STATEWAY GARDENS

'Stateway Gardens' is a public housing in the Bronzeville neighborhood of the South Side of Chicago, alongside the Dan Ryan Expressway, adjacent to the former Robert Taylor Homes.Stateway Gardens was home to people living in mid- and high-rise apartment buildings. Over the years, gang violence and neglect created terrible conditions for the residents in Stateway.

Contents

History

History

1955: Construction at Stateway Gardens begins, with 1,644 units planned in eight high-rise buildings. Total cost: $22 million.
1958: Stateway Gardens opens. About 3,000 people move in.
1978: Stateway Gardens, Robert Taylor Homes and most of the ABLA Homes on the West Side are rehabilitated under a $106.2 million CHA plan.
1982: Amid rising crime in CHA developments, the Chicago Police Department launches a Public Housing Crime Unit to replace private security guards at those sites.
1984: Stateway Gardens is within the sixth poorest U.S. census tracts, according to a Roosevelt University study. Cabrini-Green on the North Side ranks seventh.
1988: The South Side's Wentworth Police District, which includes Stateway Gardens and the Robert Taylor Homes, has 67 homicides, the highest of any district in the city.
1993: The federal government creates Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere, known as HOPE VI, as a way to provide funds for cities to demolish dilapidated public-housing units and replace them with mixed-income communities.
1995: Federal officials seize control of all Chicago Housing Authority holdings and property amid allegations of corruption and graft. The CHA leaves federal receivership in 1999.
1996: Demolition of Cabrini-Green begins, marking the start of what will eventually come to be known as the Chicago Housing Authority's Plan for Transformation.
1997: Demolition begins at the Robert Taylor Homes.
2000: The CHA formally approves the 10-year Plan for Transformation to remake public housing. Demolition begins at Stateway Gardens.
October 2006: Stateway families are scheduled to leave the final remaining building (3651-53 S. Federal St.), and the building is expected to be demolished by September.
June 2007: The final Stateway Gardens building is demolished making way for Phase 1 of the mixed income development Park Boulevard, of which half is already completed.