Crime-Ridden Chicago Housing Coming Down

As a giant crane hoisted wrecking equipment to the roof of a high-rise Wednesday, workers began demolishing part of a housing project synonymous with the decay of public housing.

The 19-story building in the Cabrini-Green complex is being torn down as part of a federally funded, $50-million renewal project. A wrecking ball will complete the job in a few weeks.

Although Cabrini-Green was first hailed as a salvation for the city’s poor, it quickly became overrun by gangs and guns. Perhaps the most publicized crime came in 1992, when a resident hiding in a vacant apartment shot and killed a 7-year-old boy walking to school with his mother.

“I always say the most dangerous transportation in the city of Chicago is the Cabrini-Green elevator,” said Ed Marciniak, president of the Institute of Urban Life at Loyola University in Chicago.

Now housing officials, hoping to reduce the density of people and poverty in the area, have received proposals from more than 20 developers to build mixed-income housing on part of the 70-acre site.

About one-sixth of the 3,600-unit project will be demolished or renovated in the next few months, said Jeanne Crowley, a spokeswoman for the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Some residents worry that the government will eventually tear down all of Cabrini-Green to make room for upper-class developments.

“Look around here,” said resident Lee Williams, pointing to the looming apartment buildings of the ritzy Gold Coast just blocks away. “It’s going to be just like Beverly Hills, and I’ll get arrested if I even come around here.”