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1. Edgemont Avenue (Now Grenshaw), West from Loomis, September, 1934

These "dilapidated, weatherbeaten buildings" were replaced by the Jane Addams Homes, one of the earliest low-rent public housing projects.

(Courtesy Chicago Historical Society.)

2. Jane Addams Housing Project, Completed Spring, 1938

In its original plan, the Jane Addams Homes consisted of a mixture of three-story apartment buildings and two-story row houses, totalling 304 units ranging from two to five rooms. Edith Abbott, completing her study of Chicago's tenements just as the Addams project was well under way wrote of it: "The buildings themselves will cover only about 25 per cent of the six-acre tract of land just south of Vernon Park that formerly belonged to the Jewish People's Institute. The rest of the area will be left

before the end of World War II. The apartments did not go above four stories, and some row houses were also built. All had extensive open spaces for play areas, off-street parking and extensive landscaping. They remain today among the most attractive low-income rental dwellings in Chicago. Yet this achievement scarcely dented the housing crisis. In 1939 the Land Use Survey found 76,000 units, nearly eight per cent of the city's total supply, in need of major repairs or unfit for use. And many more were slipping into dangerous condition through over-crowding and neglect.

The city's mounting problems revealed the urgency for more careful planning. The old *Plan of Chicago* had been implemented to a large extent, and it was no longer adequate for the future. It had emphasized boulevards and civic buildings rather than the living and working environment. But now federal funds became available for more modern planning. The Land Use Survey, which went into the field in 1939, represented the first step. Concentrating on residential conditions, it produced two statistics-packed general volumes and 150 others containing maps, figures, and neighborhood detail which laid the factual basis for subsequent activity.

In 1939 the Plan Commission was re-
organized for a larger role in city govern-
ment. Its first job was to produce a
"master plan" to succeed the old Burn-
ham Plan, now three decades old. The
war curtailed its work, but it did publish

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open; a part of it will be planted in trees, shrubbery, and grass; and parts will be reserved for playgrounds and gardens. The buildings will be of the most modern construction, fireproof and sanitary. They will have ample light and air. All rooms will be outside rooms. . . . In addition to this development on the vacant land of the old Institute grounds, the government purchased some fifteen acres of adjoining property to insure proper surroundings for the new project. Here the old buildings are being demolished and the land will be used for additional housing, similar to that

of the Jane Addams Houses, except that there will be more open space for park and recreation purposes. The federal government has allotted $6,950,000 for this project, which will accommodate a total of 981 families, or, assuming an average of four to a family, nearly 4,000 persons." (Courtesy Chicago Housing Authority.)

### 3. Ida B. Wells Housing Project

The Ida Wells project consisted of two-story row houses and three-story apartment buildings. Opened January 18, 1941, to house 1,662 low income Negro

families, it covered nearly forty-seven acres between South Parkway (Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive), Cottage Grove, 37th Street and 39th Street. Over 18,000 preliminary applications were received for dwelling space in Ida B. Wells; 4,000 were screened out as having too high an income, and from the remainder, the original tenants were selected. Attractive landscaping, enhanced over the years by the natural process of growth, and a low percentage of land coverage added to the merit of the project.
(Courtesy Library of Congress Collection.)

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## 2. East Side of Kenwood Avenue, Looking North from East Park Place toward Fifty-Fifth Street, 1961

The Webb and Knapp plan was to create a town house development, either "arranged to form inward looking, small scale squares, or alternately extend as fingers into adjacent areas." The walls of these houses which faced on busy streets expressed a desire for privacy through their slight visual contact with the street.

(Photograph, Marian M. Celander. Courtesy Chicago Historical Society.)

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## 1. View Northeast of the University of Chicago and Hyde Park, 1960

The early phase of the Hyde Park project were already under way when this photograph was taken. In the right foreground is the beginning of the University's South Campus development in northern Woodlawn, with Eero Saarinen's Law School complex already completed. In the middle distance,

demolition has taken place and construction has begun around Fifty-fifth Street and Lake Park Avenue. There the double blockhouse University Apartments and the Hyde Park Shopping Center, both by Webb and Knapp, are taking shape.

(Photograph, Chicago Aerial Industries. Courtesy University of Chicago, Department of Public Relations.)

case study

The pointe at lincoln park

chicago, illinois

Land use information

Site Area: 7.0 acres
Total Dwelling Units: 154
Gross Project Density: 22 units per acre
Housing Type: Townhouses (7 designs)
Gross Residential Density: 23.6 units per acre
Parking Total: 208 spaces
Parking Ratio: 1.3 spaces/unit
Project Completion Date: June 1997

Land use plan

| | Acres | Percentage of Site |
| :--- | :--- | :--- |
| Residential | 5.70 | 81.4% |
| Roads/Parking | 0.75 | 10.7% |
| Open Space | 0.55 | 7.9% |
| Total | 7.00 | 100.0% |

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98 the pointe at lincoln park