The complex was designed by architect Minoru Yamasaki, who also designed the World Trade Center towers and the Lambert-St. Louis International Airport main terminal.
Background
During the 1940s and 1950s, the city of St. Louis was "a very crowded place"; "in almost a classic sense it looked and felt like a 'real' big city ... like something out of a Charles Dickens novel". Its housing stock deteriorated through the interbellum decades and World War II. More than 85,000 families lived in 19th century tenements; a 1947 official survey found that 33,000 homes had communal toilets. Middle-class, predominantly white, residents were leaving the city, and their former residences were occupied by low-income families. Black (north) and white (south) slums of the old city were segregated and expanding, threatening to engulf the city center. To save central properties from an imminent loss of value, city authorities settled on redevelopment of the "inner ring" around the central business district. . . continue reading >>
Those left behind in the city faced a destitute, rapidly de-industrializing St. Louis , parceled out to downtown interests and increasingly segregated by class and race. . . continue reading >>
More Links to Pruitt-Igoe News & Updates:
The Myths of The Pruitt-Igoe Myth
Imploding the Pruitt-Igoe Myth
Secret human testing: Victims in St. Louis speak, demand answers
Pruitt Igoe Now site relaunches
The lessons of Pruitt-Igoe
The destruction of an American dream
Remember Pruitt-Igoe
The Pruitt-Igoe Myth (2011)
The Pruitt-Igoe Myth (Facebook)