Pruitt-Igoe

by Bob Hansman

Overview

In the early 1950s, Pruitt-Igoe, a vast public housing project, arose on 57 acres on the near north side of St. Louis. Barely 20 years after construction, the 33 eleven-story buildings that made up the complex were razed, and the vacant land that was once home to thousands of people was gradually reclaimed by a dense, neglected urban forest. What happened in-between is a story that tempts but also defies simple narratives. It is a story of interweaving and competing accounts, both then and now. This volume approaches Pruitt-Igoe with all of its contradiction in mind. Alongside iconic images, other seldom-seen photographs flesh out the history in sometimes surprising ways and, in doing so, preserve some of the stories that are in danger of being permanently erased and lost, just as Pruitt-Igoe was.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781467125826
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	07/17/2017
Series:	Images of America Series
Pages:	128
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

A St. Louis native, Bob Hansman is an associate professor and a faculty fellow of the Gephardt Institute for Civic and Community Engagement at Washington University in St. Louis. In the early 1990s, he founded—and still directs, with his son Jovan—City Faces and the Jermaine Lamond Roberts Memorial Studio, in the Clinton-Peabody public housing project. Locally, he has received a Rosa Parks Award and a Dred Scott Freedom Award for his work.

Editorial Reviews

The book feels a bit like a slideshow at a neighborhood reunion, with thoughtful, poetic captions revealing the story behind each photograph, making sure that the faces, names, and stories of the human beings who lived in those imposing concrete towers are preserved, even though the buildings are long gone.

Pruitt-Igoe is an outlier in comparison to other Arcadia titles, which tend toward sepia-tinted nostalgia or the deadpan school of documentarianism. Hansman says he wants readers to feel something when they read the book, and you definitely do: The book is a choral narrative that raises its fist against the forces that would erase whole neighborhoods and the stories of the people who live in them. It dares the reader not to be moved—and to do some deep thinking about St. Louis and your own place within this still-divided city. St. Louis Magazine

From the Publisher