Pictured: the legacy of St. Louis
Some of Saint Louis’ prime citizens, peacefully demonstrated their dissatisfaction with the local constabularies
Originally, Pruitt-Igoe was intended to be segregated. The Pruitt section of the development—named for Tuskegee airman Wendall Pruitt—was dedicated to Blacks, and the Igoe section—after former congressman William Igoe—was for Whites. However, two years after construction was completed in 1956, the Brown vs. Board Supreme Court decision banned segregation altogether. In short, Pruitt-Igoe, having been around 40% White, became almost exclusively Black.
One of the early propaganda films was designed to market PI as improving the lives of tenants.
Yamasaki’s most famous design was also destroyed by a different minority.
Things began to go wrong very quickly upon Pruitt-Igoe’s White flight. Decreased desirability of the development led to higher levels of vacancy. In today’s public housing, that may not have been as much of a problem as Uncle Sam is always around with a grant or program to offset maintenance costs. However, in the bygone era of Pruitt-Igoe, the local housing authority was expected to pay for maintenance, security, and all other expenses associated with managing the massive project out of rental income. Fewer tenants meant less money available to attend to things that needed fixing.
A typical unit in Pruitt-Igoe when it was still habitable.
As one former resident described the motivation to try and destroy reinforced light fixtures, “The fact that it was indestructible made you want to try to destroy things.” In such a situation, it’s not hard to imagine the limited resources of the housing authority failing to measure up to the constantly worsening task set in front of them. The problem was so bad that Yamasaki is quoted as saying, “I never thought people were that destructive.” If watching his creation be destroyed wasn’t enough, indeed living in Detroit during the 60’s as he did forcefully disabused Mr. Yamasaki of any Asiatic notions of inherent human cleanliness.
Degrading conditions led to those who could and wanted to leave doing so. Even fewer tenants meant less rental income, and thus less maintenance, creating a vicious cycle of decay. But broken and piss-smelling elevators probably wouldn’t have been enough to condemn the project; what truly did it was the unimaginable criminality. That Pruitt-Igoe was known for its lawlessness is saying something considering that Saint Louis consistently ranks as one of the most violent cities in America. Former residents describe the stairwells of some of the less inhabited buildings as dens of thieves, drug dealers, and worse.
Pruitt-Igoe once defined the skyline of Saint Louis almost as much as the famous Arch, which drew more attention to its failure.
Community organizers started a myriad of organizations to lobby for increased resources, effectively demanding a bailout from the federal government, as Saint Louis was experiencing revenue declines in the 1960’s. The residents of the complex faced increasing rents as the housing authority tried to keep revenue flowing in order to keep fresh light bulbs in the sockets for the resident teens to destroy. The rent increase, along with the aforementioned community organization efforts, culminated in a 9-month rent strike. When confronted with the reality that no rent payments meant the housing authority would have no funds to conduct repairs, Mr. Porter, the head of the tenant association, responded, “we feel that’s they problem.”
It is a small wonder the state of Pruitt-Igoe didn’t degrade faster, considering such forward-thinking leadership. The rent strike lasted nine months, only ending when the housing authority agreed to limit rent to ¼ of the tenant’s income. Then, in response to even less money available for repairs, whole buildings started to be closed. Usually broken by the same gangs who preyed upon lightbulbs, windows started to get boarded up. Overnight the now abandoned housing blocks were stripped of their copper piping and became havens for drug addicts.
The fall of the N-Tower in 1971
The failure of Pruitt-Igoe, and similar high-rise developments like Chicago’s Cabrini-Green, triggered a flurry of studies by sociologists and urban planners eager to shift the blame to managerial policy failures. As naive as their race-blind efforts may have been, their critiques are not invalid. The idea that maintenance should be funded solely by rental income was probably ill-conceived. Still, that critique ignores the obvious: maintenance costs are going to be higher when residents view the destruction of their environment as an engaging activity. Other critiques fell flatter, such as the idea that the development style was isolating, which residents often contradicted. The positive words spoken about Pruitt-Igoe emphasize the community and its accessibility, and Yamasaki’s designs emphasized communal spaces and promoted interpersonal interaction.
In the foreground are the slums that PI (background) replaced. PI would soon mirror its predecessor residences.
The good people of Black Jack are located not far from Saint Louis city. Today the area is supermajority Black, making its name a bitter irony. But once upon a time, it was a new suburb where Whites, fleeing the cramped and declining downtown, sought refuge. Yet, in a trend we are all familiar with, what they were fleeing from was never far behind. The residents of Black Jack quickly incorporated their municipality, a tactic those not from Saint Louis may not understand to be a potent weapon used to prevent the encroachment of “folks from the city.” Zoning restrictions, an authority granted by the new municipalization, were quickly put into effect, with the head of Black Jack’s zoning board describing the motivation behind such actions as maintaining the “character” of the locals, “The people here are middle-income, behave like middle income. They worry about their schools, their lawns, their property.”
The site of PI today is eternally the subject of conversation about redevelopment, but doomed by its location north of Saint Louis’ famous Delmar Blvd, the effective red line of the city.
Black Jack, and neighboring community Spanish Lake were targeted to receive former residents and Blacks from Saint Louis generally. The documentary “Spanish Lake” can provide precise details on what occurred. But in that movement, we see a change in strategy. Pruitt-Igoe wasn’t rebuilt somewhere else. Instead, the government saw nice communities like Black Jack and Spanish Lake and decided, “I think we’ll just take those.” So the cycle continues: White people flee the neighborhoods that their ancestors and immediate families built. New towns were established with new restrictions, but NGO’s and governmental authorities barge in anyways.
The demographics of Black Jack today.
