Watchin’ the asphalt grow…
Tonight TV Land is having a ‘Good Times’ mini marathon. I enjoyed watching the show as a kid even though they were not well off. I would have gladly traded our life in suburban Oklahoma City for life in urban Chicago.
We all probably know the opening theme lyrics:
Good Times.
Any time you meet a payment. – Good Times.
Any time you need a friend. – Good Times.
Any time you’re out from under.
Not getting hassled, not getting hustled.
Keepin’ your head above water,
Making a wave when you can.Temporary lay offs. – Good Times.
Easy credit rip offs. – Good Times.
Scratchin’ and surviving. – Good Times.
Hangin in a chow line – Good Times.
Ain’t we lucky we got ‘em – Good Times.
But it is the closing lyrics that lend some insight into living in the projects in the 1970s.
Just lookin’ out of the window.
Watchin’ the asphalt grow.
Thinkin’ how it all looks sanitized
Good Times, yeah, yeah Good TimesKeepin’ your head above water
Makin’ a wave when you canTemporary lay offs. – Good Times.
Easy credit rip offs. – Good Times.
Ain’t we lucky we got ’em – Good Times.
The projects were supposed to be this great place for the masses but they were design failures. I often hear people say the residents didn’t appreciate what they were “given” and simply destroyed their own places. But in reality the poorest people in our society had their homes in real neighborhoods taken away from them and like pawns they were placed in these artificial towers. What’s to appreciate?
“Just lookin’ out of the window. Watchin’ the asphalt grow. Thinkin’ how it all looks sanitized”
– Steve
Connecting the dots to your past posts, there really is a lesson to be learned in how the projects were actually not dense. Indeed, Mill Creek Valley about Jefferson/Market had greater density and definitely more mixed use than its Pruitt-Igoe or Laclede Town replacements.
The projects were isolated single uses. Sure, there was a token community center and some playgrounds, but the mixed use activities of the communities were lost to “urban renewal.” Gone were the corner stores and the stoops of many flats, and thus also lost were the sense of community and the watchful eyes on the street.
But ironically, the projects were also less dense. The neighborhoods wiped out by “renewal” had great horizontal density, in other words, diverse uses all along its streets. In contrast, the projects had vertical density as a building, but with their “tower-in-park” design had much wasted green space between them. Thus, their common grounds became areas far from the public realm, just as dangerous as the common areas like the elevators and stairs within them.
Folks need to remember that architects celebrated Pruitt-Igoe. From a bird’s eye-view, it looked very modern, even eerily pretty. But from the streets, or lack thereof in superblocks like the projects, these complexes were as utilitarian and sterile as prisons.
I wouldn’t necessarily lump Pruitt-Igoe and LaClede Town in the same boat. LaClede Town, while certainly not perfect, was low-rise (max. 3 stories) and kind of cutesy in its attempt to look like a real neighborhood. It had a tavern, laundromat, and I think some other shops, right inside the development. You don’t see that with the new King Louis Square or Murphy Park developments.
It was a VERY diverse place, socio-economically and racially, during most of the 1960s. It was only after about 1973 or so that it really went downhill, and became just like any other ‘project.’
LaClede Town, for a while, was a case study in what was right about new urban development; but then bad management caught up with it, and it was doomed to slowly degrade until being demolished in the mid 1990s. No comment on what’s replaced it – but it’s definitely not urban!
Joe is right in that Laclede Town was better designed in its communal areas, but it still had what all projects have, an isolated campus or pod. Sure, that might work for socio-economically stratified subdivisions, villas, or even the extreme truly gated communities, but these were blocks taken out of their urban setting as pods of isolated development. Planned unit development, new town in town, or redevelopment plans were all the rage in postwar cities. But ultimately, these concepts ignored how organically functioning and diversely developed true neighborhoods are.
Laclede Town was imperfect, but did manage to become a hotbed of radical political and bohemian culture in the late 1960’s. People liked the place a lot into the 1970’s, when a new manager came on board.
I think it is important to note that in St. Louis, and maybe in other cities as well, two to three story low-rise style public housing was also built during the urban renewal period.
I wonder if the architects of Clinton Peabody- at 14th and Park(?) and Carr Square on the near north side were heeding the warnings of social scientists of the day or if they were just offering a competing design. Hard to say though, on second thought the same stark institutional design and massing of so many poor families in these projects leads me to think not.
I don’t know the fate of Carr Square but the buildings in CP have undergone several renovations including a de-densifying effort that saw some building demolished. The buildings are currently receiving pitched rooflines, an attempt no doubt to make them look more homelike and more in line with that neighboring “thing” called King Louie Sqare.
Its not sanitized, its hand-me-down!!
thinkin how it all looks HAND ME DOWN.