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Softline, a provider of business management software to small and medium sized companies, today announced that after months of planning they will be rebranding and will be referred to as Sage South Africa, effective immediately. Softline is the holding company for prominent South African software products such as Pastel Accounting and Payroll, VIP Payroll, Sage 300 ERP (Accpac) and Sage ERP X3. Softline joined the Sage Group plc in 2003 after delisting from the JSE and is the central team of the Africa, Australia, Middle East and Asia (AAMEA) region, a grouping of territories headed by Softline co-founder and CEO of Sage AAMEA Ivan Epstein.
The Sage Group plc, a FTSE 100 company, is a leading global provider of business management software to SMEs with over 6.5 million customers in 24 countries. Epstein attributes the rebranding in South Africa to the alignment with Softline's parent company, The Sage Group plc. in the continued pursuit of a global brand. "Softline has been part of The Sage Group plc for many years and over this time we have continued to grow in prominence. To move forward we believe that it is now time to leverage the global power of The Sage Group and align ourselves fully with the brand."
Softline was founded in 1988 by Ivan Epstein, Alan Osrin and soon after joined by Steven Cohen. The company was established in the formative years of the business software industry in South Africa, and soon became a leader in the provision of business software and services to SMEs. The move to Sage will bring about name changes across all of the divisions including Sage VIP (formerly Softline VIP), Sage ERP Africa (formerly Softline ACCPAC), Sage Pastel (formerly Softline Pastel) and Sage Pay (formerly Softline Netcash) as well as the newest edition to the stable, Sage Alchemex (formerly Alchemex). "Our current and future customers will continue to enjoy the benefits of our locally and globally developed products that they have come to know and trust, whilst this alignment creates further opportunities to leverage global insights and collaboration."
Epstein says that while the company's branding will change, it is business as usual for Sage South Africa. "Our continued vision in South Africa, and globally, is to be recognised as the most valuable supporter of small and medium sized companies, by creating greater freedom for them to succeed," says Epstein. "This vision supports the path of providing local expertise and leadership combined with global learnings and experience of Sage."


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Science Features
Coal is an important fuel source in the United States today. Responsible for approximately 39 percent of the country's electrical generation, coal is vital to the day-to-day operation of people's lives.
The United States is rich in coal deposits, with large resources. One of the most important and largest of those deposits is found in the Powder River Basin (PRB) of Wyoming and Montana, which, in 2012, produced more than 42 percent of the Nation's coal.
On February 26, USGS released its new assessment of in-place resources, recoverable resources, and economic reserves of coal in the Powder River Basin, the first of a new generation of coal assessments from the USGS. Estimates of total in-place coal resources in the PRB are 1.07 trillion short tons, while recoverable coal resources are 162 billion short tons, and coal reserves are 25 billion short tons.
What Do All these Numbers Mean?
Previous assessments focused only on total in-place and recoverable coal resources, but this assessment includes in-place resources and a regional assessment of recoverable coal resources and economic coal reserves.
In-place coal resources include in-place tonnage estimates of total coal volumes. In-place resources are those quantities that are estimated, as of a given date, to be contained in known deposits prior to production. The quantity which can be technically produced or mined, may be significantly less than the volumes estimated to be in place.
Recoverable resources are calculated using those coal beds from the total in-place resources that are deemed both shallow and thick enough to be recoverable using current surface mining technology.
Coal reserves are a subset of coal resources. To be classified as reserves, the coal must be considered economically producible at the time of classification, but facilities for extraction need not be installed and operative.
Current reserves does not mean that is all that remains mineable. The size of reserves changes because mining costs and coal sales prices are subject to fluctuation based on market conditions – recoverable resources become reserves with favorable changes in costs, demand, and prices.
What is Coal?
Coal is a sedimentary rock made predominantly of carbon that can be burned for fuel. Coal formed when prehistoric forests and marshes were buried and compressed over hundreds of millions of years. After deposition and subsequent burial, some contents of the rock, such as moisture, are squeezed out due to the pressure leading to higher and higher concentration of carbon, though other elements (such as sulfur, oxygen, nitrogen) remain in the coal. This process resulted in the various types of coal seen today, which are ranked according to their moisture content and concentration of carbon.
USGS and Coal
USGS has studied coal for more than 100 years. In addition to its own research, USGS works with others, predominantly state geological surveys, to provide the basic geologic information to assess the Nation's coal resources. The largest and most well-known areas of coal the USGS has assessed are the Appalachian Basin and Illinois Basin in the eastern U.S. and the Williston Basin, Colorado Plateau, and the Powder River Basin in the western U.S.
USGS also studies the environmental effects of developing and using coal, such as greenhouse gas emissions from underground coal fires, air quality impacts from coal utilization, and studying coal quality for fuel use optimization.
Optimizing fuel use and minimizing its impact on the environment are necessary components of 21st century strategies for meeting society's energy needs. One critical aspect of fuel use optimization is an understanding of the geologic factors that affect fuel quality. For example, the composition of coal critically influences power generation efficiency, the impact of coal use on the environment, and the composition and usefulness of combustion products.
Coalbed Gas
There is another important resource directly related to the Nation's coal: coalbed gas. Generated in and produced from coal seams, coalbed gas, often called coalbed methane, accounts for approximately eight percent of the U.S. natural gas production and has many of the same uses as coal, such as production of electricity and fuel for our home furnaces during the winter. In addition, it can be used in fertilizers, or for transportation in place of gasoline, which is derived from oil.
In addition to its uses, coalbed gas can be a hazard as it could lead to suffocation and explosions (it is extremely flammable in combination with coal dust). Miners would bring canaries into the mines to help them know when large concentrations of methane were in the area. In modern times, mine ventilation techniques and methane detection equipment has reduced the methane hazard for miners.
Coal is an important part of the U.S. energy mix, and the United States is richly endowed with coal. After all, the Powder River Basin is the largest deposit of low-sulfur subbituminous coal in the world. However, as the latest assessment of the Powder River Basin also shows, there is a significant difference between the in-place resources and the recoverable resources, let alone the economic resources. USGS' coal research provides critical information for government and private managers to know just how much coal really is present, what is usable, and its quality.
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subset: commoncrawl


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The Cabrini-Green Housing Projects in Chicago, Illinois were some of the most infamous in the country. Decades of poverty and violence rendered them near uninhabitable. They have been demolished and the residents have all been relocated. Some have moved near-by into brand new condos, some have been transplanted around the Chicagoland area, and some, inevitably have become homeless. I will post photos and news of the neighborhood periodically to show the transformation.
Updated September 21, 2013
The Greens, Documentary
About "The Greens"
The Greens is a 20-minute personal journey documentary about what happens when a white college kid sits down in a black barber's chair. They journey through time, back into the contentious memory of one of Chicago's "most notorious" housing projects, Cabrini-Green, where they confront their deepest assumptions about the neighborhood, its residents, violence and the possibility of finding common ground.
Schmich: Cabrini gone, superstore coming
The city swallows itself, over and over.
Moving Poor People Into a Neighborhood Doesn't Cause Crime
Beginning in the mid-1990s, the federal government shifted the way it subsidizes housing for the low-income. Out were mega-public housing projects like St. Louis' Pruitt-Igoe and Chicago's Cabrini-Green. In were housing vouchers and tax credits designed to disperse people in need of housing help out of these infamous pockets of poverty.
Crime rates in cities across the country happened to be falling around this same time. But many communities far from places like Cabrini-Green feared that a program designed to disperse the poor would also disperse crime associated with them – and straight into more pristine neighborhoods. This idea has persisted for nearly 20 years. And it's prominent among theobjections often raised to adding subsidized housing into new neighborhoods and suburbs (see also: the schools will get overcrowded! The traffic will get worse! Everyone's property value will fall!).
"Crime and violence-based fear is something that's certainly been used very, very effectively for decades in this country," says Michael Lens, an assistant professor of urban planning at UCLA. "And many of our cities are certainly the worse for it in terms of land use and equitable neighborhood opportunity."
Full Story: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2013/08/hard-data-proves-housing-vouchers-dont-cause-crime/6404/
Growing Power Chicago
Chicago Tonight | August 1, 2013 9:30 am
Cabrini Tenants Sue CHA
Thursday, May 16, 2013 | Updated 2:03 PM CDT
Source: http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/Cabrini-Tenants-Sue-CHA-207753021.html#ixzz2Tt9y4g4D
Long-time tenants are suing the Chicago Housing Authority for allegedly reneging on pledges to return them to their neighborhood after redevelopment.
The Cabrini-Green Local Advisory Council filed its lawsuit in federal court Thursday. Chicago has been demolishing or renovating public housing for years to provide poorer residents more livable conditions.
Many Cabrini Rowhouses residents ended up waiting out renovations in segregated developments with less economic opportunity.
Thursday's lawsuit says the CHA renovated a quarter of the Cabrini units, then set aside just a small portion for public housing. It wants them all designated for public housing.
Full Story: http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/Cabrini-Tenants-Sue-CHA-207753021.html#ixzz2TtA3mHaE
Rumor is that a 22 story apartment building is going in where the custom cabinet building is at Howe and Division. Have you heard anything about it? Any info, please send to green.cabrini(at)gmail(dot)com.
Mark Konkol and Paul Biasco Talk Crime in Post Cabrini-Green Old Town
OLD TOWN — Reporters Mark Konkol and Paul Biasco sat down with DNAinfo.com Chicago's Jackie Kostek to lay out what's happening in "Sedville," a volatile pocket of vice around the old Cabrini-Green housing project.
"There's a clash of class, race, violence and people who want to feel safe," said Konkol, who teamed up with Biasco for a special report on the problems neighborhood residents are facing, including the January slaying of Sedville's Tyshawn Blanton in what was a suspected gang retaliation ambush.
And the gentrifying neighborhood has a new problem woven into the tale.
The Chicago Public Schools plan to close Manierre Elementary this fall, forcing Sedville kids to cross into rival gang territory to get to their new school, Jenner.
Click on the video (above) to hear Konkol and Biasco explain the struggle.
Target Progress Photos
Target Breaks Ground in Cabrini
Leaders and residents have high expectations for retail giant
New City Development at YMCA Site to Break Ground
Carl Vogel, Published June 11, 2012, http://www.connectnearnorth.orgublished June 11, 2012, http://www.connectnearnorth.org
New City Development at YMCA Site to Break Ground
Plans are once again on the move for the triangular site at Halsted Street and Clybourn Avenue, which was formerly the home of New City YMCA.
The mixed-use project will break ground later this year for a 80,000-square-foot Mariano's Fresh Market supermarket as the anchor tenant. A deal to bring a 14-screen, 1,800-seat movie theater to the center is also in the works, according to the developer, and plans allow for retail, entertainment, gourmet market and residential development, as well as uses such as dining or a health club.
All told, the $230 million New City retail and residential development is planned to include 370,000 square feet of retail space, 280 residential rental units and a seven-level parking structure with more than 1,050 parking spaces.
* * *
"A lot has happened in the four years since the city and neighborhood overwhelmingly approved this project," said J. Michael Drew, who, along with Daniel Lukas, controls Structured Development. "But despite the commercial real estate and financial markets suffering their worst economic downturn in decades, the one constant was the irreplaceable location and desirability of this property."
The team notes that a central draw of the center will be New City Plaza, featuring more than an acre of lush landscaping and water features. It will host activities and entertainment year-round for shoppers, residents and the surrounding community.
Full Story...
City Farm HoursSupport the independently run Farmers Market at Clybourn and Division.
July 10-Sept. 28, 2012
1204 N. Clybourn Ave.
Monday | Closed
Tuesday | 1 - 5:30 pm
Wednesday | 1 - 5:30 pm
Thursday | 1 - 5:30 pm
Friday | 1 - 5:30
Saturday | 10 - 2 pm
Sunday | Logan Square Farmers Market
City Farm is a sustainable vegetable farm bordering two very diverse Chicago neighborhoods: Cabrini-Green and the Gold Coast. The farm boasts thirty varieties of tomatoes as well as beets, carrots, arugula, gourmet lettuces, herbs and more.
City Farm turns fallow, vacant land into amazingly productive farmland. The benefits are tangible:
instead of an acre of crumbling cement and overgrown weeds we have
created a viable farm that produces 25,000 pounds of heirloom tomatoes,
arugula, beets, carrots, herbs; and jobs for farmers, a green space
that attracts hordes of volunteers, students and other visitors. And the benefits are environmental: greening, beauty, hope, value!. Donate today and support City Farm.
The last tower:The decline and fall of public housingBy Ben Austin, Harpers Magazine, Published May, 2012
Forty years ago, when U.S. cities began abandoning high-rise public housing, blasting crews would fill a tower with explosives and in a few monumental booms all would be reduced to rubble and rolling clouds of dust. It was as swift as it was symbolic. Now the demolitions are done by wrecking ball and crane, and the buildings are brought down bit by bit over months. This gradual dismantling seemed especially ill suited to the felling, in March 2011, of the last remaining tower at Cabrini-Green. Described almost unfailingly as "infamous" or "notorious," this Chicago housing project had come to embody a nightmare vision of public housing, the ungovernable inner-city horrors that many believe arise when too many poor black folk are stacked atop one another in too little space. For the end of Cabrini-Green, I imagined something grandiose and purifying—the dropping of a bomb or, as in Candyman, the 1992 slasher film set in Cabrini's dark wasteland, a giant exorcising bonfire. Instead, as I watched, a crane with steel teeth powered up and ripped into a fifth-floor unit, causing several feet of prefabricated façade to crumble like old chalk. Water sprayed from inside the crane's jaws to reduce dust.
Photograph of the mailboxes of 412 W. Chicago, a building at Cabrini-Green © Paul D'Amato
The fifteen-story high-rise was known by its address, 1230 N. Burling. Already stripped of every window, door, appliance, and cabinet, the monolith was like a giant dresser without drawers. The teeth tore off another hunk of the exterior, revealing the words I NEED MONEY painted in green and gold across an inside wall. Chicago was once home to the second-largest stock of public housing in the nation, with nearly 43,000 units and a population in the hundreds of thousands. Since the mid-1990s, though, the city has torn down eighty-two public-housing high-rises citywide, including Cabrini's twenty-four towers. In 2000, the city named the ongoing purge the Plan for Transformation, a $1.5 billion, ten-year venture that would leave the city with just 15,000 new or renovated public-housing family units, plus an additional 10,000 for senior citizens. Like many other U.S. cities, Chicago wanted to shift from managing public housing to become instead what the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) called "a facilitator of housing opportunities." The tenants of condemned projects were given government-issued vouchers to rent apartments in the private market, or were moved into rehabbed public housing farther from the city center, or wound up leaving subsidized housing altogether.
The centerpiece of the plan, though, was an effort to replace the former projects with buildings where those paying the market rate for their units and those whose rents were subsidized would live side by side. Since 1995, when the federal government rescinded a rule that required one-to-one replacement of any public-housing units demolished, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has awarded billions of dollars to cities nationwide to topple housing projects and build in their stead these mixed-income developments.
Full story...
Satoki Nagata is a documentary and fine art photographer from Japan and has been spending the last two years photographing subjects at the Frances Cabrini Rowhouses. They are beautiful portraits of life that not many people have been able to, or care to see. Satoki's subjects seem to have let him into some very intimate moments in their lives, and the work shows the care he has for them as well.
Housing Chicago:
Cabrini-Green to Parkside of Old Town
By Lawrence Vale, The Design Observer, Published February 20, 2012
In 1929 a treatise by sociologist Harvey Zorbaugh famously depicted the Near North Side of Chicago as divided into The Gold Coast and the Slum. [1] Within a generation the public housing development Cabrini-Green, built in stages from the early 1940s to the early 1960s, would replace that slum — all too literally, as it turned out. For while in its early years the Cabrini project, which consisted of low-rise and high-rise housing, served as a clean and modern alternative to the horrific conditions of the neighborhood known as "Little Hell," Cabrini-Green itself would suffer a protracted decline — to the point where it became the slum it had been meant to cure. By the early 1990s Cabrini-Green had come to symbolize the systemic failures of postwar public housing, and it was then that city officials and local developers initiated a second cycle of renewal.
As a result, over the past two decades, gentrification processes have finally began to erase the harsh distinction between "Slum" and "Gold Coast," even as low-income residents have struggled to find a place for themselves in a transforming urban order. Instead of crime-ridden slums and squalid housing projects, this latest round of housing has featured Starbucks-fringed mixed-income communities with vaguely pastoral names like North Town Village, Mohawk North and Parkside of Old Town. For the redevelopment phases completed before 2008, all boded well for developers; more recently the great recession has turned their pro formas into a form of wishful thinking.
Looking across a century of the housing that occupied this same benighted acreage, we can see striking parallels between Cabrini-Green's slum-clearance origins in the 1930s and '40s and the more recent fate of this site under the Chicago Housing Authority's ongoing Plan for Transformation. The successive efforts to reform the Near North Side, and to do so via the mechanism of public housing, reveal much about our national attitudes toward housing — and about our attitudes toward which people should be housed.
Full article...
Closing a Condo-Cabrini Chasm
By John McCarron, The Red Line Project @chitownstories Published: Nov. 29, 2011
After months of working around it, time had arrived to talk about the elephant in the room.For a year now, at monthly meetings of the Near North Unity Program, area residents have discussed the need for more youth activities, safe-feeling public spaces and meet-your-neighbor events. Together they helped plan last summer's jazz-in-the-park concerts, a Friday afternoon basketball league, even a neighborhood clean-and-green patrol.Still, something didn't feel quite right … didn't feel, well, neighborly. Just below the surface there seemed an unspoken tension in the NNUP meeting room.
Nearly everyone knew what it was, but none dared give it voice: It's the tension between public housing tenants whose families have lived in the Cabrini-Green area for decades, and newcomers who've purchased condos and townhouses in the new mixed-income developments.
CHA tenants feel they're being monitored and regulated like second-class citizens even though it's their longtime neighborhood. Homeowners feel they've invested their hard-earned money in a "new" neighborhood. And they don't want that investment—or their sense of decorum—threatened by what some consider low-class behaviors.Full Story...
Young students in need get 1-on-1 help
Cabrini-Green Tutoring Program expands well beyond boundaries of former public housing complex
Posted: Monday, Nov. 27, 2011
Chicago's Ambitious plan to improve poor families' housing conditions
By Deng Shasha - news.xinhuanet.com - Posted: Nov. 21, 2011
CHICAGO, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- "I feel much safer now. This is my last move," says Sirnollie Baldwin a mother of four who is a new resident of a mixed-income community in North Chicago. They moved from Cabrini Green, a public housing community notorious for gang violence and thugs, synonymous with the problems associated with public housing in the United States.
"This can be my stable home, I won't leave my area," a glowing Sirnollie told Xinhua. Her home is among the 25,000 units of housing renovated or built by Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) under the Plan for Transformation, the largest redevelopment and rehabilitation project of public housing in the history of the U.S.
The Plan for Transformation began in 2000, aimed at building and strengthening communities by integrating public housing and its leaseholders into the larger social, economic and physical fabric of Chicago, said Jadine Chou, vice president of CHA's Asset Management Department.
"We are about 80 percent done with this plan, we want to move people out of Chicago's stigma, and into a new world," Jadine added.
The so-called mixed-income communities would help to break down the social barriers that formerly segregated public housing residents from the mainstream communities, Jadine said. "Our goal is to not have a difference."
"The positive environment could give you a better hope that you can move toward self-sufficiency," said Jadine. "The family income of public housing residents have almost doubled in the last 10 years, from 10,000 dollars per year in 2000 to 19,000."
Meanwhile, CHA also offers leaseholders a comprehensive array of supportive services that lead to self-sufficiency, including job training and placement, substance abuse treatment, education, summer programs and day care.
Sirnollie felt easier to get a job after the movement. "Before, when I filed up an application for a job, when they see the address of Cabrini, they would think twice because they know what the address means. But now as I file up an application, nobody would have a second thought about where you live there, because it' s not the old address of the bad community that we were in."
Sirnollie now worked for H.J. Russell & Company, a property manager contracted with CHA, which makes her fully capable of raising four kids by herself, as only 30 percent of the family income is used to pay for the rental.
"If the families can do more on their part by working, we provide fewer subsidies to that units, and therefore, can use that to help more other people," Jadine said.
Chicago's Ambitious plan to improve poor families' housing conditions
By Deng Shasha - news.xinhuanet.com - Posted: Nov. 21, 2011
CHICAGO, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- "I feel much safer now. This is my last move," says Sirnollie Baldwin a mother of four who is a new resident of a mixed-income community in North Chicago. They moved from Cabrini Green, a public housing community notorious for gang violence and thugs, synonymous with the problems associated with public housing in the United States.
"This can be my stable home, I won't leave my area," a glowing Sirnollie told Xinhua. Her home is among the 25,000 units of housing renovated or built by Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) under the Plan for Transformation, the largest redevelopment and rehabilitation project of public housing in the history of the U.S.
The Plan for Transformation began in 2000, aimed at building and strengthening communities by integrating public housing and its leaseholders into the larger social, economic and physical fabric of Chicago, said Jadine Chou, vice president of CHA's Asset Management Department.
"We are about 80 percent done with this plan, we want to move people out of Chicago's stigma, and into a new world," Jadine added.
The so-called mixed-income communities would help to break down the social barriers that formerly segregated public housing residents from the mainstream communities, Jadine said. "Our goal is to not have a difference."
"The positive environment could give you a better hope that you can move toward self-sufficiency," said Jadine. "The family income of public housing residents have almost doubled in the last 10 years, from 10,000 dollars per year in 2000 to 19,000."
Meanwhile, CHA also offers leaseholders a comprehensive array of supportive services that lead to self-sufficiency, including job training and placement, substance abuse treatment, education, summer programs and day care.
Sirnollie felt easier to get a job after the movement. "Before, when I filed up an application for a job, when they see the address of Cabrini, they would think twice because they know what the address means. But now as I file up an application, nobody would have a second thought about where you live there, because it' s not the old address of the bad community that we were in."
Sirnollie now worked for H.J. Russell & Company, a property manager contracted with CHA, which makes her fully capable of raising four kids by herself, as only 30 percent of the family income is used to pay for the rental.
"If the families can do more on their part by working, we provide fewer subsidies to that units, and therefore, can use that to help more other people," Jadine said.
Some Have Mixed Opinions on Mixed-Income Housing on Chicago's North Side
Posted: Monday, Oct. 31, 2011
Some Have Mixed Opinions on Mixed-Income Housing on Chicago's North Side
Posted: Monday, Oct. 31, 2011
New Photos by N.P. Lanthrum
New Photos by N.P. Lanthrum
Harvesting Jobs (with Urban Farms)
Harvesting Jobs (with Urban Farms)
...Much has been written about the abundant produce generated by urban farms, on sale at weekly markets throughout town. Yet as this wayward press conference suggests, the corresponding crop of jobs has gone unexamined. Looking around at the spry, young farmers in attendance, all sorts of unasked questions leap to mind. How many farming jobs are in Chicago? How much do they pay? What are the perks?
While it's important not to overstate the money involved--we're talking about gardens, not diamond mines--there is also no denying the economic promise of urban agriculture in Chicago and across the country. Research shows that more than half of all jobs in organic food and farming, and virtually all the new ones, are located in large metropolitan areas. At least two Chicago farms are in the works that would seek to mentor new farmers into business.* * *
David Henderson
David Henderson thought he was done farming when he moved to Chicago in 2009. He had spent the past two seasons working on a small organic farm in heavily agricultural North Carolina. He loved the work, but yearned for a taste of life in a big city, with its music scene and abundance of young people. "I moved to Chicago not really planning on farming," he explains. "If I had stayed in North Carolina, where lots of people farm, I may not have pursued it myself."
* * *
Henderson graduated in 2010 and just finished his first season as a production assistant at City Farm on the Near North Side. He spends most of his time planting, harvesting, and delivering food, although he also oversees a large corps of volunteers. "It's the perfect place for me to work," Henderson enthuses. "A lot of urban agriculture is focused on educating people about food and the environment. But I don't see myself as a teacher. City Farm focuses on production, on growing as much food as they can and distributing their food as much as they can. So it's a great a fit for me."
Darion CrawfordDarion Crawford has large, habitually watchful eyes that, on an overcast fall day, are trained on seven teenage farmhands working hard not to fill the wheelbarrows before them. The youth interns, hired and paid by After School Matters, stop between every shovel load to send text messages. They complain and take breaks. They voice loud hopes that it will start raining and cancel this task.
Though only 22, Crawford has been farming for more than six years. He once held one of the same after-school internships as these teens. Now he's their boss, sort of.
* * *
Growing Power has made a point of hiring interns from some of the city's toughest neighborhoods, including Cabrini-Green and Altgeld Gardens. To date, the organization has given internships to hundreds of youth, and hired 14 of them full-time. It stuck with Crawford after an arrest and two years of court-ordered supervision. He credits his boss, Growing Power's Chicago director Erika Allen, with mentoring him through these challenges.
Full Story:
Dag Kittlaus, CEO and co-founder of the Apple
iPhone 4S voice-recognition assistant Siri, confirmed media reports
Monday that he has returned to Chicago to spend time with his family and
to pursue entrepreneurial ideas after leaving his position at Apple.
Siri co-founder leaves Apple for Chicago
Business firstname.lastname@example.com
October 25, 2011 8:02PM
Siri co-founder leaves Apple for Chicago
BY SANDRA GUY Business email@example.com October 25, 2011 8:02PM
Kittlaus serves on the board of directors at the Cabrini Green Tutoring Program and is a founding advisor at Palindrome Advisors, a program that matches technology leaders with non-profits that need their help, according to Kittlaus' LinkedIn profile. As head of Siri, Kittlaus helped develop a system that allows iPhone users to "tell" the phone to send messages, place calls, schedule meetings and get answers to questions.http://www.suntimes.com/business/8400010-420/siri-co-founder-leaves-apple-for-chicago.html
New CHA chief to 'think outside the box' in transforming public housing
New CHA chief to 'think outside the box' in transforming public housing
The public housing chief in Charlotte, N.C., on Thursday made the giant leap to Chicago with a promise to "think outside the box" and provide more support services for displaced CHA residents.
Charles Woodyard, 53, will need creative and unconventional thinking to succeed in his new, $216,000-a-year job as head of the Chicago Housing Authority.
The $1.6 billion Plan for Transformation that tore down CHA high-rises and replaced them with mixed income communities has fallen five years behind schedule because of the collapse of the real estate market.
"Given the bare reality of this real estate market, … we will be outside of the box thinkers on this. We will use our current assets to see how we can turn those into savings, into real housing opportunities for low-income families," Woodyard told a news conference at a mixed-income complex built in the shadows of Cabrini Green.* * *
Veronica Marshall, a resident of Parkside of Old Town, underscored that view when she complained that her neighborhood built to replace Cabrini Green is mixed-income in name only.
"We've been divided. Homeowners complain about CHA residents. CHA residents complain about homeowners. We all live in the same community. Why can't we just be as one? ... The condo association will call a meeting. CHA residents are not invited to those meetings. Why not?" Marshall said.http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/7811538-418/new-cha-chief-to-think-outside-the-box-in-transforming-public-housing.html
A Rough Reception for Cabrini-Green's Displaced
A Rough Reception for Cabrini-Green's Displaced
On a cold morning last December, a former teacher's aide and grandmother named Annie Ricks was the last tenant to leave the last high-rise at the Cabrini-Green public housing development. The focus of national media attention, she was the star of the end of an era.
But after that day of farewells and photographs, she disappeared from public view until Tuesday's monthly meeting of the Chicago Housing Authority's board of commissioners. She stood at the microphone with her 19-year-old son, Raymond. She was nervous. He was silent; his right hand was in a soft cast.
"I'm tired of my kids getting jumped on,'' she told the commissioners.
Since moving into the Wentworth Gardens public housing development on the South Side on Dec. 9, 2010, "my life has been a living hell," Ricks said in an interview. She said Wentworth Gardens, on the edge of the Bridgeport neighborhood, has been a battlefield for her family, especially for her youngest sons, who have been attacked several times. Raymond Ricks said he broke two of the knuckles on his right hand Aug. 31 while defending his brother from a mob of at least two dozen attackers. "It was like we were fighting everybody in the complex,'' he said.
Ricks, 55, said longtime residents of the development are hostile to newcomers from Cabrini and have been trying to chase them out. She said there are seven families from Cabrini living in Wentworth afterbeing relocated as part of the housing authority's ambitious plan to tear down its high-rise towers and replace them with low-rise, mixed income units.
Full Story...
CHA says rowhouses won't be public housing
By Megan Cotrell, Sept. 19, 2011
After a year of saying they weren't sure what would happen, the CHA finally revealed its plan in federal court last week: The rowhouses won't be 100 percent public housing, and they might not be rehabbed either.
"CHA's position at this time is that it will not support 100 percent public housing at the Cabrini Green rowhouses," said Scott Ammarell, head counsel for the housing authority, in front of Judge Marvin Aspen last week.
CHA to Clear Out Most Cabrini-Green Row Houses
CHA to Clear Out Most Cabrini-Green Row Houses
CHICAGO (CBS) — The Chicago Housing Authority is relocating 33 families living in row houses at what remains of the Cabrini-Green public housing development.
The CHA says 146 units in the row houses were rehabbed in 2009, leaving 438 units that were not. Of those 438, only 33 are occupied, and have been deemed "dangerous and no longer suitable for residents." Thus, the families that live in the units have been given 180-day relocation notices.
Full Story...
'Very ambitious plan' proposed to redevelop Atrium VillageBY DAVID ROEDER Business firstname.lastname@example.com August 19, 2011
When Atrium Village at Division and Wells opened to renters in the late 1970s, residents could gaze upon the towers of Cabrini-Green. And that was supposed to be an attraction.
Atrium Village was for people who didn't mind a little social experimentation where they live. It was an attempt to mix people from different incomes and, openly at one time, races.
But the Cabrini towers of public housing are gone now. While Atrium Village was a bridge between blight on the west and glitter on the east 30 years ago, it's clear that glitter won.
Its neighbors used to be tenements and empty lots. High-rises for professionals, busy stores and the elite Walter Payton College Prep have replaced them.
The neighborhood has changed, and the owners of Atrium Village, a group that includes four local churches, say it's time the property changes with it. The owners-turned-developers want to replace the 307-unit complex with a phased development of 1,673 homes, including four high-rises. The tallest would be 44 stories.
Full article...
By John Greenfield
Your ward is about 40 percent African American, and a fair amount of low-income people live there. Do you believe that making it easier to walk, bike and use transit in the city will help your low-income constituents by giving them more transportation choices?
Definitely. It will help them with their health but it's also less expensive — it'll help them save some money. I used to live at LaSalle and Elm in the 1980s and I used to walk back and forth to work every day.
Giving poor people more transportation options can open up more employment opportunities and make it easier for them to get to schools. There are gaps in the transit system, like around public housing areas, which have hindered people from getting to jobs. For example, they put a Brown Line stop on Chicago Avenue and one near North Avenue but they didn't put one on Division Street to serve Cabrini Green. And over by the Henry Horner Homes [near Damen and Lake] there's a Green Line stop on Ashland and the next one's not 'til California. There's no stop at Damen. So in the low-income communities it almost seems like it's by design that people don't have adequate transportation options.
So you think the CTA didn't put a Brown Line stop on Division Street because it was close to Cabrini Green?
I think so. It just seems that way.
The Interrupters
A film by director, Steve James
Breaking Ground
Three Chicago neighborhoods show early signs of leading the real estate recovery.
At 840 West Blackhawk Street, Adam Berkelhamer and Antunovich Associates' SoNo East tower is under construction. Move-in dates for the 324 units are still uncertain but the structure is expected to be up and fully enclosed by the end of the year. The building also includes 50,000 square feet of ground floor retail space, although commercial tenants have not been announced.
The SoNo west tower was completed in 2008 by Booth Hansen Associates, where Berkelhamer worked at the time. He has since gone solo and redesigned the eastern tower, which was originally envisioned as a mirror image of the 2008 structure.
"The new design really opens up the space between the towers," Berkelhamer said. He staggered the units to improve the views for the whole building. Another difference between SoNo's east tower and its pre-financial collapse kin: its residential units are rentals, while SoNo west has 200 condos.
"This building, along with its neighbor, will help anchor the residential presence on this side of North and Halsted," Berkelhamer said. Retail is dynamic in the nearby neighborhoods, and Cabrini-Green's absence leaves a residential opening close to downtown that SoNo hopes to help fill.
Here comes the neighborhood
Groups nourish community spirit, forge new relationships amidst projects' rubble
Cabrini Target reveals design
City Farm will operate on Green homes' former turf for now
Mayor Emanuel's TIF Task ForceThanks to Jill K. for this info...
We live in the Near North TIF district....basically, million of dollars of our tax money is set aside to fund projects in our neighborhood each year. The purpose of TIF (Tax Increment Financing) money is meant to spur development, improve infrastructure, and encourage investment in numerous blighted areas in the city that have been specially designated as TIF districts. Since we live in one of these districts, our input on this subject is invaluable. Here's the link to the City's information:
Emanuel is asking that all Chicagoans log on to the city's (limited
time) TIF website to share their opinions about the TIF program --- ie:
do residents feel this money really works to improve their areas, is the
budget applied to appropriate projects, are there ways to improve
financial accountability in the city's TIF districts, is the money is
being spent in the best interest of the residents, etc.
a lot of people know about the TIF program, which is unfortunate
because it really does involve millions of dollars of spending that
occurs in our neighborhood. The Near North TIF is in place until 2020,
so that's a lot more future spending that we can impact by voicing our
opinions now. Attached is a map of our district and a list of what
looks to be our area's current spending plans (it looks like a full
year's budget is going to the construction of a new gym for Jesse White
Tumblers??).... downloaded from the City's website.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel created this special Task Force to evaluate Chicago's Tax Increment Financing (TIF) Program to determine whether taxpayer dollars are being used efficiently and to better promote public and private investment across the city. TIF funds are used to build and repair roads and infrastructure, clean polluted land and put vacant properties back to productive use, usually in conjunction with private development projects.
In order to improve and strengthen the TIF program, the Mayor's Task Force needs your help! This website is an interactive forum for all residents to contribute their ideas and give feedback on how best to improve the TIF program.
For current information and data about the TIF Program please visit: http://www.cityofchicago.org/TIF
Cabrini-Green has a Walk Score of 90, beating Lincoln Park, Bucktown, Ukrainian Village
Cabrini Green is the #27 most walkable neighborhood in Chicago. This neighborhood is a Walker's Paradise with an average Walk Score of 90. Cabrini Green has 1,261 people—or 0.1% of Chicago's population.
Cabrini Green is similar in walkability to Lakewood - Balmoral and Edgewater. Cabrini Green's Walk Score is 16 points higher than Chicago's Walk Score of 74.
Chicago Plan Commission Meeting,
This Thursday 7/21/2011 at 1:00 PM
This Thursday the Target proposal will go before the Plan Commission. This is more or less your last chance to be heard and influence the outcome of this development which promises to impact your property indefinitely. -----------------------------------------------------------------------
Chicago , Illinois 60602
Parkside of Old Town
An Experiment in Public Housing
by Robert Spoerl, June 6, 2011
Like a handful of former Cabrini-Green public housing residents, the 52-year-old mother of two lives in mixed-income housing within blocks of the former Cabrini row house where she spent 20 years of her life. Hope's unit is one of 72 in the Parkside of Old Town development, part of the Chicago Housing Authority's $1.5 billion Plan for Transformation, which is replacing high-rise public housing with a combination of traditional public housing and new mixed-income developments.
Hope no longer fears stray bullets flying through her window. The crossing guard of 25 years doesn't see children get beat up on the way home from school – it happened to her son several times in the pre-transformed Cabrini. She's thankful to call Parkside her physical home.
"When you go from shit to sugar, you're grateful for that," Hope said. "I am happy."Full Story...
Bridge Building on Division StreetPublished July 14th, 2011, by John McCarron for LISC Chicago
It's been a neighborhood long divided between have-not public housing residents and have-it-all residents of Chicago's pricey Gold Coast. Only now, with the grim Cabrini-Green high-rises gone, many think it's high time to bridge the old divides and create a diverse-but-unified community on the Near North Side.
Enter the Near North Unity Program (NNUP) – a coalition led by Ald. Walter Burnett (27th), LISC/Chicago, and a deep roster of local religious leaders, park directors, school principals, affordable housing tenants and condo developers.
"We have a diverse community, new buildings, a lot of beautiful things," said Ald. Burnett about the physical transformation taking place. "But we have a lot of social challenges and a lot of cultural differences. The goal of the Unity Program is to bring folks together, break down those differences and bring out how much more we have in common."Full article:
June 6, 2011
Food Truck TuesdaysHead to the corner of North and Halsted on tomorrow night Food Truck Tuesdays. At least four trucks will be there every Tuesday in June.
June 4, 2011
Email Target Headquarters with your concerns about Target's plan for Cabrini-Green
and Please call, write, and e-mail your alderman with concerns about this site plan!!
Alderman Walter Burnett Jr.
Ward Office: 1463 W. Chicago Avenue
Chicago, IL 60622
Ward Phone: (312) 432-1995
E-Mail: firstname.lastname@example.com
City Hall Office: 121 N. La Salle Street
Room 300; Chicago, IL 60602
City Hall Phone: (312) 744-6124
Rham Emmanual's Website:
A Decade of Wooing Wins a Harlem Store for Target
By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD
Published: August 13, 2010Target's first Manhattan store opened late last month in Harlem with great fanfare. The chain's mascot, a miniature bull terrier, rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange. Miss New York, Doug E. Fresh and Jerry Seinfeld attended a pre-party. Crowds lined up outside the store, the largest single investment the company has made in any of its retail properties.
The opening, like most corporate debuts, left little to chance. But in this case, the preparations were extreme: nearly 10 years of calculated philanthropy and schmoozing across Harlem, an effort that Minneapolis-based Target has characterized as smart community relations but critics suggested was akin to bribery.
Long before the ribbon-cutting, Target had wooed notable Harlem residents with dinner parties, struck deals to carry exclusive gear designed by neighborhood luminaries, and sponsored prominent charitable projects and events, including the refurbishing of a school library and the sprucing up of a rundown lot near the store on 117th Street.
Full story...
June 3, 2011
Make the new Target a pedestrian friendly plan!
Hello Neighbors,
Are you a pedestrian in Chicago? Well, then this is relevant to you!
Please check out the schedule for the public meetings for the Chicago Pedestrian Plan at http://chicagopedestrianplan.org/
This is your opportunity to help shape the pedestrian environment within the city. The purpose of these meetings is to get feedback so let your voice be heard!
The meetings are spread across the entire city, with a web based meeting for those not able to attend a meeting close to where they live.
Spread the word! Tweet it! Facebook it! Actually talk to someone about it!
Posted by Jerad Weiner on Everyblock.com
Conversation about the new Target on EveryBlock.com
June 1, 2011
Ground Broken on New Community Center
By Jennifer Bisceglie
Illinois' Secretary of State on Wednesday broke ground on a new Chicago community center.
The Jesse White Community Center will be built at 412 West Chicago Avenue, on the city's near northwest side, and will offer both educational and recreational activities.
It will house a state-of-the-art gym as well as computer labs and meeting rooms.
The center will also become the new permanent home for the Jesse White Tumbling Team.
The facility is being built by the Jesse White Foundation, as well as the city and the Chicago Park District.
May 30, 2011
Beautifull New Photos by N.P. Lanthrum in Photos section
May 17, 2011
Here is the notice that the CHA sent out to local residents about Target. It is definitely moving forward, so please contact the offices of Alderman Burnett and Mayor Emmanuel with your feedback about this plan. Contact info below...
Please call, write, and e-mail your alderman with concerns about this site plan!!
Alderman Walter Burnett Jr.
Ward Office: 1463 W. Chicago Avenue
Chicago, IL 60622
Ward Phone: (312) 432-1995
E-Mail: firstname.lastname@example.com
City Hall Office: 121 N. La Salle Street
Room 300; Chicago, IL 60602
City Hall Phone: (312) 744-6124
A Cabrini Green Target: Are The 75 Jobs Worth It?ProgressIllinois.com, May 9, 2011
May 9, 2011
Let Mayor Emmanuel Know Your Thoughts
There will be 2 public meetings about the proposed Target. The PLAN commission and then ultimately a vote in city hall. Because this is a PLAN development all the details will be discussed at this meeting. I do not believe the community has the ability to vote. Our only chance to influence this project is to write letters and SHOW UP TO THE MEETINGS.
Rahm Emmanuel has a website seeking input from the community. Voice your issues and concerns and ideas about our neighborhood. Specifically, Sidewalk width, Exterior Aesthetics, Height of Building, Garage Entrances, Parks and greenspaces.http://www.chicago2011.org/
Dear Old Town Village West Community,
As you have probably heard a Target store has been proposed at the corner of Larrabee and Division. The proposal is moving quickly through city government. As currently proposed the store will be detrimental to the neighborhood. It appears that he store is highly likely to win approval by the city. There was recently a community meeting where Target presented their plan for the store. I have attached a letter which outlines the boards biggest concerns. I ask that every single member of your family fill out the letter and mail to to Alderman Burnett. Additionally, the board will be going door to door over the weekend to collect signatures and letters to present to Burnett. Having a strong voice will be critical to influencing the future of your neighborhood, preserving the value of your property and maintaining your quality of life.
In addition to the letter campaign it will be critical for everyone to show up to the meetings at city hall. There will be two meetings where the plan will be discussed. One will be in front of the PLAN commission and the other will be at a city council meeting. If we don't have at least 30 people show up we won't stand a chance. I will make sure that the date and times of these meetings is communicated to you as soon as they are set.
Again, please have all members of your household complete the attached letter and send it to Burnett. Also, feel free to e-mail and call him as much as possible to make your voice heard.
• E-Mail: firstname.lastname@example.com
• City Hall Office: 121 N. La Salle Street
Room 300; Chicago , IL 60602
• City Hall Phone: (312) 744-6124
OTVW Board of Directors
Here is a sample letter that may help you craft one to send to Alderman Burnett
Dear Alderman Burnett:
My name is ___________ and I will be directly and negatively impacted by the proposed Target development at Division and Larrabee.I have the following concerns about the proposed development:
1) Sidewalk Width - All recent neighborhood developments require wider sidewalks then the 7.8' sidewalks they are proposing. Park Side has double wide sidewalks and the Chicago Central Area Action Plan or 2020 Plan calls for 14' sidewalks. It is reasonable to expect Target to meet these requirements. I also think that with 40% of their expected business to be non-vehicular traffic, larger sidewalks would make pedestrian traffic much less congested.
2) Exterior Aesthetics - The North and West elevations are very plain and unattractive which concerns us because we feel it lowers the property value along those elevations and don't feel developers will ever want to build residential property adjacent these walls because it would be an undesirable view. Reflecting the buildings and architecture in Old Town on all 4 elevations so that their building may appear to be several smaller buildings much in the way that the East elevation of Pipers Alley looks or the Nordstrom building on Michigan Avenue. By designing the building to look like is less than one huge building and several smaller buildings it would go a long way to help it fit into our neighborhood.
3) Height of Building - We would like to see the overall height of the building reduced to better match the height of those across the street and again attempt to fit the building in with its surroundings. This may require putting the garage below grade level.
4) Garage Entrances - We strongly object to the location of the Division St parking entrance and exit. Ideally we would like to see this relocated to Larrabee. If this is not a possibility, we would like to see street planters incorporated into the design high enough to block the headlights of the 1,200 cars Target expects to have passing through their facility on a daily basis. It isn't reasonable for several home owners to be flashed all night long at street level with bright lights leaving Target. For the record, the majority of the first floor units are CHA units in our development and I think it is important that it is understood we are fighting for them as much as anyone with regards to this issue. We consider ourselves to be one community and the reality is that it is these units that would suffer most if planters aren't installed or another location, perhaps 175 feet to the east, isn't identified. North Avenue is filled with examples of major parking entrances within a 100 feet or less of an intersection so if this were 250 feet off the intersection I think it would work fine which would be our preference.
5) Street Lighting - I would like to see Target upgrade the street lights to the newer fixtures being used just to the east on Division St and have them bury the wires.
Sincerely Your Constituent,
Date ______________ Address_________________________________
May 4, 2011
Cabrini in rubble. Neighborhood in trouble.
Target's plan for the newly empty land.
The debris from Cabrini-Green's last highrise is not even gone, and the big-box retailer Target appears to have reached a deal with the CHA to build a new location on the land.
Target must take into account their new neighbors and create a site plan that takes it's surrounding homes into consideration. We want a pedestrian friendly neighborhood that creates a community, not a traffic nightmare. We want trees and parks, not constant noise, congestion and an ugly building. Please call or write Alderman Walter Burnett to voice your concerns!
Alderman Walter Burnett Jr.
Ward Phone: (312) 432-1995
City Hall Phone: (312) 744-6124
E-Mail: email@example.com
Here are the details so far...
The proposed building stretches from Larabee to the vacant store and north to Scott. The height of the building will be ~50ft. The hours of the store will be 8am - 11pm. The sidewalk along division will only be 8 ft wide. Currently they expect ~1,500 cars a day. There will be an entrance to the parking garage on Larabee and on Division. The store will be about 200k square feet. The east and north walls will be plane concrete (this will deter future residential development and may necessitate more big box type developments).
The store is going to be a monster and an eye sore. the set back from the street is not nearly wide enough, and does not leave room for trees or other decorations. As cars pull out of the parking lot on division their headlights will shine directly into the windows of the units along division.
The added traffic will add considerably to the congestion in the area. As of now, there are no improvements planned to ease this congestion.
It is absolutely IMPERATIVE that every person who owns or lives within OTVW (and your friends, neighbors relatives) contact the alderman as much and as soon as possible (his contact information is below). I recommend sending a certified letter that includes your feelings about the proposed target as well as some possible solutions....
- wider sidewalks with landscaping between division and the building
- shorter building, with parking underground
- a median or other divider on division
- a solution to headlights going directly into the living rooms of units on division
- traffic flow down division and across goose island
- what the zoning changes mean.
The more the Alderman hears from us the more influence we will have. The board WILL be meeting with the developers and target again and we will invite all residents and owners. This is an opportunity you will have to voice your concern and be heard. Once this monstrosity is built there will be no turning back. Rest assured your quality of life and property values will be negatively impacted.
There will be 2 more public meetings at city hall. If we can't rally our community for this cause then we will not be heard. Talk to your neighbors and friends and be ready to attend these meetings and speak out.
Time is short. Target has put its application into the city and the process will not be transparent. Act now.
Please call and e-mail your alderman!!
Alderman Walter Burnett Jr.
Ward Office: 1463 W. Chicago Avenue
Chicago, IL 60622
Ward Phone: (312) 432-1995
E-Mail: email@example.com
City Hall Office: 121 N. La Salle Street
Room 300; Chicago, IL 60602
City Hall Phone: (312) 744-6124
Huffington Post Article
Vision for Cabrini Target unveiledBY MAUDLYNE IHEJIRIKA Staff email@example.com May 3, 2011 2:50PM
A 150,000-square-foot, three-story Target bringing 200 jobs — 75 reserved for public housing residents — would sprout on 3.6 acres at the corner of Division and Larrabee in July 2013, sharing with new condos and town homes the land on which once stood the Cabrini-Green development's William Green Homes.
But that's only if it can withstand a cacophony of competing concerns.
"This is a potential benefit to the community, a potential start of an economic boom in Cabrini," said Ald. Walter Burnett (27th). "But that's just my opinion. It's not my approval. All of this is pending on if the community likes it and accepts it. I'm not going to disregard the community's concerns. And there are concerns."* * *
For their part, the public housing residents remain leery of anything that does not resemble replacement housing.
Their reasoning: Redevelopment of Cabrini under the historic transformation plan initiated in 1999 calls for 1,200 new public housing units to replace those lost in the demolished Cabrini Extensions and Green Homes. Only 395 to date have been built.
But Burnett and CHA officials stress there will be no net land loss for development of the new housing.
"We are aggressively pursuing properties with Target to make sure we are able to bring back the number of units we committed under the plan," said O'Connell-Miller.
In exchange for the Cabrini site, Target will purchase from private owners within the boundaries of the city's Near North Redevelopment Initiative several parcels equaling the site in size and value, turning them over to CHA.
The CHA residents' homeowner neighbors, on the other hand, are worried about the impact of potential noise, traffic and trucking on the neighborhood. The new store's design is Target's typical urban format, with 150,000 square feet of sales space built atop a ground-floor parking lot with 360 parking spaces. It would have four truck docks. The third floor would be reserved for stock.
The store would offer its traditional cheap chic, one-stop shopping for clothing, electronics, home goods, etc., with a small grocery section, a clinic and a Starbucks.
Target, however, has responded with a traffic analysis showing a large share of its potential customers would visit the store either on foot or public transportation, and it has promised to address concerns over potential noise from overnight deliveries.full story...
Video of Cabrini's Final Days by "Artistmac"
April 30, 2011
Postcards from Cabrini
CHICAGO | Every day at sundown, the gutted shell of the last Cabrini Green public housing tower takes on a ghostly aura as lights start flickering sporadically from 15 floors of empty rooms.
It looks like a distress signal -- but it's really a goodbye.
This is the final Cabrini high rise to meet the wrecker's ball, the end of an era in Chicago, where public housing has long been a symbol of every form of inner-city agony: crumbling bases for vicious street gangs, darkened stairways reeking of urine, gunfire echoing in the night.Full story...
Demographics Of Public Housing Families EvolveProgressIllinois.com, April 15, 2011
By Sally Ho
The goal of the program was to overhaul the troubled public housing
system, resulting in the demolition of some of the most notoriously
buildings and high-rises. The hope was that as mixed-income communities
are ushered in and poverty is de-concentrated, the city would
The new CHA report (PDF) set out to dispel myths about the plan, primarily the 16,500 families in 1999 who were guaranteed the right to return to public housing. For starters, the belief that former residents were migrating to the suburbs proved false as only 60 families relocated there, while 11 went out of the state. Of the 60, the highest number (12) went to south suburban Riverdale.
Most of those
relocated moved within the city and many went to high-poverty
neighborhoods, similar to those they left behind. Some
35 percent of them did use vouchers to move to areas where poverty rates
below 23 percent, despite the city's average poverty rate hovering at 20
percent. In all, the families spread out to land in 75 of the 77
areas that make up the city.
As for the actual makeup of all households, the number of young children (age 15 and under) went from about 50 percent of the family population in 2000, to only 35 percent in 2010. Conversely, the number of seniors (age 50 and over) in non-senior specific family housing grew from 9 percent to 17 percent in the same 10-year period. The number of young adults (age 16 to 20) also grew from 10 to 17 percent, the report said. The gender of the heads of households remained about the same, with 88 percent female in 2000 to 89 percent in 2010.
The race of the heads of households also diversified. In 2000, 93 percent were black, 7 percent were white, and 1 percent were neither. Ten years later, 88 percent were black and 11 percent were white. The number of Hispanic household heads nearly doubled.
The report also touted the quality of life for the families by way of employment and income. The number of employed household heads of working age (18 to 61 years old) went from only 15 percent in 1999, to about 32.3 percent in 2005, climbing to 41.5 percent by the end of 2010. In looking at the original families from before the plan, the Illinois Department of Employment Security data showed the annual income of those household heads almost doubled from $10,160 in 1999 to $19,244 in 2009.
These optimistic numbers are partly due to a work requirement for the heads implemented in 2009, but the report also breaks down city programs used to get it to be this way. There was more individualized attention through case managers assigned a main goal of helping residents -- 89 percent of whom took advantage of the opportunities -- find jobs and keep working. There was the $27 million workforce development program Opportunity Chicago; the direct job placement and hiring program Section 3; transitional jobs, or time-limited subsidized jobs that included paid work and skill development like contextualized literacy programming and technical training; and a deal struck with the City Colleges of Chicago that allowed free access to all residents, including to the system's continuing education and GED and degree programs.
Still, the report failed to discuss the problems the relocated families face, chief among them the slow pace of redevelopment at former public housing sites designated as mixed-income areas. As of late July 2009, just 36 percent -- 2,656 out of 7,303 -- of the public housing units the Chicago Housing Authority plans to build at 12 former CHA sites around the city were complete. And then there's the fact unearthed by the Sun-Times that "a disturbing 2,202 families are unaccounted for. Under plan they had the right to return to CHA, but the agency has now lost track of them and has no idea where they are."
April 13th, 2011
School for the Gaming Generation
Chicago Quest school coming to Cabrini-Green
Quest to Learn was designed to be different from the ground up. This complete reinvention of the typical urban middle school downplays rote memorization in favor of collaborative learning, critical thinking and imaginative exploration as a way to change how today's students learn.
And this fall, it's coming to Chicago
With more than $US1.2 million ($1.5 million) in funding from the MacArthur Foundation and other philanthropic organisations, the public charter school to be called Chicago Quest is scheduled to open in September in a renovated school building on the edge of the old Cabrini Green housing project. Officials are already talking about one day opening Chicago Quests on the city's South and West Sides as well.http://www.odt.co.nz/news/technology/156009/school-gaming-generation
March 30, 2011
Live video feed of the last Cabrini-Green Demolition, and the ongoing "Project Cabrini-Green" art project.
March 28, 2011
Cabrini-Green to Exit with Poetry and Lights
New York Times
The last high-rise at Cabrini-Green is coming down starting Wednesday, stirring strong emotions among former residents who remember the troubled housing project as their home and community, as well as a place of menace. Those feelings will emerge in an unusual light display that will accompany the demolition.
Earlier this month, young people who lived in and around the project gathered nearby at the Seward Park field house to record poetry that will determine the rhythms of pulsating colored light beamed from the windows of the 15-story building. The lights will be extinguished, apartment by apartment, as the high-rise comes down.
Full Story
Art Installation to Illuminate Cabrini-Green Building's Fall
Chicago Tribune
By Lauren Viera
It's been claimed that in near-death experiences, the otherwise unconscious see a bright light, seemingly luring them into the afterlife.
On the eve of its demolition next week, the last standing high-rise affiliated with the Cabrini-Green public housing project will be illuminated with 134 LED lights, one in each of its vacant apartments, programmed to blink in "conversation" with one another — with the goal of speaking to the experiences of former residents. Lights will fall as the building does during its month-long razing, scheduled to begin March 30.
Full Story
Project Cabrini Green Website
Groupon sets up shop in Cabrini-Green
I was delighted to learn that the popular site Groupon, founded in Chicago, has some of it's offices located right in the center of old Cabrini-land at 600 W. Chicago Ave. That brings great energy and new business into the area, which should do fantastic things for the future of the neighborhood. Get yourself a Groupon today!
March 21, 2011
Gaia Hits Cabrini-Green
That "Banksy-like lion/bunny" and other tags that have popped up around Cabrini Green and the Northwest side belong to a New York-based female street artist named Gaia.
March 9, 2011
Roundy's Grocery Chain still has lease for old New City YMCA location, status and timing unknown...
February 28, 2011
Photos from Cabrini-Green.com used in the FOX tv show Chicago Code, Episode "Cabrini-Green".
Producers for the new Chicago based cop show, "The Chicago Code", licensed some photos to create back drops for some scenes in the episode. "Now that Cabrini Green has been demolished, it has been a challenge for us to find a photo that fits this view, and yours was one of the few I came across."
"In this week's episode of FOX's new cop drama, The Chicago Code, the alleged villain of the show, Alderman Ronin Gibbons (actor Delroy Lindo) describes his youth in Cabrini Green, a snapshot of Chicago's roughness in the 1960′s, and its parallels to the attempted robbery of his favorite South Side barber shop while he is present; the robber is a young teenage boy with a nervous trigger finger..."
See the full episode on Hulu.com
February 25, 2011
Why Cencus Figures Favor Rham
by Edward McClelland
"The trend is a result for the plan for transformation of the Chicago Housing Authority, and the displacement of 110,000 people," mayoral candidate William "Dock" Walls told Ward Room. "Some of 'em have left Chicago. They've gone to the suburbs, or Indiana."
"In 25 years, it'll all be like this," he said, referring to his ward. "There's too much demand for land in the city."
Several years ago, I talked to a lakefront alderman who predicted Chicago would become a Midwestern Manhattan, with the wealthy inside the city limits, and the poor banished to suburbia.
"In 25 years, it'll all be like this," he said, referring to his ward. "There's too much demand for land in the city."
Source: http://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-room/Rahm-Emanuels-Chicago-116654619.html#ixzz1G7RrsOK7
Alderman Seeks $5 million in City Subsidy for Gym Named After Jesse White
by Fran Spielman, Feb 10, 2011
The Jesse White Tumblers would get a state-of-the-art gymnastics training facility on vacant land that once housed a Cabrini Green high-rise, under a $15 million plan that got a boost Wednesday.
Ald. Walter Burnett (27th) introduced an ordinance at a City Council meeting that would earmark another $5 million from the Near North tax-increment-financing (TIF) district for the center. It would bear the name of Burnett's political patron, Secretary of State Jesse White, who is also the 27th Ward Democratic committeeman.
Three months ago, the City Council agreed to spend $5 million from the local TIF to help build the 30,000 sq.ft. facility on Chicago Housing Authority land at 410 W. Chicago.
The Chicago Park District, which would own and operate the facility, was supposed to come up with another $5 million to be matched by $5 million raised by the Jesse White Foundation.Full story...
January 21, 2011
Photographer N.P. Lathrum reports: On the 21st of January, 2011 there was a ceremony outside of Ollie Naoum's store, honoring him by re-naming that stretch of Orleans St. "Honorary Bassam "Ollie" Naoum Way"
His widow, daughter and son were there as well as everybody from the store. Sec of State Jesse White and a local alderman were on hand to present the sign. More photos in the gallery.
Burgeoning neighborhood burgers
Creative new pizza and burger joints show evolution by North Avenue
By Matthew Blake on 1/5/2011
"My passion," he said, "is pizza and burgers."
City Approves Pedestrian-Oriented Improvements for the Halsted Triangle
by Joseph Askins on 1/4/2011
Not long after work began on the Halsted Street bridge in late 2010, Mark Boyer pointed Curbed readers to this rendering of one the bridge's 34-foot-wide pedestrian tunnels, which would help extend the Riverwalk into the North Branch Canal. According to The Architect's Newspaper, these tunnels will be closed upon completion, and will open only after the city has landscaped the riverfront north of the bridge.
Full Story:
Help fund the film:
Cabrini-Green, The Last Family Leaves
Cabrini Green: Mixing it Up tells the story of how these demolitions have impacted the Cabrini community, from the razing of the first building in 1995, to the poignant moment when the final remaining family, Mrs. Annie Ricks and her children, were forced out on December 9th, 2010.
The film is nearly finished, they are trying to raise $5,000 to complete the project. Contribute through Kickstarter here, and get your name added to the film credits!
Cabrini-Green Goes Dark - December 9, 2010
CHICAGO—Annie Ricks and seven of her children moved into the notorious Cabrini-Green Housing Project in 1990 and found things even worse than she feared. "Gunshots all over the place," she said. "Fights, noise."
Thursday morning, she is scheduled to be the last of 15,000 residents to move out, marking the end of one of the most troubled chapters in U.S. public-housing history...
Wall Street Journal
ABC 7 News Chicago
We the People Media, Resident's Journal, December 7, 2010
Cabrini Row Houses in Jeopardy, by Mary C. Johns
Last Residents Leave Cabrini-Green High Rise
Mary Schmich, Chicago Tribune, December 1, 2010
The last residents of the last Cabrini-Green high-rise trickled away on Tuesday, except the ones who wouldn't go. It felt like an undercover operation, even in the cold gray light of day.
"You can't be in here," said a guard when I stepped into a dirty, narrow elevator, past a mover and a mattress.
I'd just like to talk to some residents, I said....
Full Story
Huffington Post
New photos posted by N.P. Lanthrum
N.P. Lanthrum's touching portraits of life in Cabrini-Green
New photos posted by Andrew Miller
Andrew Miller documents the demolition of 1120 N. Larrabee
Chicago Fire Dept. Cabrini "O" Green Projects 1990
posted on YouTube by "ChicagoFD1"
Fantastic footage taken from the firehouse located at Division and Larrabee in 1990. This is definitely not what you will see driving through that intersection today. Amazing.
"Chicago Fire Department Engine Co. 4 with Truck Co. 10 at their Quarters
located at 548 W. Division in the heart of the Cabrini Greens Projects,
back in 1990. Now 20 years later, there is only one project building
left that soon will be torn down. The Chicago Police Dept's. 18th
District is kiddie-corner from Engine Co. 4's Qtrs. and the area has
been completely rebuild with expensive apartment building and condo's."
Cabrini-Green's Last Stand: Families Prepare to Move Out
Maundlyne Ihejirika Oct. 24, 2010, SunTimes.com
It almost seems forlorn in the surrounding emptiness, a 15-story hulk of concrete with telltale, steel-fenced, open-air galleries characteristic of old public housing.
1230 Burling is the last of the Cabrini-Green high-rises. The infamous housing project is in its final stages of coming down. (Brian Jackson/Sun-Times)
This is 1230 Burling -- the last Cabrini-Green high-rise standing.
"Cabrini, down, but not out.
"It's not just a building. It's not a place. It's a feeling.
"Now that's just the way I feel. It taught me what was real. ..."
Michael McClarin, the building's rep on the Cabrini Local Advisory Council, recites a poem he composed, as he makes his way from his ninth-floor apartment to the LAC office on the first floor.
On Oct. 15, 27 families received 90-day eviction notices from the Chicago Housing Authority, bringing the end in sight for what once was one of the nation's most notorious public housing projects.
But as they prepare to pack up, residents in the last of the William Green Homes' eight high-rises prefer to focus on the future.
"I'm looking at Dearborn Homes. CHA says they only got a few four-bedrooms left there, and I'd better take it before they're gone," says Ramona Lee, 46, who lives on the first floor.
Full Story...http://www.suntimes.com/news/2829312,cabrini-green-102310.article
Awesome Cabrini-Green Timeline by Craig Newman
New iStation could be Apple of the CTA's Eye
Apple Spends Nearly $4 Million rennovating Red Line Station
Jennifer Schwarz Oct. 23, 2010, NBCChicago.com
The Chicago Transit Authority Red Line station at North and Clybourn has been run down for years.
So run down, in fact, that some riders would often get off the train one stop early or one stop later to avoid it.
The Apple Corporation is hoping to change the reputation of that stop, however.
Before opening their new location along North Avenue, the computer company invested nearly $4 million to clean up the station, which sits close to the Cabrini Green housing project.
Source: http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/tech/New-iStation-Apple-of-Riders-Eye-105521973.html#ixzz13ZVqp3p8
Remembering Cabrini-Green As it Was
Megan Cottrell, Oct. 20, 2010, ChicagoNow.com
Awhile back, I sat on the porch of one of the new condos that's been built where the Cabrini-Green housing project one stood. I was talking with two girls - twin sisters - who had grown up in the high rise buildings but now lived in one of the new units with their parents.
"What do you think of how your neighborhood has changed?" I asked.
Toya Childress shook her head. The neighborhood just wasn't the same, the girl said. So many family members and friends had moved away. She missed the way it used to be.
And her sister Tasha? She smiled. She didn't miss those high rises a bit. The new community had completely changed how she thought about her life. Before, she said she assumed she'd grow up and live in Cabrini-Green on public assistance like many of her family members. But living downstairs from a guy with his own business, who traveled all over for work, had made her realize the world was bigger than she had realized.
Read more: http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/chicago-muckrakers/2010/10/remembering-cabrini-as-it-was.html#ixzz13ZVElGxb
It's Already the Apple Red Line Stop
Mary Schmich, Oct. 22, 2010
"Saturday's the day a new Apple Store will open next to the station. Mobs are sure to greet it the way an Apple Store is almost always received, as if it were a spaceship touching down to bestow goodness and light to needy mortals."
Read full article here...
Ollie's Death Marks Cabrini's End
Mary Schmich, Oct. 20, 2010
When the history of Cabrini-Green is written, the murder of Ollie will mark the day Cabrini really died.
Ollie's full name was Bassam Naoum, and since Saturday night, when he was shot to death in one of his two small stores, he's all anyone in Cabrini seems to be talking about.
The elderly women pulling shopping carts, the men sitting on plastic buckets, the cops who roam the sidewalks, the people of all kinds who mill outside his stores to weep or testify:
"When I went into the hospital, he offered to take me."
Full story...
Watching Cabrini Disappear, Chicago Tribune
Mary Schmich, Oct. 10, 2010
Almost every day lately, I've seen a few gawkers and cell phone photographers straggle to the corner of Larrabee and Division streets to witness Cabrini-Green's latest vanishing.
They peer. They click. They wave away the demolition dust while the bulldozers grind.
It used to be a mysterious and fearsome building, this high-rise at 1230 N. Larrabee St., at least to those who knew it only from the crime news or from speeding past in cars.
Looks like a fortress, I've heard it said. A prison. Now it's just an old gray concrete hulk with its outer walls chewed off and its guts hanging out, shrinking by the day.
"Lot of historical memories in this building," said a man who stopped to gaze while I was doing the same thing on Friday. "It's a monument."...
Read full article:
Turning Vacant Lots into City Farms
Hosea Sanders
October 1, 2010 (CHICAGO) (WLS) -- Sustainable urban gardening is a concept that's catching on throughout the city. One of the pioneers of the movement is opening its gates to show off its crops and celebrate with the community.
City Farm has been around for nearly fifteen years. Its goal is to feed the community while setting an example of how to use vacant city space in a productive and sustainable way.
City Farm covers one full acre
of farmland at the corner of Division Street and Clybourn Avenue,
nestled between the Gold Coast and Cabrini Green. The farm is a
subsidiary of a south side non-profit called the Resource Center.
Two Cabrini buildings close, only one left
Fall 2010
(1230 N. Larabee pictured)
Two of the last three buildings at Cabrini-Green have been closed as CHA moves forward with plans to demolish the buildings.
The last of the mid-rises at the public housing complex were closed this week. The final building -- a high-rise at 1230 N. Burling -- remains open with 39 families still living there. But it is also slated for closure by Jan. 15, the Chicago Housing Authority said.
"Residents there have also received notices of CHA's intention to soon close the high-rise as the end of the notorious Cabrini development draws closer," CHA said in a statement.
Occupancy at one of the 68-family mid-rises had dropped to four families. The CHA said that low occupancy posed a safety risk for the remaining families.
The CHA provided counseling and moving services to all relocated families, moving them to newly rehabbed properties as part of its "Plan for Transformation," the agency said.
Zoe Barker
After the Demolition:
Where Did Public Housing Residents Go?
By Megan Cotrell, August 23, 2010
Almost 10 years ago, Gwendolyn and her two young sons lived in one of the Ida B. Wells high-rises in Chicago. It wasn't perfect, but it was home.
"I like [my] apartment, the fact that it's up on the 11th [floor]. What I don't like about the apartment is that they won't come up and fix things the way they should ... like the plumbing, the electricity, and the wiring in the walls. It's all like falling apart .... Sometimes the tub backs up and the toilet stops up," she said at the time.
Slow change coming fast at Cabrini-Green
Last buildings are almost gone, but where will the last of the residents go?
Jamesetta Dixon stood outside the last occupied high-rise at Cabrini-Green the other day and looked across the weeds and asphalt at her future.
From here at 1230 N. Burling St., she can see the twin building at 1230 N. Larrabee St., lifeless now except for the masked men in protective suits ripping out the floor tile and asbestos.
"They moved them out of that building fast," Dixon said. She flicked a watchful glance at her great-niece and grandson digging in the dirt near the play lot. "So many Midway trucks. Woke people up out of their sleep."
Cabrini row houses to go?
Policymakers and tenant leaders aren't in agreement as CHA considers the future 586 public housing units
By MEGAN COTTRELL, 06/23/2010 10:00 PM
CHA moves to close Cabrini-Green high-rise (1230 N. Larabee)
3 occupied buildings will remain after closure
The CHA issued an emergency 30-day notice to people living in the building at 1230 N. Larrabee Street after increasing crime and recent drug arrests made it unsafe for residents, officials said.
Relocation assistance will be provided for the 31 families still living in the 134-unit high-rise, a spokesman said.
The building slated for closure was built in 1958 as part of Cabrini extensions to the north and south.
It became notorious in the 1980s and 1990s when it was overrun with drug and gang activity.
After the closure, three occupied buildings will remain at Cabrini-Green.
Copyright © 2010, WGN-TV
Foreign envoys tour 'other side of America'
No, the multi-hued throng of foreign diplomats and their spouses roaming the Near North Side's Cabrini-Green on Friday weren't lost.
They were touring the neighborhood formerly known as home of one of
the most notorious public housing projects in the country. It now
sprouts upscale condos, duplexes and retail for middle- to upper-income
urban professionals.
* * *
"Of course we know the history of Chicago and its neighborhoods," said Kazakstanian Ambassador Erlan Idrissov. "But we were showed what human genius has been able to achieve, like in Cabrini-Green, where a neighborhood broken down a number of years ago now looks to the future. I think this is the spirit of America, to face challenges and keep moving forward."
Read full story...
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----------------------------------------------------------------------------Next Up at Parkside
Project is meant to replace Cabrini-Green
by Ian Fullerton on 2/10/2010
660 W. Division is gone!February, 2010
The wrecking ball has finished it's work and all that is left are a few pillars and a pile of rubble to be hauled away. The view is quite different around here now without that imposing structure hulking over division street. I have taken photos of the demolition nearly everyday and here is a stop motion animation of the whole thing.
660 W. Division, November 2009 by Ryan Flynn
660 W. Division, February 20th, 2010 by Ryan Flynn
To purchase prints of Ryan Flynn's photography and paintings visit: www.CafePress.com/RyFly
New Photography by Melissa Hayes in the Art Section:
CHA receives award for redevelopment project
December 8, 2009 (CHICAGO) -- The Chicago Housing Authority is being
honored for its work on the site of what was once among the most
notorious public housing complexes in the United States.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has given the CHA and FitzGerald Associates Architects and Holsten Real Estate Development Corporation one of four 2009 National Smart Growth Achievement Awards.
The award was given for the way the CHA and the two companies took the site of the former Cabrini-Green public housing complexes and created a mixed community of public housing and middle income homes.
The site that's called Parkside of Old Town was redeveloped to include pedestrian paths and a street grid that reconnects the development to the surrounding community.
(Copyright ©2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
Above Photo by Ryan Flynn


text:
Pharmaceutical Scouts Seek New Star Drugs for Cancer, Diabetes
Like Baseball Scouts, Scientists Search for Medicines in Development for Alzheimer's, Diabetes, Hepatitis C and Other Diseases
Three weeks after joining Johnson & Johnson, Peter Lebowitz got his first big mission as a research director: Fly to California and size up a promising experimental cancer drug.
There, he scrutinized the prospect for three days. On his flight back to the East Coast, he emailed his boss: J&J should do whatever it took to put the pill in its lineup before a rival could, he wrote; "We have to get this one."


text: Naomi (AnnaLynne McCord) finds out she can now access the money in her trust fund, so she decides to throw a giant birthday party where The Honey Brothers (featuring Adrian Grenier, "Entourage") perform a few songs. Dixon (Tristan Wilds), Navid (Michael Steger) and Liam (Matt Lanter) decide to take Oscar (guest star Blair Redford, "Passions") out for a night on the town...... but their party ends when Ivy (Gillian Zinser) finds a Facebook photo of Dixon doing a body shot off a girl. Annie (Shenae Grimes) has an instant connection with Charlie (guest star Evan Ross, "Girlfriends"), a guy she meets at a coffee shop, but seems more interested in exploring her relationship opportunities with Liam. Jen (guest star Sara Foster) is forced to go on bed rest until she delivers the baby and has no choice but to allow Ryan (Ryan Eggold) into her life. Silver (Jessica Stroup) confronts Teddy (Trevor Donovan) about his drinking problem.


text:
About Us
TEAGUE is the original design consultancy.
Founded in 1926 by design pioneer Walter Dorwin Teague, TEAGUE's portfolio spans many firsts: the Polaroid camera, the UPS truck, Texaco-branded service stations, the Pringles can, and the Xbox. Along the way, TEAGUE has designed the interior of every Boeing commercial airplane every produced—including the revolutionary 787 Dreamliner.
Today TEAGUE is 300+ thinkers and doers with talents spanning everything from industrial design and interaction design to branding and robotics. All of TEAGUE's talents are focused on travel and technology innovation, working on projects such as the NIKE + TEAGUE Athlete's Plane, next-generation devices for Intel and Samsung, the DENNY e-bike, and the Boeing 777X.