Harold L. Ickes Homes was a

Chicago Housing Authority The Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) is a municipal corporation that oversees public housing within the city of Chicago. The agency's Board of Commissioners is appointed by the city's mayor, and has a budget independent from that of the city of C ...

(CHA)

public housing Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually owned by a government authority, either central or local. Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the details, terminology, def ...

project on the Near South Side of

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, United States. It was bordered between

Cermak Road Cermak Road, also known as 22nd Street, is a 19-mile, major east–west street on Chicago's near south and west sides and the city's western suburbs. In Chicago's street numbering system, Cermak is 2200 south, or twenty-two blocks south of the ...

to the north, 24th Place to the south, State Street to the east, and Federal Street to the west, making it part of the State Street Corridor that included other CHA properties:

Robert Taylor Homes Robert Taylor Homes was a public housing project in the Bronzeville neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois from 1962 to 2007. The largest housing project in the United States, it consisted of 28 virtually identical high-rises, set ...

, Dearborn Homes,

Stateway Gardens Stateway Gardens was a Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) public housing project located in the Bronzeville neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois. It was located alongside the Dan Ryan Expressway, adjacently north of the former Robe ...

and

Hilliard Homes Hilliard Towers Apartments, formerly known as the Raymond Hilliard Homes CHA housing project, is a residential high-rise development in the near South Side of Chicago, Illinois. It was designed by Bertrand Goldberg and is bounded by Clark Street ...

History

Named for a

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

administrator and

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

, Harold LeClair Ickes. The housing project was constructed by the

Public Works Administration The Public Works Administration (PWA), part of the New Deal of 1933, was a large-scale public works construction agency in the United States headed by Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes. It was created by the National Industrial Recove ...

between 1954 and 1955. It consisted of eleven 9-story high-rise buildings with a total of 738 apartment

In 2007, Ickes residents recorded acts of police harassment which included strip searches of African-American men as children watched; The footage aired on

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...

's Channel 5. On October 9, 2007,

Rev. Jesse Jackson Jesse Louis Jackson (né Burns; born October 8, 1941) is an American political activist, Baptist minister, and politician. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as a shadow U.S. senator ...

along with ministers from Chicago's west side and community members moved into the housing project to bring attention to the harassment situation.

Redevelopment

As of May 2015, most of the site remains undeveloped following its demolition as part of the Plan for Transformation/Plan Forward. In September 2013, two years after the final building was demolished, former residents called for the housing authority to build replacement housing as promised. One former resident was quoted as saying: "We were told by the CHA that once the Ickes was torn down replacement units would then be built. That has not happened even though taxpayers' money is being used to help build a new Green Line station on Cermak Road and a new stadium for DePaul."

Education

Residents were zoned to schools in the

Chicago Public Schools Chicago Public Schools (CPS), officially classified as City of Chicago School District #299 for funding and districting reasons, in Chicago, Illinois, is the third-largest school district in the United States, after New York and Los Angeles. ...

including John C. Haines School in

Chinatown A Chinatown () is an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Austra ...

and

Phillips Academy High School Wendell Phillips Academy High School is a public 4–year high school located in the Bronzeville neighborhood on the south side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. Phillips is part of the Chicago Public Schools district and is managed by the Acad ...

. Students from Ickes used a tunnel to get to Haines.

External links

Chicago Housing Authority: Harold Ickes Homes

References

{{coord, 41.8508, -87.6280, type:landmark_region:US-IL, display=title Ickes Ickes Ickes Ickes Ickes Ickes Ickes 1955 establishments in Illinois 2011 disestablishments in Illinois