Summary: Public housing residents scramble to figure out where to go next when their Chicago public housing high-rise is slated for demolition. It's all part of one of the nation's biggest urban renewal efforts in recent memory (Winner: 2003 Edward R. Murrow Award, Best National Radio News Documentary)
If you've ever driven through Chicago's South Side on the Dan Ryan Expressway, you've seen the towers. The high-rise public housing that dominates neighborhoods and imprisons people. What's it like to live there? This documentary takes you there. Dan Collison and Elizabeth Meister of Long Haul Productions produced this piece, which won an Edward R. Murrow award a few years ago. The story is narrated by a man who lives there. His name is Andre Williams. When you listen to his story, you get closer to the people who lived in the place that gangbangers call "The House of Pain," also known as Stateway Gardens. This piece originally aired in 2002. (One year later, the producers returned to Stateway to find out what happened to people forced to leave. That doc is called "Movin' Out the Bricks" and also originally aired on Chicago Public Radio.) Andre is an affable guide. We meet an older woman named Gloria Dixon, who lives on the eighth floor and prays for a working lift: "Lord, let this elevator work because I'm tired and I don't feel like walking." We meet Patricia Davis, her two kids and five grandkids, who live as squatters in Apt. 703. "They keep the place pretty clean," Andre says. And so on. There's a lot of great human detail here. And it's mixed with complex public policy questions: Should the Chicago Public Housing Authority demolish a place that is home to so many people? Was it racist and wrong-headed to put all these poor people together in the first place? Did the government do enough to help the people displaced by the destruction of the "House of Pain" find a new place to live?
House of Pain might be called the final chapter that was begun by Ghetto Life 101, & Remorse, though your guide through the Chicago Public housing pitfalls is self appointed envoy, samaritan, and recording angel, Andre Williams. This journey has no narrator but Willaims himself, as he listens and talks to residents who now find themselves having to relocate when there housing project home comes up for demolition.
This piece would go well with a discussion on rapidly changing housing markets, or stories on eviction move-ins and condo conversions.
It is rich with the sound of people's lives, and the voice of Chicago's central city residents. 30 minutes well done.
Comments for House of Pain
This piece belongs to the series "Homeplace Series"
Produced by Dan Collison and Elizabeth Meister
Other pieces by Long Haul Productions
Rating Summary
2 comments
Todd Melby
Posted on August 01, 2006 at 12:21 PM | Permalink
Review of House of Pain
If you've ever driven through Chicago's South Side on the Dan Ryan Expressway, you've seen the towers. The high-rise public housing that dominates neighborhoods and imprisons people. What's it like to live there? This documentary takes you there. Dan Collison and Elizabeth Meister of Long Haul Productions produced this piece, which won an Edward R. Murrow award a few years ago. The story is narrated by a man who lives there. His name is Andre Williams. When you listen to his story, you get closer to the people who lived in the place that gangbangers call "The House of Pain," also known as Stateway Gardens. This piece originally aired in 2002. (One year later, the producers returned to Stateway to find out what happened to people forced to leave. That doc is called "Movin' Out the Bricks" and also originally aired on Chicago Public Radio.) Andre is an affable guide. We meet an older woman named Gloria Dixon, who lives on the eighth floor and prays for a working lift: "Lord, let this elevator work because I'm tired and I don't feel like walking." We meet Patricia Davis, her two kids and five grandkids, who live as squatters in Apt. 703. "They keep the place pretty clean," Andre says. And so on. There's a lot of great human detail here. And it's mixed with complex public policy questions: Should the Chicago Public Housing Authority demolish a place that is home to so many people? Was it racist and wrong-headed to put all these poor people together in the first place? Did the government do enough to help the people displaced by the destruction of the "House of Pain" find a new place to live?
Michael Johnson
Posted on August 01, 2005 at 08:26 PM | Permalink
Review of House of Pain
House of Pain might be called the final chapter that was begun by Ghetto Life 101, & Remorse, though your guide through the Chicago Public housing pitfalls is self appointed envoy, samaritan, and recording angel, Andre Williams. This journey has no narrator but Willaims himself, as he listens and talks to residents who now find themselves having to relocate when there housing project home comes up for demolition.
This piece would go well with a discussion on rapidly changing housing markets, or stories on eviction move-ins and condo conversions.
It is rich with the sound of people's lives, and the voice of Chicago's central city residents. 30 minutes well done.