:00:26,073
that, uh, the heating is broke down.
1095
01:00:26,073 --> 01:00:27,608
And they give us reasons
1096
01:00:27,608 --> 01:00:30,144
but they give us very little heat.
1097
01:00:30,144 --> 01:00:33,314
Toilets not being fixed on time,
1098
01:00:33,314 --> 01:00:36,217
windows that are never replaced, you understand?
1099
01:00:36,217 --> 01:00:38,919
And the projects just went down,
1100
01:00:38,919 --> 01:00:42,289
and if your house was broken into
1101
01:00:42,289 --> 01:00:44,325
and you called the police, and they wouldn't come
1102
01:00:44,325 --> 01:00:46,527
because you were in Pruitt and Igoe.
1103
01:00:46,527 --> 01:00:49,063
And you mean to tell me
they are doing their job?
1104
01:00:49,063 --> 01:00:51,465
Uh uh. They're evading
what is reality,
1105
01:00:51,465 --> 01:00:54,602
and the fact is that Pruitt-Igoe
is still standin' there,
1106
01:00:54,602 --> 01:00:56,370
and those policeman
are afraid to go in there
1107
01:00:56,370 --> 01:00:58,239
and they don't give a (Bleep).
1108
01:00:58,239 --> 01:00:59,874
Why are we payin' rent
1109
01:00:59,874 --> 01:01:02,476
and we can't get none of these things done?
1110
01:01:02,476 --> 01:01:04,178
It's the housing authority's fault.
1111
01:01:04,178 --> 01:01:05,913
You might go to the housing authority, says,
1112
01:01:05,913 --> 01:01:08,382
"not our fault, it's up-- it's the mayor's fault."
1113
01:01:08,382 --> 01:01:10,951
And the mayor might say it's Washington's fault.
1114
01:01:10,951 --> 01:01:13,454
You may not get it resolved, and the fact that you seem
1115
01:01:13,454 --> 01:01:15,789
to be goin' around in circles
1116
01:01:15,789 --> 01:01:18,526
would pile and pile and pile on the resentment.
1117
01:01:20,761 --> 01:01:24,565
When you had a place like a Pruitt and Igoe,
1118
01:01:24,565 --> 01:01:28,903
any housing project where there's a multitude of people,
1119
01:01:28,903 --> 01:01:32,139
then you had political pull.
1120
01:01:32,139 --> 01:01:35,509
Like the Martin Luther King march
1121
01:01:35,509 --> 01:01:37,378
could have done nothing with just Martin Luther King
1122
01:01:37,378 --> 01:01:39,013
marchin' by himself.
1123
01:01:39,013 --> 01:01:40,447
It caught on fire.
1124
01:01:44,852 --> 01:01:46,754
In February 1969,
1125
01:01:46,754 --> 01:01:50,858
St. Louis public housing residents began a rent strike,
1126
01:01:50,858 --> 01:01:53,827
the first of its kind in the history of public housing.
1127
01:01:56,797 --> 01:01:59,466
Tenant organizations collected the rent,
1128
01:01:59,466 --> 01:02:01,902
which was withheld from the housing authority
1129
01:02:01,902 --> 01:02:03,637
until demands were met.
1130
01:02:03,637 --> 01:02:05,439
Reporter: Mr. Porter,
the housing authority argues
1131
01:02:05,439 --> 01:02:08,609
that since the project
is run with rent money,
1132
01:02:08,609 --> 01:02:10,411
you're only doing yourself
a disservice
1133
01:02:10,411 --> 01:02:11,912
by withholding the rent money,
1134
01:02:11,912 --> 01:02:13,981
that conditions would be
even worse.
1135
01:02:13,981 --> 01:02:16,917
Well, by withholding our money, we feel that we can--
1136
01:02:16,917 --> 01:02:19,253
that's our only stick that we feel as poor people
1137
01:02:19,253 --> 01:02:20,821
that we have to fight with.
1138
01:02:20,821 --> 01:02:22,056
Well, the
housing authority says
1139
01:02:22,056 --> 01:02:23,524
it simply does not
have the money.
1140
01:02:23,524 --> 01:02:26,760
Where's it gonna get the money
to do what you want now?
1141
01:02:26,760 --> 01:02:28,529
We feel that's their problem.
1142
01:02:30,431 --> 01:02:33,901
So, handbills were passed out,
1143
01:02:33,901 --> 01:02:36,270
meetings were held.
1144
01:02:36,270 --> 01:02:40,341
Senior citizens, handicapped people,
1145
01:02:40,341 --> 01:02:43,944
young people walking the streets saying,
1146
01:02:43,944 --> 01:02:46,313
"don't pay the rent."
1147
01:02:46,313 --> 01:02:47,514
Woman: We're gonna keep rent strikin'
1148
01:02:47,514 --> 01:02:49,216
until they do something, because we know
1149
01:02:49,216 --> 01:02:50,918
that somebody can do something.
1150
01:02:50,918 --> 01:02:53,420
They're saying that they're bankrupt? We are, too.
1151
01:02:53,420 --> 01:02:55,489
They're saying they can't do anymore? We can't either.
1152
01:02:55,489 --> 01:02:57,157
The tenants don't have any money.
1153
01:02:57,157 --> 01:02:59,593
They cannot pay this kind of rent and eat, too,
1154
01:02:59,593 --> 01:03:02,663
so I'm tellin' the people to eat and damn the rent.
1155
01:03:02,663 --> 01:03:05,799
You got people registering to vote and voting.
1156
01:03:05,799 --> 01:03:07,801
You got people speakin' up for their rights
1157
01:03:07,801 --> 01:03:10,304
who never spoke up before.
1158
01:03:10,304 --> 01:03:12,206
And you got people who seem to be able
1159
01:03:12,206 --> 01:03:13,374
to do something about it,
1160
01:03:13,374 --> 01:03:15,009
I'll put it that way.
1161
01:03:18,679 --> 01:03:21,148
It caught on fire,
1162
01:03:21,148 --> 01:03:24,818
and while we weren't praised for it,
1163
01:03:24,818 --> 01:03:27,554
it occurred.
1164
01:03:27,554 --> 01:03:30,157
After nine months of negotiations,
1165
01:03:30,157 --> 01:03:32,359
the depleted housing authority finally gave in
1166
01:03:32,359 --> 01:03:35,729
to the strikers' demands.
1167
01:03:35,729 --> 01:03:39,366
Rents were limited to one quarter of any tenant's income
1168
01:03:39,366 --> 01:03:41,468
and residents would have a much greater voice
1169
01:03:41,468 --> 01:03:44,138
in the operation of St. Louis public housing.
1170
01:03:46,340 --> 01:03:48,575
The victory was short-lived
1171
01:03:48,575 --> 01:03:50,978
as years of neglect placed beleaguered buildings
1172
01:03:50,978 --> 01:03:54,448
on the verge of physical collapse.
1173
01:03:54,448 --> 01:03:57,751
Just two months after the end of the rent strike,
1174
01:03:57,751 --> 01:04:00,287
the dam finally broke.
1175
01:04:00,287 --> 01:04:02,022
Reporter: When the temperatures dropped below freezing
1176
01:04:02,022 --> 01:04:03,624
earlier this week, water lines
1177
01:04:03,624 --> 01:04:06,193
in several of the Pruitt-Igoe apartment buildings broke
1178
01:04:06,193 --> 01:04:09,029
and the subsequent flow of water turned into ice.
1179
01:04:09,029 --> 01:04:12,366
At 2311 Dixon, a sewer line is broken,
1180
01:04:12,366 --> 01:04:14,735
and now raw sewage bubbles out of the ground
1181
01:04:14,735 --> 01:04:16,537
like a malevolent spring.
1182
01:04:16,537 --> 01:04:19,139
In the building itself, residents and maintenance crews
1183
01:04:19,139 --> 01:04:20,741
are working to clean up the mess.
1184
01:04:20,741 --> 01:04:22,509
Woman: Some of my friends had to come help me
1185
01:04:22,509 --> 01:04:23,711
sweep the water out the house.
1186
01:04:23,711 --> 01:04:25,279
What about heat, have you got heat today?
1187
01:04:25,279 --> 01:04:27,581
No, we haven't had no heat in a week.
1188
01:04:27,581 --> 01:04:29,450
And, uh, you're using the gas stove for heat then?
1189
01:04:29,450 --> 01:04:32,786
Uh-huh. Mm-hm.
1190
01:04:32,786 --> 01:04:34,021
30 additional carpenters
1191
01:04:34,021 --> 01:04:35,322
were added to the maintenance crews
1192
01:04:35,322 --> 01:04:38,525
to board up an estimated 10,000 broken windows,
1193
01:04:38,525 --> 01:04:41,662
which contributed to the general breakdown of services.
1194
01:04:41,662 --> 01:04:43,397
Clothing and other household items
1195
01:04:43,397 --> 01:04:45,299
continued to flow into the community center.
1196
01:04:45,299 --> 01:04:48,669
We need you to tell us what takes priority.
1197
01:04:48,669 --> 01:04:50,938
I would like to recommend the following:
1198
01:04:50,938 --> 01:04:53,707
That you need first of all to have this area declared
1199
01:04:53,707 --> 01:04:57,177
as a disaster area and an emergency area,
1200
01:04:57,177 --> 01:04:59,213
that the second thing that you work on,
1201
01:04:59,213 --> 01:05:01,515
evacuation of the citizens,
1202
01:05:01,515 --> 01:05:05,486
and the third thing is to work for a permanent solution
1203
01:05:05,486 --> 01:05:07,521
to this problem which keeps comin' up
1204
01:05:07,521 --> 01:05:10,324
time and time and time again.
1205
01:05:10,324 --> 01:05:11,658
Reporter: Outside one of the buildings
1206
01:05:11,658 --> 01:05:14,294
in the mud, the slush, and the debris,
1207
01:05:14,294 --> 01:05:16,029
we found this button which looks a bit
1208
01:05:16,029 --> 01:05:18,132
the worse for wear.
1209
01:05:18,132 --> 01:05:21,101
It says, "make Pruitt-Igoe #1."
1210
01:05:21,101 --> 01:05:22,636
That undoubtedly reflects the feeling
1211
01:05:22,636 --> 01:05:25,105
of many of the residents who live here
1212
01:05:25,105 --> 01:05:27,007
who suffered through broken pipelines
1213
01:05:27,007 --> 01:05:29,409
in the subzero temperatures.
1214
01:05:29,409 --> 01:05:31,779
"Make Pruitt-Igoe number one."
1215
01:05:31,779 --> 01:05:33,247
Pruitt-Igoe at this point--
1216
01:05:33,247 --> 01:05:36,116
and the other public housing units in St. Louis--
1217
01:05:36,116 --> 01:05:38,018
are still a long way from number one.
1218
01:06:01,308 --> 01:06:03,410
Valerie: When they started to close that complex down,
1219
01:06:03,410 --> 01:06:07,881
it became a really big hazard.
1220
01:06:07,881 --> 01:06:09,383
People started to go in
1221
01:06:09,383 --> 01:06:12,352
and they would try to strip the buildings.
1222
01:06:12,352 --> 01:06:16,023
There was a lot of copper inside the buildings.
1223
01:06:16,023 --> 01:06:18,592
The drug addicts and users and dealers
1224
01:06:18,592 --> 01:06:21,562
started to move into the empty buildings,
1225
01:06:21,562 --> 01:06:25,699
and now they got a big, giant, empty building to themselves
1226
01:06:25,699 --> 01:06:28,035
because nobody lives in there.
1227
01:06:28,035 --> 01:06:30,137
If you're on top of this building,
1228
01:06:30,137 --> 01:06:34,174
if you stand on the tenth floor or any high-up apartment,
1229
01:06:34,174 --> 01:06:35,642
you could look down, you could tell
1230
01:06:35,642 --> 01:06:37,077
when the police were comin' in,
1231
01:06:37,077 --> 01:06:40,047
so there was no way, none,
1232
01:06:40,047 --> 01:06:42,749
that they could sneak in there and get you.
1233
01:06:42,749 --> 01:06:44,251
Sylvester: There were drug havens set up
1234
01:06:44,251 --> 01:06:46,820
in these empty buildings because they weren't monitored,
1235
01:06:46,820 --> 01:06:48,021
nobody checked them,
1236
01:06:48,021 --> 01:06:49,489
so you had drug dealers who'd go in
1237
01:06:49,489 --> 01:06:52,092
and set up a whole empire in an empty building.
1238
01:06:59,299 --> 01:07:02,970
It was just too big, too unmonitored.
1239
01:07:02,970 --> 01:07:05,138
Criminals could get in, they could get out.
1240
01:07:05,138 --> 01:07:07,040
Criminal activity could fester.
1241
01:07:07,040 --> 01:07:10,110
Once it was broke down here, it could pick up again there.
1242
01:07:10,110 --> 01:07:13,814
It was just--the experiment had gone terribly awry,
1243
01:07:13,814 --> 01:07:17,284
and, uh, it was just uncontrollable.
1244
01:07:20,020 --> 01:07:23,257
My brother was upset, and, uh...
1245
01:07:23,257 --> 01:07:25,893
We were standin' underneath the building,
1246
01:07:25,893 --> 01:07:29,963
and he was eatin' these, uh, these, uh...
1247
01:07:29,963 --> 01:07:32,332
Peanut butter crackers.
1248
01:07:32,332 --> 01:07:35,736
And I ask him for some, he said no.
1249
01:07:35,736 --> 01:07:37,604
So me and my mom and my stepdad,
1250
01:07:37,604 --> 01:07:40,107
we stayed on the fourth floor and we went upstairs
1251
01:07:40,107 --> 01:07:41,975
and he went off somewhere.
1252
01:07:41,975 --> 01:07:43,977
And we weren't there five minutes
1253
01:07:43,977 --> 01:07:47,080
and we heard a bunch of shots.
1254
01:07:47,080 --> 01:07:49,216
Sylvester: I'd wake up in the morning and we'd go to school
1255
01:07:49,216 --> 01:07:52,486
and I remember one day walking by this yellow police tape
1256
01:07:52,486 --> 01:07:54,655
and there were blood stains on the concrete,
1257
01:07:54,655 --> 01:07:56,290
and we're on our way to school.
1258
01:07:56,290 --> 01:07:58,525
So you heard about these gangs and these drugs
1259
01:07:58,525 --> 01:08:01,528
and this mysterious thing called "heron,"
1260
01:08:01,528 --> 01:08:03,530
and so these different words were coming into my life
1261
01:08:03,530 --> 01:08:06,233
that I did not understand, but I knew that there was
1262
01:08:06,233 --> 01:08:10,237
an element of danger that was associated with all this stuff.
1263
01:08:10,237 --> 01:08:11,638
(Gunshots)
1264
01:08:11,638 --> 01:08:13,073
Brian: I see people flinch all the time
1265
01:08:13,073 --> 01:08:16,143
from backfires from automobiles, whatever.
1266
01:08:16,143 --> 01:08:18,979
But in the projects, you learn after a while
1267
01:08:18,979 --> 01:08:20,881
that you don't flinch, you just look around
1268
01:08:20,881 --> 01:08:22,983
and survey your environment.
1269
01:08:27,721 --> 01:08:31,525
And within about two minutes,
1270
01:08:31,525 --> 01:08:32,726
there was a rap at the door,
1271
01:08:32,726 --> 01:08:34,428
boom-boom-boom,
1272
01:08:34,428 --> 01:08:37,064
and it's this guy herb, he's a friend of my brother.
1273
01:08:37,064 --> 01:08:39,633
My brother's name was beanie, his nickname was that.
1274
01:08:39,633 --> 01:08:40,968
"They just shot beanie."
1275
01:08:47,641 --> 01:08:49,109
Valerie: The nights I can remember walkin'
1276
01:08:49,109 --> 01:08:50,944
through Pruitt and Igoe were--
1277
01:08:50,944 --> 01:08:53,480
it was snow on the ground and it was white
1278
01:08:53,480 --> 01:08:54,815
and the moon was shinin',
1279
01:08:54,815 --> 01:08:56,516
and then all these lights was on.
1280
01:08:56,516 --> 01:09:00,654
Okay, so that means these places are occupied, there's life here.
1281
01:09:00,654 --> 01:09:03,023
But when these buildings are abandoned,
1282
01:09:03,023 --> 01:09:04,691
you don't know what's goin' on in there.
1283
01:09:04,691 --> 01:09:07,828
You don't know who is in there or what they have on their mind
1284
01:09:07,828 --> 01:09:08,962
if there is somebody in there.
1285
01:09:08,962 --> 01:09:11,064
Nobody will hear me scream.
1286
01:09:11,064 --> 01:09:13,967
So when you-- when you look at that
1287
01:09:13,967 --> 01:09:16,003
and you think about it,
1288
01:09:16,003 --> 01:09:17,604
it's time to go.
1289
01:09:17,604 --> 01:09:20,540
I mean, everybody with a brain in their head knows
1290
01:09:20,540 --> 01:09:21,875
when the party's over,
1291
01:09:21,875 --> 01:09:23,377
and the party was over.
1292
01:09:28,248 --> 01:09:32,819
They had shot him at close range with a shotgun,
1293
01:09:32,819 --> 01:09:36,089
and all his innards were out,
1294
01:09:36,089 --> 01:09:39,459
and his liver was detached.
1295
01:09:39,459 --> 01:09:43,030
And my mom was there tryin' to put it all back in,
1296
01:09:43,030 --> 01:09:45,365
tryin' to hold it together, you know?
1297
01:09:45,365 --> 01:09:48,335
And, uh, uh...
1298
01:09:48,335 --> 01:09:51,171
But she couldn't, she couldn't get it all back in, so...
1299
01:09:51,171 --> 01:09:52,672
He looked up at her, he said,
1300
01:09:52,672 --> 01:09:55,008
"mom, I'm gonna die, ain't I?"
1301
01:09:55,008 --> 01:09:57,310
And she said, "yeah."
1302
01:09:57,310 --> 01:09:59,613
And he said, "I'm not afraid to die,"
1303
01:09:59,613 --> 01:10:01,581
and, uh, you know,
1304
01:10:01,581 --> 01:10:04,584
that was kind of the last thing he said to her.
1305
01:10:22,269 --> 01:10:24,971
After my brother was murdered,
1306
01:10:24,971 --> 01:10:27,941
the idea that we could cohabitate and get along,
1307
01:10:27,941 --> 01:10:29,609
that was all out the window.
1308
01:10:29,609 --> 01:10:31,178
My mom was bitter,
1309
01:10:31,178 --> 01:10:33,246
my family was bitter,
1310
01:10:33,246 --> 01:10:36,183
and I can remember distinctly it took me eight years
1311
01:10:36,183 --> 01:10:38,452
to stop dreamin' about it every night.
1312
01:10:38,452 --> 01:10:40,954
And all I could think about as a kid--
1313
01:10:40,954 --> 01:10:42,489
I guess I was about nine years old,
1314
01:10:42,489 --> 01:10:45,992
eight or nine-- was how to murder somebody.
1315
01:10:45,992 --> 01:10:48,361
I thought about that every day for years.
1316
01:11:04,911 --> 01:11:07,447
Valerie: They wanted to let you know "this is it."
1317
01:11:09,583 --> 01:11:12,252
"You are leavin' here.
1318
01:11:12,252 --> 01:11:14,254
I don't care where you go,
1319
01:11:14,254 --> 01:11:16,723
but you comin' out of here.
1320
01:11:16,723 --> 01:11:18,091
This is out of control
1321
01:11:18,091 --> 01:11:20,093
and we are no longer gonna put up with it.
1322
01:11:20,093 --> 01:11:23,663
We're not gonna tolerate this anymore
1323
01:11:23,663 --> 01:11:25,665
'cause your (Bleep) Is out of here."
1324
01:11:27,400 --> 01:11:30,537
Nobody else will come up in here and live like this.
1325
01:11:41,014 --> 01:11:44,317
In 1972, three buildings of Pruitt-Igoe
1326
01:11:44,317 --> 01:11:46,686
were imploded with dynamite,
1327
01:11:46,686 --> 01:11:49,289
the first of which was nationally televised.
1328
01:11:52,259 --> 01:11:54,628
Two years later, the St. Louis housing authority
1329
01:11:54,628 --> 01:11:58,999
received federal approval to close and completely demolish
1330
01:11:58,999 --> 01:12:01,768
the Wendell Pruitt and William Igoe homes.
1331
01:12:03,870 --> 01:12:07,240
By 1976, the site was cleared,
1332
01:12:07,240 --> 01:12:12,112
its residents scattered across an emptying city.
1333
01:12:12,112 --> 01:12:14,848
57 acres of the north side neighborhood
1334
01:12:14,848 --> 01:12:17,184
again stood vacant,
1335
01:12:17,184 --> 01:12:19,586
as it had less than three decades earlier
1336
01:12:19,586 --> 01:12:22,956
in an overcrowded city with twice the population.
1337
01:12:28,495 --> 01:12:30,864
Joyce: I remember seeing on the evening news
1338
01:12:30,864 --> 01:12:33,300
Pruitt-Igoe being blown up.
1339
01:12:35,502 --> 01:12:38,405
The immediate question that came to my mind was,
1340
01:12:38,405 --> 01:12:41,374
whatever happened to all the people who lived there?
1341
01:12:45,011 --> 01:12:46,913
And I think that the powers that be,
1342
01:12:46,913 --> 01:12:48,481
the authorities in the city,
1343
01:12:48,481 --> 01:12:53,119
strongly stigmatized the people who lived in Pruitt-Igoe.
1344
01:12:53,119 --> 01:12:55,922
They gave the impression that it had imploded within
1345
01:12:55,922 --> 01:13:00,460
before the explosion of the brick and mortar.
1346
01:13:00,460 --> 01:13:04,264
It never made sense to label them the perpetrators
1347
01:13:04,264 --> 01:13:06,633
and to use them as scapegoats
1348
01:13:06,633 --> 01:13:11,404
as though they were the cause of a structured inequality.
1349
01:13:11,404 --> 01:13:13,873
It only makes sense if its placed
1350
01:13:13,873 --> 01:13:15,842
within this broader national context
1351
01:13:15,842 --> 01:13:19,779
of what was happening to, um, the urban poor.
1352
01:13:19,779 --> 01:13:21,548
And it wasn't pretty.
1353
01:13:22,782 --> 01:13:24,417
(Rumbling)
1354
01:13:24,417 --> 01:13:28,421
Robert: The implosion footage was so shocking
1355
01:13:28,421 --> 01:13:31,925
just because there was still in people's minds
1356
01:13:31,925 --> 01:13:35,662
the idea that this had been the solution.
1357
01:13:37,330 --> 01:13:40,767
It was a very painful moment of truth
1358
01:13:40,767 --> 01:13:43,169
to see that failure.
1359
01:13:47,073 --> 01:13:48,375
And that's why, in many ways,
1360
01:13:48,375 --> 01:13:50,644
Pruitt-Igoe is not just the national
1361
01:13:50,644 --> 01:13:52,846
and even the world's symbol
1362
01:13:52,846 --> 01:13:56,583
for the failure of American public housing,
1363
01:13:56,583 --> 01:13:59,953
it's also been a symbol for the perceived failure
1364
01:13:59,953 --> 01:14:04,958
of well-intentioned government policies in general.
1365
01:14:04,958 --> 01:14:07,827
And that's why I think it's so important
1366
01:14:07,827 --> 01:14:11,331
to look beyond those famous pictures
1367
01:14:11,331 --> 01:14:13,800
of the towers being destroyed
1368
01:14:13,800 --> 01:14:16,603
and really try to understand
1369
01:14:16,603 --> 01:14:19,773
what failed and why.
1370
01:14:19,773 --> 01:14:24,944
In some ways, Pruitt-Igoe failed because housing alone
1371
01:14:24,944 --> 01:14:28,448
couldn't deal with the most basic issues
1372
01:14:28,448 --> 01:14:33,320
that were troubling the American city.
1373
01:14:33,320 --> 01:14:36,623
There was just no way to build your way out
1374
01:14:36,623 --> 01:14:38,558
of that tragedy.
1375
01:14:40,660 --> 01:14:45,865
I think we have a responsibility to understand those failures
1376
01:14:45,865 --> 01:14:48,168
and to learn from them and to do better.
1377
01:14:53,506 --> 01:14:56,843
Joseph: Public housing actually has a very fine grain
1378
01:14:56,843 --> 01:14:58,178
to the story.
1379
01:14:58,178 --> 01:15:01,114
It's not a total failure or a total success.
1380
01:15:04,384 --> 01:15:07,454
We don't want people to think of Pruitt-Igoe as a failure
1381
01:15:07,454 --> 01:15:09,656
if they're going to then translate that failure
1382
01:15:09,656 --> 01:15:12,292
into all public housing or all government programs
1383
01:15:12,292 --> 01:15:16,029
or all social welfare or all modernism.
1384
01:15:16,029 --> 01:15:19,165
That's what Pruitt-Igoe has been freighted with.
1385
01:15:19,165 --> 01:15:21,468
If we want to say that this one project
1386
01:15:21,468 --> 01:15:25,071
in this one place for this one set of reasons declined
1387
01:15:25,071 --> 01:15:26,840
to the point where people thought it was necessary
1388
01:15:26,840 --> 01:15:28,508
to tear it down, that's one thing,
1389
01:15:28,508 --> 01:15:32,479
but that's simply not how we've told the story.
1390
01:15:32,479 --> 01:15:35,482
The bigger story is in fact the decline of the city overall.
1391
01:15:35,482 --> 01:15:39,419
What happened to St. Louis was tragic.
1392
01:15:39,419 --> 01:15:43,089
It's kind of a slow motion Katrina in a way.
1393
01:15:43,089 --> 01:15:45,425
St. Louis lost half its population
1394
01:15:45,425 --> 01:15:48,461
and had a devastated tax base and a drained economy
1395
01:15:48,461 --> 01:15:50,797
over the course of 50 years from world war ii
1396
01:15:50,797 --> 01:15:52,499
even to the present.
1397
01:15:52,499 --> 01:15:56,035
It's no wonder Pruitt-Igoe declined in those circumstances.
1398
01:15:56,035 --> 01:15:57,237
I mean, it'd be hard to imagine
1399
01:15:57,237 --> 01:15:58,972
a public housing project surviving
1400
01:15:58,972 --> 01:16:00,840
under those conditions.
1401
01:16:13,319 --> 01:16:15,789
Ruby: I was one of the people that they had to come up with
1402
01:16:15,789 --> 01:16:18,858
to be able to watch it.
1403
01:16:18,858 --> 01:16:21,361
It's almost like losin' a child.
1404
01:16:24,697 --> 01:16:27,534
You hated to see it occur.
1405
01:16:27,534 --> 01:16:29,135
You hated to see it occur.
1406
01:16:29,135 --> 01:16:33,773
Here I'm saying again it all depends on how you felt
1407
01:16:33,773 --> 01:16:35,175
when you went into Pruitt and Igoe,
1408
01:16:35,175 --> 01:16:36,976
and what it did for you.
1409
01:16:36,976 --> 01:16:40,180
With me, I was excited
1410
01:16:40,180 --> 01:16:42,449
about gettin' my first apartment.
1411
01:16:42,449 --> 01:16:45,685
I was excited about gettin' my poor man's penthouse.
1412
01:16:45,685 --> 01:16:48,154
It had its ups and downs.
1413
01:16:48,154 --> 01:16:50,023
It had its crimes, it had its cri--
1414
01:16:50,023 --> 01:16:52,325
it had its prostitutes, it had its dope pushers.
1415
01:16:52,325 --> 01:16:54,561
It had everything that everybody else had,
1416
01:16:54,561 --> 01:16:57,430
but that didn't stop me from carin' for it.
1417
01:16:57,430 --> 01:17:00,266
And when they blowed the building down,
1418
01:17:00,266 --> 01:17:05,004
yeah, I--I hated that very much.
1419
01:17:05,004 --> 01:17:07,807
And that may not be what people wanna hear,
1420
01:17:07,807 --> 01:17:09,676
but that's a fact.
1421
01:17:09,676 --> 01:17:12,178
Some people loved Pruitt-Igoe.
1422
01:17:12,178 --> 01:17:14,547
Some people hated Pruitt-Igoe.
1423
01:17:14,547 --> 01:17:17,083
People today, there are people today you meet,
1424
01:17:17,083 --> 01:17:18,651
they'll tell you, "don't tell nobody
1425
01:17:18,651 --> 01:17:20,386
I came from Pruitt and Igoe."
1426
01:17:20,386 --> 01:17:23,256
They're ashamed--I don't know what affected their lives,
1427
01:17:23,256 --> 01:17:25,391
how it affected their lives.
1428
01:17:25,391 --> 01:17:27,894
I don't know.
1429
01:17:27,894 --> 01:17:29,596
I don't know that.
1430
01:17:32,632 --> 01:17:35,101
I always wonder, uh, what I--
1431
01:17:35,101 --> 01:17:37,036
what my life would have been like
1432
01:17:37,036 --> 01:17:39,939
if I had never been in that environment.
1433
01:17:39,939 --> 01:17:42,108
Would I have been a nicer person?
1434
01:17:42,108 --> 01:17:43,877
Would I have been--
1435
01:17:43,877 --> 01:17:47,947
has it affected my relationships with others?
1436
01:17:47,947 --> 01:17:51,117
I'm envious of people that, uh,
1437
01:17:51,117 --> 01:17:56,789
have grown up in-- in less trying environments,
1438
01:17:56,789 --> 01:18:00,360
and I always see them as nicer than I am.
1439
01:18:01,494 --> 01:18:04,063
I appreciate quiet.
1440
01:18:04,063 --> 01:18:06,900
I appreciate people bein' civil.
1441
01:18:06,900 --> 01:18:10,503
I appreciate, uh,
1442
01:18:10,503 --> 01:18:14,440
non-violence and people getting along.
1443
01:18:14,440 --> 01:18:17,477
I--I don't take that for granted.
1444
01:18:17,477 --> 01:18:20,547
There's nothin' worse than the projects.
1445
01:18:20,547 --> 01:18:23,783
So I couldn't imagine, no.
1446
01:18:23,783 --> 01:18:27,720
Maybe Baghdad or somethin', ah, but...
1447
01:18:27,720 --> 01:18:30,757
That--I imagine what those children must feel like
1448
01:18:30,757 --> 01:18:33,359
over there.
1449
01:18:33,359 --> 01:18:37,130
Fearful of your life all the time.
1450
01:18:37,130 --> 01:18:39,599
I empathize with that.
1451
01:18:39,599 --> 01:18:42,168
So it's taught me empathy.
1452
01:18:44,971 --> 01:18:48,041
To go to church, I have to come down cass Avenue.
1453
01:18:48,041 --> 01:18:50,443
When I hit cass Avenue, the library is right there
1454
01:18:50,443 --> 01:18:52,745
and there's a white building on the left-hand side.
1455
01:18:52,745 --> 01:18:56,182
That's where Pruitt and Igoe started.
1456
01:18:56,182 --> 01:18:59,819
I look at Pruitt and Igoe in my mind's eye.
1457
01:18:59,819 --> 01:19:01,921
I try not to think of the bad times.
1458
01:19:01,921 --> 01:19:04,424
I like to think about the good times.
1459
01:19:08,261 --> 01:19:09,629
I can see it.
1460
01:19:09,629 --> 01:19:10,930
It's like when you're a kid
1461
01:19:10,930 --> 01:19:12,432
and you remember your first Christmas,
1462
01:19:12,432 --> 01:19:15,168
you--you remember everything about that Christmas.
1463
01:19:15,168 --> 01:19:17,870
You remember every toy you got.
1464
01:19:17,870 --> 01:19:20,073
I remember Pruitt and Igoe.
1465
01:19:20,073 --> 01:19:21,541
I remember the Christmas lights,
1466
01:19:21,541 --> 01:19:24,243
I remember the snow.
1467
01:19:24,243 --> 01:19:27,780
I remember the rain, I remember the people,
1468
01:19:27,780 --> 01:19:29,315
I remember people gettin' beat up,
1469
01:19:29,315 --> 01:19:31,050
I remember people havin' parties,
1470
01:19:31,050 --> 01:19:32,585
I remember dancin' in the streets,
1471
01:19:32,585 --> 01:19:34,020
I remember ridin' my bike.
1472
01:19:34,020 --> 01:19:36,522
I remember we raced up and down the hills.
1473
01:19:36,522 --> 01:19:38,424
It was our home.
1474
01:19:39,592 --> 01:19:42,328
(Voice breaking) It was a good thing.
1475
01:19:42,328 --> 01:19:46,432
Nobody could tell me that anybody that made that
1476
01:19:46,432 --> 01:19:47,734
made it for a bad thing,
1477
01:19:47,734 --> 01:19:51,237
and if they did, God blessed us.
1478
01:19:51,237 --> 01:19:52,839
He gave us good things in there,
1479
01:19:52,839 --> 01:19:55,375
he gave us really good memories.
1480
01:19:55,375 --> 01:19:57,910
And, um...
1481
01:19:57,910 --> 01:20:01,014
I ain't gonna never forget it.
1482
01:20:01,014 --> 01:20:04,550
When I feel bad--
1483
01:20:04,550 --> 01:20:06,386
I don't intend to--
1484
01:20:06,386 --> 01:20:09,255
but I dream about Pruitt and Igoe.
1485
01:20:09,255 --> 01:20:11,924
And I always see myself standin' in the window,
1486
01:20:11,924 --> 01:20:13,760
lookin' out the window.
1487
01:20:16,462 --> 01:20:19,232
The north side of St. Louis is changing.
1488
01:20:21,167 --> 01:20:24,170
Though most of the Pruitt-Igoe site stands vacant,
1489
01:20:24,170 --> 01:20:27,306
developers are purchasing land all around it,
1490
01:20:27,306 --> 01:20:31,310
and plans for a massive renewal are circulating once again.
1491
01:20:34,280 --> 01:20:38,084
History has patterns, but it doesn't repeat.
1492
01:20:38,084 --> 01:20:39,786
The city will change,
1493
01:20:39,786 --> 01:20:43,089
but in different ways than before.
1494
01:20:43,089 --> 01:20:44,757
In the years of Pruitt-Igoe,
1495
01:20:44,757 --> 01:20:46,559
the American city changed in ways
1496
01:20:46,559 --> 01:20:50,530
that made it unrecognizable from a generation earlier,
1497
01:20:50,530 --> 01:20:55,101
privileging some and leaving others in its wake.
1498
01:20:55,101 --> 01:20:56,736
The city will change,
1499
01:20:56,736 --> 01:20:59,605
but in ways different from before.
1500
01:20:59,605 --> 01:21:01,708
The next time the city changes,
1501
01:21:01,708 --> 01:21:03,810
remember Pruitt-Igoe.
1502
01:21:16,756 --> 01:21:18,624
To learn more about "America reframed,"
1503
01:21:18,624 --> 01:21:20,827
the stories, and issues we present,
1504
01:21:20,827 --> 01:21:23,863
visit our website at worldchannel.Org.
1505
01:21:23,863 --> 01:21:27,700
I'm Natasha del toro. Thanks, and see you next time.
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