Wentworth Gardens

Wentworth Gardens is a low rise 344-unit housing project operated by the CHA. it lies just south of U.S. Cellular Field in Armour Square.[1] The site had originally been home to South Side Park, a baseball stadium for the Chicago White Sox (1900-1910) and then the Chicago American Giants of the Negro Baseball League (1910-1940). In 1944, the Chicago Housing Authority purchased the site to build a 422-unit apartment complex of low-rise buildings and row houses. Wentworth Gardens opened in 1947 for returning World War II veterans and later thousands of low-income African American families in a tight-knit community. During the 1950s it was labeled as “The best housing in the community in the city" until the gangs began closed in.[2] By the 1970s the buildings became more unsettling and less tended to by CHA as crime and drugs flowed through freely. The Gangster Disciples controlled many of buildings in Wentworth as well as the drug trade and battled with the smaller Black P. Stone sets. In the early 2000's It gained the nickname "Murdertown" due to the frequent homicides that occurred there. It is also the name of the GD set that control the project. As Chicago tore down the massive high rises, the families from there were displaced in the Wentworth. This lead to a small increase in crime.[3] In 2007 the project was fully renovated with new rehabilitated units and walkways but lacked a security system which was installed into other active CHA developments.[4]

Wentworth Gardens
General information
LocationBounded by 37th Street on the north, Pershing Road on the south, Wentworth Avenue on the east, Princeton Street on the west.
Chicago, Illinois
 United States
Coordinates41°49′38″N 87°37′40″W
Status344 units, Renovated
Construction
Constructed1944–45
Other information
Governing
body		Chicago Housing Authority

References
  1. https://www.thecha.org/residents/public-housing/find-public-housing/wentworth-gardens
  2. https://shelterforce.org/1994/09/01/public-housing-what-went-wrong/
  3. http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/one-story-up/2009/11/wentworth-gardens-struggles-to-bridge-the-gap-between-neighborhoods-gangs.html
  4. https://cha-assets.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/Board_Meeting_Agenda_Oct2007.pdf
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