Sorry, there was an error registering your email. That remaining building, at 919 S. Ada St., on Chicago’s Near West Side, is now the National Public Housing Museum, which opens Friday after years of fundraising and construction. While many Chicagoans are familiar with the disinvestment, decaying buildings and gang violence associated with the projects, the museum aims to paint a fuller picture of the history of public housing in the United States — one focused on the people who lived there. Below are some of the faces and spaces featured in the exhibits and oral archives of the museum. Sunny Fischer donated the antique desk that was in her home at the Eastchester Gardens housing project in the Bronx, New York.
The bright and airy lobby of the museum is named after Sunny Fischer, who was just 5 years old when her family first moved into the Eastchester Gardens housing project in New York City in the 1950s. When her mother died soon after moving in, the Eastchester community helped the family cope with their loss. “It felt safe to have a place where my family could heal and take care of each other,” she said. “It was a decent, lovely place to live.” Fischer, who eventually moved to Chicago, is chair of the museum’s board. The lobby features a desk that belonged to her father — one that Fischer used to hide under as a little girl. While she has fond memories of her childhood in the projects, Fischer says policy failures and funding over the years have eroded public housing. “When people who looked like me moved out, it says something about the, frankly, the racism in this society that there was disinvestment. There wasn’t the public will to keep up the buildings,” said Fischer, who is white. While the museum does not shy away from these themes, Fischer said it’s the other side of the story — the resilience and achievements of the residents — that has yet to reach the public. During her days in public housing, Fischer said, “It felt as if the government really wanted us to make it. … The museum tells the history of that social contract.” A replica of the Hatch home. The Hatch family home is one of three recreated Jane Addams apartments on exhibit. It features a bookcase filled with World Book Encyclopedia Year Books, like the ones Marshall Hatch’s mother used to purchase for her children. “[My mother] would go to A&P groceries and buy the encyclopedias one at a time, and I remember hours of sitting on the floor reading through the Year in Review,” he said. “It was the beginning of my introduction to the world.” Hatch is now senior pastor of the New Mount Pilgrim Church of Chicago. But in the 1960s and 1970s, he was just a boy, playing Little League baseball and crushing on a pretty girl who lived in the very building that now houses the museum. “My entire childhood — it was idyllic,” he said. “Long summers, very close friendships, families that supported each other, borrowing sugar and milk and going into your neighbor’s house to get your friend, the back door open — a lot of trust.” Before housing policies concentrated poverty in the projects and the buildings fell into disrepair, Hatch said the Jane Addams Homes were “a great place to raise a family.” The “Rec Room” exhibit celebrates well-known artists who lived in public housing. Dubbed “The Rec Room,” this exhibit features records by music artists who came up in public housing, including Jimi Hendrix, Bobby Brown, Elvis Presley, Barbra Streisand and members of the Wu-Tang Clan. Many of the records were donated by DJ Spinderella, one of the founding members of Salt-N-Pepa, and a former public housing resident in Brooklyn’s Pink Houses. Museum guide Gentry Quiñones said most public housing buildings in Chicago had a recreation room on the lower level, and this room represents that space. “It shows the happiness and the joy that went on in public housing,” she said. “There was music, there was community and there was a good time that happened in these spaces.” The Good Times exhibit. Photo courtesy of Percy Ollie, Jr./Ollie Photography, Inc. An exhibit in the museum’s basement celebrates Good Times , the pioneering 1970s sitcom that was set in Chicago’s Cabrini-Green public housing development. The exhibit features a replica of the famous living room from the show, as well as the top 10 Good Times episodes, as curated by former Cabrini-Green residents, which museumgoers can watch. The Animal Court exhibit at the National Public Housing Museum. The Animal Court is a collection of sculptures the artist Edgar Miller designed for the Jane Addams Homes, now restored and placed in the museum’s courtyard. As part of the federal government’s effort to help Americans recover from the Great Depression, the New Deal funded art projects for government buildings as a way to give work to struggling artists like Miller. Crystal Palmer sits outside her home. She is one of many former residents whose story is part of the museum’s oral history archive.
The museum extends beyond its physical space on South Ada Street in Chicago’s Little Italy neighborhood. There’s also an oral history archive, a bank of more than 150 interviews with public housing residents, which helped shape the exhibits. Crystal Palmer is one of those voices. She lived for more than 30 years in the Henry Horner Homes on Chicago’s West Side. That’s where she got connected to the Black Panthers and marched with Martin Luther King Jr. She learned everything she knows about grassroots organizing at Horner. Her advocacy efforts were focused on improving deteriorating conditions at the housing development. “That might have been the strongest thing that really hit me — how to advocate for people, for what’s right,” Palmer said. Now a resident engagement manager for the Chicago Housing Authority, Palmer still advocates for public housing residents, many of them her former neighbors from Horner. She said the museum displays hope in turbulent times. “Everybody knows what’s going on with the government. Everybody knows that they’re trying to cut the budget,” she said. “There are people out here that still need support. That is never going to go away.” The National Public Housing Museum at 919 S. Ada St. The museum is also home to more than a dozen families through a partnership with the Chicago Housing Authority and developer Related Midwest. The site includes 15 affordable housing units adjacent to the museum that families moved into about a month ago. Lisa Yun Lee is the executive director of the National Housing Museum.
In the early days of planning and fundraising for the museum, there was one question executive director Lisa Yun Lee heard often: “Who would want to go to a public housing museum?” To most Americans, public housing has become synonymous with poverty and crime, but to residents like the late longtime resident leader Deverra Beverly , who rallied to preserve the last of the Jane Addams apartments, the projects were home. The challenge was to change the narrative to focus on the sense of community residents experienced, as well as their resilience and success. To that end, Lee says the museum celebrates famous former public housing residents like U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and singer Elvis Presley, but it also highlights the lives of everyday people. She says the museum’s mission and purpose is “to move people’s minds and hearts to feel extremely empathetic to the story of public housing, and to bring residents so that they would see themselves in the museum.” Museum hours:
Friday, April 4, 2–6 p.m.
Saturday, April 5, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.
Sunday, April 6, 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Where: 919 S. Ada St.
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The bright and airy lobby of the museum is named after Sunny Fischer, who was just 5 years old when her family first moved into the Eastchester Gardens housing project in New York City in the 1950s. When her mother died soon after moving in, the Eastchester community helped the family cope with their loss. “It felt safe to have a place where my family could heal and take care of each other,” she said. “It was a decent, lovely place to live.” Fischer, who eventually moved to Chicago, is chair of the museum’s board. The lobby features a desk that belonged to her father — one that Fischer used to hide under as a little girl. While she has fond memories of her childhood in the projects, Fischer says policy failures and funding over the years have eroded public housing. “When people who looked like me moved out, it says something about the, frankly, the racism in this society that there was disinvestment. There wasn’t the public will to keep up the buildings,” said Fischer, who is white. While the museum does not shy away from these themes, Fischer said it’s the other side of the story — the resilience and achievements of the residents — that has yet to reach the public. During her days in public housing, Fischer said, “It felt as if the government really wanted us to make it. … The museum tells the history of that social contract.” A replica of the Hatch home. The Hatch family home is one of three recreated Jane Addams apartments on exhibit. It features a bookcase filled with World Book Encyclopedia Year Books, like the ones Marshall Hatch’s mother used to purchase for her children. “[My mother] would go to A&P groceries and buy the encyclopedias one at a time, and I remember hours of sitting on the floor reading through the Year in Review,” he said. “It was the beginning of my introduction to the world.” Hatch is now senior pastor of the New Mount Pilgrim Church of Chicago. But in the 1960s and 1970s, he was just a boy, playing Little League baseball and crushing on a pretty girl who lived in the very building that now houses the museum. “My entire childhood — it was idyllic,” he said. “Long summers, very close friendships, families that supported each other, borrowing sugar and milk and going into your neighbor’s house to get your friend, the back door open — a lot of trust.” Before housing policies concentrated poverty in the projects and the buildings fell into disrepair, Hatch said the Jane Addams Homes were “a great place to raise a family.” The “Rec Room” exhibit celebrates well-known artists who lived in public housing. Dubbed “The Rec Room,” this exhibit features records by music artists who came up in public housing, including Jimi Hendrix, Bobby Brown, Elvis Presley, Barbra Streisand and members of the Wu-Tang Clan. Many of the records were donated by DJ Spinderella, one of the founding members of Salt-N-Pepa, and a former public housing resident in Brooklyn’s Pink Houses. Museum guide Gentry Quiñones said most public housing buildings in Chicago had a recreation room on the lower level, and this room represents that space. “It shows the happiness and the joy that went on in public housing,” she said. “There was music, there was community and there was a good time that happened in these spaces.” The Good Times exhibit. Photo courtesy of Percy Ollie, Jr./Ollie Photography, Inc. An exhibit in the museum’s basement celebrates Good Times , the pioneering 1970s sitcom that was set in Chicago’s Cabrini-Green public housing development. The exhibit features a replica of the famous living room from the show, as well as the top 10 Good Times episodes, as curated by former Cabrini-Green residents, which museumgoers can watch. The Animal Court exhibit at the National Public Housing Museum. The Animal Court is a collection of sculptures the artist Edgar Miller designed for the Jane Addams Homes, now restored and placed in the museum’s courtyard. As part of the federal government’s effort to help Americans recover from the Great Depression, the New Deal funded art projects for government buildings as a way to give work to struggling artists like Miller. Crystal Palmer sits outside her home. She is one of many former residents whose story is part of the museum’s oral history archive.
The museum extends beyond its physical space on South Ada Street in Chicago’s Little Italy neighborhood. There’s also an oral history archive, a bank of more than 150 interviews with public housing residents, which helped shape the exhibits. Crystal Palmer is one of those voices. She lived for more than 30 years in the Henry Horner Homes on Chicago’s West Side. That’s where she got connected to the Black Panthers and marched with Martin Luther King Jr. She learned everything she knows about grassroots organizing at Horner. Her advocacy efforts were focused on improving deteriorating conditions at the housing development. “That might have been the strongest thing that really hit me — how to advocate for people, for what’s right,” Palmer said. Now a resident engagement manager for the Chicago Housing Authority, Palmer still advocates for public housing residents, many of them her former neighbors from Horner. She said the museum displays hope in turbulent times. “Everybody knows what’s going on with the government. Everybody knows that they’re trying to cut the budget,” she said. “There are people out here that still need support. That is never going to go away.” The National Public Housing Museum at 919 S. Ada St. The museum is also home to more than a dozen families through a partnership with the Chicago Housing Authority and developer Related Midwest. The site includes 15 affordable housing units adjacent to the museum that families moved into about a month ago. Lisa Yun Lee is the executive director of the National Housing Museum.
In the early days of planning and fundraising for the museum, there was one question executive director Lisa Yun Lee heard often: “Who would want to go to a public housing museum?” To most Americans, public housing has become synonymous with poverty and crime, but to residents like the late longtime resident leader Deverra Beverly , who rallied to preserve the last of the Jane Addams apartments, the projects were home. The challenge was to change the narrative to focus on the sense of community residents experienced, as well as their resilience and success. To that end, Lee says the museum celebrates famous former public housing residents like U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and singer Elvis Presley, but it also highlights the lives of everyday people. She says the museum’s mission and purpose is “to move people’s minds and hearts to feel extremely empathetic to the story of public housing, and to bring residents so that they would see themselves in the museum.” Museum hours:
Friday, April 4, 2–6 p.m.
Saturday, April 5, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.
Sunday, April 6, 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Where: 919 S. Ada St.
