CHA Sign
- A dirty and dented historic Chicago Housing Authority sign — possibly one of the last remnants of one of the country’s most infamous public housing projects — was put in storage on Wednesday, with no immediate plans for its restoration or display after years of neglect.
The sign has sat outside the sole remaining building from the Jane Addams Homes in Little Italy for at least two years, behind a chainlink fence but unprotected from the elements. The CHA donated the building to the National Public Housing Museum in 2008.
Neither the museum nor the CHA could say how the sign — which was covered in dirt, twigs and rocks — ended up at Jane Addams. Neither have plans to repair it.
It's a sizable chunk of metal:
- The sign has a diameter of 12 feet and weighs approximately 200 pounds. It features the CHA’s old emblem — a handshake in front of a rising sun above a housing development — with the latin phrase “Ad Meliorem Vitam” (“a better life”) flowing inside a ribbon at the bottom. The year 1937 is listed in large numerals across the top.
Two-hundred pounds of steel scraps out at about $20 for the whole thing. We propose it go directly to the Pension Fund.
Labels: sarcasm AND silliness
posted by SCC at 12:01 AM
39 Comments:
Give it to Kimmie.......she's fromthere.
SCC mentioned:
Two-hundred pounds of steel scraps out at about $20 for the whole thing. We propose it go directly to the Pension Fund.
That would be a nice start, pension fund, which my citizen ass thought I had been helping get straight via property tax increases. This city owes those who protect and serve.
Those in charge can fuck themselves starting with Barry, Rahm and now the person we call mayor.
Sad, but I can't wait to leave this place which was once a great place to live.
200kb reminder of more profiteering and fuckery.
Richard
SCC Said:
"CHA Sign
The CHA donated the building to the National Public Housing Museum in 2008.
POSTED BY SCC AT 12:01 AM"
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Finally a place to display all those old syringes, spent shell casings, summons for Soliciting, utility shut-off notices, Credit Cards for someone in Winnetka, unserved Warrants, pictures of Jane Byrne etc.
And the rarest of the rare, under lock and key with a 24 hour armed guard no less, there is a lone unbroken pane of glass.
But sadly, after an exhaustive 10 year search that left no brick unturned, not a single W-2 was found.
RonS
City will reuse it the new Section 8 housing in Mt. Greenwood next year. What section 8 you say? Just wait and see, plans and location already in the works.
"Historic CHA sign"
Yeah, I'd like to see the CHA become history too.
"In a statement, a CHA spokesperson said the agency “is pleased that the sign is now with the museum as it continues to build its collection of artifacts that can help tell the important story of public housing in Chicago.”"
I am laughing too hard! The important story here is how the Democrats can fuck up the lives of so many with their public handouts. Unreal.
Lets have a bigger monument to single motherhood, rape, dope dealing, bathtub BBQs, robbery,child abuse, drug& alcohol addiction and oh so many murders. Way to lionize all that goodness! Taxpayer funded goodness mind you.
"...with no immediate plans for its restoration or display after years of neglect."
Just like public housing itself.
rb
The only monument needed to the CHA is found in the 1992 horror film Candyman about Cabrini-Green. That is not even a good movie so enough said.
RIP Jess!!! You will be missed! Your one of us good ones!
Biggest participation trophy I have heard of.
200 pounds and 12 feet in diameter?
That is big tombstone, for a failed and dead social program.
In its theory, during the Great Depression, it was an Opportunity for some. However, as it became a huge bureaucracy and "Political Plantation" with heavy racial overtones; it became a symbol of all that is wrong with Big Government Benevolence. The sign should be preserved, as a memory of Political Incompetence and Racial Segregation in the North. Originally intended to help people get on their feet, it ultimately served as a human warehouse of Misery, Crime and Death for way too many African Americans. What was intended to be Temporary, metastasized like a cancer, trapping multiple generations of broken families, and contributing to the destruction of the African American family structure. Every effort should be made to preserve the sign, like the sign over the gate of Dachau, the Nazi Concentration camp is preserved:"Arbeit macht frei",(Work Shall Set You Free") was as absurd as the CHA sign saying "A Better Life". Both signs Lied, and both signs are symbolic of Big Government Incompetence, and a Socialist/Democrat Party Dictatorship. Baby "G"
how about all the project bldgs at full capacity for $20.00
The amazing thing about this is that there is actually a public housing museum.
That was another era when a sign could be in Latin, "to a better life", with assurance that some, if not all, passersby would know what it meant. Memo from a lost world.
There’s a National Public Housing Museum? Why? Is it to remind everyone what a catastrophic failure that program was? Where is it? Who runs it? How much does it cost? Is one of the displays a pile of money being set on fire?
fuck the sign,
why the hell do we need a housing museum,
really.
They started working on the so called museum several years back and then Oscar sent a message from the grave that Taylor Street don't need this museum and the work stopped and the sign announcing same was removed.
It is nice to have clout from the afterlife!
It should be saved. A reminder of one party rule and the ruin its brought...
National Public Housing Museum? Seriously? If you really need to go to a museum, Whiting, Indiana has the Sports Mascot Museum. Go there, have a good time, and then...
Kees me you fool!!!!
They should hang it in the mayors office behind her chair.
American pickers might give you more $$
https://www.fox32chicago.com/news/local/checks-worth-millions-written-by-chicago-remain-uncashed-1
Goodbye to a shit hole that used to be Beat 1223. Will the public housing museum be as popular as the Italian American Sports Hall of Fame?
Retired.38 spl +P
“...behind a chainlink fence but unprotected from the elements.”
Oh the humanity, oh wait it’s a sign.
That slab of metal outlived the entire CHA jets experience and it still can be used as a solid roof in any one of the many Sanctuary homeless camps around downtown. Why not, taxpayers are still paying for that sign, may as well repurpose it.
Believe me, they tried. The sections were too big to fit on a Jewels’ cart (buggy) to haul over to scrap yard on Cermacks & Halsted.
America Pickers would probably pay $100 for it, cash.
You sure it didn’t say “infernum “ on the sign?
Headline on the Slum-Times.." Symbol of Hope" referring to the sign.. Better would be " Symbol of Failure"
One day they'll find just the right place to live, then everything will be fine.
@8/22/2019 12:42:00 AM
'pictures of Jane Byrne etc'
Comedy gold! I am laughing violently.
"Historic CHA sign, once a symbol of the promise of public housing"
I hope that promise rusts away to dust along with that scrap metal memento mori. Fucking Democrats!
Heh...
The CHA logo should've been two crossed pot metal pistols
instead of two clasped hands.
Instead of a "rising sun" of promise,
it should've been the dual upturned asses
of pandering and excuse-making meeting
in the middle.
I'd take CHA housing back anyway of the week..this voucher program (section 8) really ruined the city of Chicago... The neighborhoods are shit now
Anonymous said...
"Goodbye to a shit hole that used to be Beat 1223.
Will the public housing museum be as popular as the
Italian American Sports Hall of Fame?"
Retired.38 spl +P
8/22/2019 10:38:00 AM
Gads... 1223 was nothing but 1231 North...
Or vice versa?
The bunch who lived on that beat
were a curious sort of tri-racial
isolate/multi-ethnic inbreds.
Deeply woven into the urban tapestry?
Or?
Ground ever so deeply and fragrantly
into the carpet of humanity.
Watch your step...
Dunno... It's been many years and some shit
just defies explanation.
Comic relief in abundance when the
O'Neill twits would call 911 every time
Dude would walk by their "estate."
(They were pissed because the area wasn't
gentrifying fast enough to suit them and
"You Cops aren't doing ANYTHING about THEM!")
Let alone when the community members were
dropping shots on the 800 & 900 blocks
of Ada, Lytle and points beyond.
Best Z13 radio was when one of the
Lieutenants had enough of the one O'Neill
calling in repeated false reports
and came on the air:
"Lock that jag-off up per ME!"
Heh...
"Do you know who I AM?"
versus
>Squadrol Door Slamming Shut<
Good Times...
Bad news! I called a scrap metal company to get a quote for the worth of the old sign. They cannot take it. Federal regulations prohibit use of toxic materials to be processed.
Nothing is more toxic then CHA housing projects. Guess the city is stuck with it.
I want American Pickers have Tom and Mike do a scene on it. They call it freelancing now, how about ghetto-pickin'? Throw in a few of the signs they put down by shell casings for a "if you buy it right now...........?"
I miss robert taylor homes, great times. Made me rich.
Whatever happened to the art that was in the projects lot?
http://www.wpamurals.com/addams.htm
They could have put them at Sheridan park 4 blocks away but they just disappeared!
Great idea a museum i picture Alderman ERVING whose daddy was a commander all over a NEW museum.
Damn, this makes me wish I could remember the "famous" signs outside of "Saint" Englewood hospital. Some collectable memories, shit, there. Or some signs from the other shithole, that in its day really was great, at 57th and Wood. Oh my, the good old days, what happened to these places. Oh shit, I forgot about the hospital on about 76th and lowe (?) in that are anyway. Same shit is getting ready to happen to Holy Cross (mark my words) alot of people don't remember that HCH was actually excellent back in the day!!! I could go on but I am making myself ILL.
Anonymous Anonymous said...
RIP Jess!!! You will be missed! Your one of us good ones!
8/22/2019 02:13:00 AM
Brave woman who left us way too soon. May God comfort Brian and their children.
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