Amanda Rivkin

Plan for Transformation

In 2011, the last public high rise building at the former Cabrini Green complex on Chicago's northwest side, 1231 N. Burling, met the wrecking ball. In 2007-2008, I spent several months following the Revolutionary Communists, followers of the reclusive Bob Avakian, that had found shelter in an apartment inside the building and utilized the space to encourage often skeptical residents to raise their voices in dissent. With much to lose and little in terms of material wealth, there was no revolution to speak of. However their vision presented an alternative to the Chicago Housing Authority's "Plan for Transformation," a city-wide effort to transform, or as critics charge, eliminate - public housing. Large swaths of prime Chicago real estate on the Near North, Near West and South Sides were turned over to for-profit developers at the height of the housing boom.

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. One of the remaining high rise buildings left at the once sprawling Cabrini Green housing project on Chicago's Near North Side from the corridor of a Cabrini Green high rise at 1230 N. Burling on the northeast corner of North Halsted and Division Streets on December 18, 2007. Once dubbed "the worst housing project in America," Cabrini Green gained national notoriety in part for a rash of violent crimes, gang violence, and drug-related problems throughout the 1980s and 90s. For locals, though, Cabrini Green drew more attention than some of the city's other troubled projects because of its location at the nexus of three of Chicago's wealthiest, predominantly white neighborhoods of Lincoln Park, the Gold Coast (far left) and Streeterville (far right).
   
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. Grant Newburger, 50, a supporter of Bob Avakian's Revolutionary Communist Party, in his apartment at 1230 N. Burling, a Cabrini Green high rise, on the corner of North Halsted and Division Streets on Chicago's Near North Side, December 18, 2007. Newburger has lived and worked as a community organizer at the once notorious and now partially demolished Cabrini Green since 1996, fighting the Chicago Housing Authority's "Plan for Transformation."
   
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. Timothy "Timo" Hartfield, 29, an ex-convict released two years ago and Cabrini Green resident, looks through leaflets against police brutality left on the coffee table in the apartment of his friend, Grant Newburger, 50, an active supporter of Bob Avakian's Revolutionary Communist Party, at a Cabrini Green high rise on the northeast corner of North Halsted and Division Streets on December 18, 2007. The mayor of Chicago, Richard M. Daley, former Chicago Police Commander John Burge are pictured at top with a list of judges not supported by the Revolutionary Communist Party listed below.
     
  
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. Octavia Sanders, 32, in the stairwell at 1230 N. Burling, a Cabrini Green high rise building on the northeast corner of North Halsted and Division Streets, on December 18, 2007. Sanders told Grant Newburger, 50, a supporter of Bob Avakian's Revolutionary Communist Party, that she was upset by an early morning raid in the building that saw the arrest of 16 tenants and by her 12 year old son's legal troubles after a police sergeant allegedly "Tasered" him in November.
  
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. Grant Newburger (right), 50, an active supporter of Bob Avakian's Revolutionary Communist Party, consoles Herm Willis (left), 49, whose son was taken from his apartment in an early morning raid conducted that day by Chicago police and federal authorities on December 18, 2007. Willis' son was one of 16 tenants accused of drug dealing in a federal indictment that resulted in a sweep of the building they both live in at 1230 N. Burling on the northwest corner of Halsted and Division Streets on Chicago's Near North Side. The arrest led to Willis' eviction from the Cabrini Green apartment he shared with his daughter and grandson four months later.
   
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. Timothy "Timo" Hartfield, 29, plays basketball with Herm Willis' grandson in the eighth floor corridor of a Cabrini Green high rise at 1230 N. Burling on the northeast corner of North Halsted and Division Streets on December 18, 2007.
     
  
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. Timothy "Timo" Hartfield, 29, an ex-convict released from prison two years ago, in the apartment of his friend, Grant Newburger, 50, an active supporter of Bob Avakian's Revolutionary Communist Party, in a Cabrini Green high rise building at 1230 N. Burling on the northeast corner of North Halsted and Division Streets on December 18, 2007. A few months later, Hartfield was residing with Newburger and others in the second floor apartment.
   
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. "Bobb-o" Conner shovels snow in front of a car outside the Cabrini Green high rise building where he lives at 1230 N. Burling on the northeast corner of Halsted and Division Streets on Chicago's Near North Side on December 18, 2007.
   
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. A Bob Avakian quote on the door of the apartment that Grant Newburger, 50, an active supporter of Bob Avakian's Revolutionary Communist Party, shares with two others on the second floor of a Cabrini Green high rise building at 1230 N. Burling on the northeast corner of North Halsted and Division Streets on December 18, 2007.
     
  
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. Beauty Turner, Joseph Bakis, 38, Harold Hill, 34, and Grant Newburger, 50, a supporter of Bob Avakian's Revolutionary Communist Party, pass around 18 electric votives to commemorate the number of people shot and killed by Chicago police in 2007 at a rally of a dozen individuals organized by Newburger outside Chicago Police Headquarters on the corner of Michigan Avenue and 35th Street on December 20, 2007.
   
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. A young black male is stopped by a Chicago police officer and frisked in the middle of the Cabrini Green housing project on Chicago's Near North Side on February 8, 2008.
   
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. Grant Newburger, 50, a supporter of Bob Avakian's Revolutionary Communist Party, with his wife, Mary Ann Quinn, 60, a supporter and editor for the Bob Avakian Revolutionary Communists newspaper, Revolution News, following a book discussion on Darwin Day, February 12, 2008, at the Revolution Bookstore in Wicker Park, one mile from Cabrini Green. Quinn lives in Wicker Park while Grant spends most nights at his Cabrini Green apartment.
     
  
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. Herm Willis, 49, at the car wash where he works across the street from his former residence in a Cabrini Green high-rise at 1230 N. Burling on April 5, 2008. Shortly after he was evicted from Cabrini Green a few weeks prior, Willis had found an apartment a mile from his former home. A life-long Cabrini resident, Willis said he was asked to work at the car wash when the owner saw Willis washing windshields at the intersection where the carwash is located.
   
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. 1015 N. Larrabee meets the wrecking ball on December 27, 2007. The "Reds" as Cabrini Green residents knew the low-rise red brick buildings that once formed part of the sprawling housing project, are being torn down as part of the Chicago Housing Authority's "Plan for Transformation," making way for housing developments that outprice long-time tenants.