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| whither cabrini, part 1 |
| 07.13.04 (10:29 am) [edit] |
Mary Schmich of the Chicago Tribune is doing a big series on Cabrini-Green, the infamous housing project that sits smack in the middle of the city.This brings back fairly recent memories for me. In the late 1990s, DH and I were both working in technology. I was hired away from my job at CNA to join a technology vendor, and he was freelancing as a web designer & developer. We had been living in our apartment for a couple of years, and I was dreaming of owning our own place. While our apartment had incredible sunlight and big rooms, the amenities were dump-worthy; the power blew on a regular basis, we never had hot water in the kitchen, and at least one winter, we didn't have any hot water for several days at a time. I convinced DH around the end of 1997 that we should start looking for a place to buy. The interest rates were the lowest in years, and I figured the tax break could help us, too. A friend in real estate sent me to look at a few open houses to get an idea of what we could buy in our price range... a garden-level condo, a small loft in Wicker Park, and a townhome in Ravenswood. The townhome really got me. It had lots of windows, beautiful hardwood floors, multiple bathrooms, and two balconies. DH agreed to go look with me and our real estate friend, Ian, to see if perhaps a new construction townhome could be our new home. The first place he took us was to the model home at Orchard Park Townhomes, so that DH could see what a completed home might look like. Orchard Park was sort of a shock. It was a townhome community being built stage by stage one block north of Cabrini-Green. It's red brick homes were shadowed on one side by city-run senior citizen housing, and the skyline on the other. I loved the houses, the location, and the potential, but figured DH would never go for it -- too risky. Besides, Ian had said there were no two-bedroom homes left, and the three-bedroom homes were out of our price range. However, the model salesperson told us that a two-bedroom had come back on the market the night before, because the guy buying it was getting transferred. The riskiest prospect of Orchard Park, for some at least, was not necessarily the location, but the fact that it was to be a mixed-income housing experiment. Forty-five percent of the homes were being sold at market value, 30% slightly less for just-barely qualified buyers, and 25% would remain in ownership by the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA), for rentals to former Cabrini residents. I found the prospect slightly daunting but pretty exciting, too. I didn't know if we were barely-qualified or completely qualified, but I loved the idea of this new kind of community. When DH and I went to the other townhome site, we were a little turned off. The location was bordered on one side by train tracks, and surrounded by industrial and trucking companies. It was much farther north and west than I really wanted to live, and more expensive, too, once you added in the basics that were included at Orchard Park. After the second presentation, we sat in Ian's car, pretty subdued. I was depressed, and said so. Suddenly, to my utter surprise, DH said "why don't we get the house with the skyline view?" Ian drove us back to Orchard Park, where Anita, the salesperson, just about fell into DH's lap. She was sort of the slightly inappropriate older mom of a friend who flirted a little too much. I couldn't possibly be offended, and DH didn't see it, but Ian and I laughed about it afterwards ("maybe, if you'd slept with her, we could have gotten free upgrades!"). So in January 1998, DH and I started the route to becoming homeowners... in the most controversial housing project since Cabrini went up. [i]To be continued...[/i] |
posted by: JT (reply)
post date: 07.14.04 (10:04 am)
Me too... and I remember very clearly wondering who the hell would be dumb enough to buy a house next to Cabrini Green?
Duh!
posted by: Cyberpal (reply)
post date: 07.16.04 (10:42 am)
I've never heard of this before... just did a google search.. quite interesting results.. will read part 2 before commenting in full!
