{"id":6760,"date":"2011-01-28T06:45:24","date_gmt":"2011-01-28T13:45:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nicknormal.com\/normalblog\/?p=6760"},"modified":"2015-04-25T20:50:36","modified_gmt":"2015-04-26T03:50:36","slug":"pruitt-igoe-then-and-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nicknormal.com\/normalblog\/pruitt-igoe-then-and-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Pruitt-Igoe then and now"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Continuing with the recent trend in “ruin porn” – the phenomenon of almost voyeuristic hindsight and awe with America’s urban past and what has become the present – the notoriously iconic St. Louis housing complex Pruitt-Igoe<\/a> will get an injection of interest next month when the new film The Pruitt-Igoe Myth: an Urban History<\/em> premieres<\/a> at the Oxford Film Festival. That’s Oxford, Mississippi. It’s no surprise to me of course that this film isn’t debuting in St. Louis itself, a city in almost permanent conflict with its own past, identity and desires.<\/p>\n

For two years I drove by the grounds where Pruitt-Igoe stood on my way to high school – up North Jefferson, the main street bordering on the west (above). Not that I understood then the impact Pruitt-Igoe had on the landscape – I didn’t – but it was even then a point of fascination that something so grande and ambitious was attempted in my fair and diminutif<\/em> city during an era of otherwise obvious decline. It lasted only 20 years, and was destroyed before I was born – but for the adults around me who lived through that era, something always seemed to stick at their side. Perhaps the film will shed light on what that thing<\/em> is, but I like to think not – in the same way that looking at the contemporary satellite map above, which we now have easy access to, makes one think “awwww, that’s nice” – and actually yes the green is pleasant to look at – but it’s ultimately impossible to answer the question “What went wrong?”<\/p>\n