The National Public Housing Museum is excited to partner up with ABLA Local Advisory Council and ABLA and community residents for an evening of community storytelling. The Jane Addams Hull-House Museum will also join us in leading the program.
Everyone is welcome, regardless of whether you have a story to tell. Come and share, or come and listen to the wealth of stories from ABLA and Roosevelt Square!
We'd love it if you could RSVP by taking a moment to fill out THIS FORM.
See you on Thursday, March 24th!
The NPHM
For a press release, CLICK HERE.
Introduction Pat O'Connell, New Transitional Executive Director
Dear Friends of the National Public Housing Museum:
We would like to share some news. As you may know, our previous executive director Charles Leeks left the museum to pursue other opportunities. We're delighted that Charles remains supportive of the Museum and our efforts to share the stories and lessons of public housing. The board of directors is using this time of transition as an opportunity for creativity, reflection, and renewal.
Pat O'Connell, New Transitional Executive Director of the NPHM
To that end, we have engaged the services of Pat O’Connell as our Transitional Executive Director. Pat has more than thirty years of experience in the Chicago nonprofit sector, working in areas such as community development, healthcare, social services, and the arts.
She has served as Executive Director of Claretian Associates, a housing and community development organization on Chicago’s southeast side, and the ACE Mentor Program, an organization providing educational and career mentoring for disadvantaged and minority youth in the Chicago Public School system. For the past 15 years, Pat has managed her own consulting practice, working with a variety of nonprofit organizations on capacity building initiatives.
Her particular expertise is working with organizations in transition and since 2007 has served as Interim Executive Director at five different organizations, helping them stabilize and optimize operations, facilitate cultural change and provide appropriate supports to orient the permanent executive director when hired. As one board president noted on an evaluation of Pat’s services, “Pat O’Connell facilitated a challenging administrative transition for us with sensitivity, grace, and finesse. Her leadership and generosity provided a level of expertise, encouragement and stewardship that we could not have provided by ourselves.”
With Pat’s leadership, NPHM will continue its exciting work with CHA to finalize the construction timetable for our permanent home. The inclusion of NPHM in the final masterplan by Solomon Cordwell Buenz and CHA demonstrates NPHM's future role as a neighborhood anchor. We will also continue to prepare the opening exhibits for the museum, and to build on our past programming including connecting resident experiences to conversations about policy and design and the future of housing as a Public Good. Pat will work to strengthen our systems to get us ready for our next steps.
We are looking forward to sharing more news about all of these developments in the coming months. In the meantime, if you would like to contact Pat, you may reach her at poconnell@nphm.org.
Thank you so much for your continued interest and support!
Best,
Sunny Fischer
Chair, NPHM
After the Plan: What Happened to Public Housing Families?
Image: Parkside of Oldtown, YoChicago
We are excited to announce our program partner, the The University of Chicago Urban Network. We thank the Urban Network for their support for this program and continued support of the National Public Housing Museum.
UPDATE 01-25-16: TRANSIT & PARKING: All buses on Michigan Avenue serve this location. The Chicago Red Line is the closest 'L' stop. Parking may be validated at the Church after parking at the 900 N Michigan Standard Garage.
UPDATE 01-21-16: We have moved the event to the Buchanan Chapel. Please RSVP HERE. A reception will follow this event in the Bumpus Activity Room.
Fifteen years after the Plan for Transformation, questions still remain about the relocation of resident families from demolished high-rises into four distinct housing situations. A panel of academics, a public housing resident representative, and a housing non-profit will discuss the implementation of the Plan for Transformation and its ultimate effects on Chicago's public housing families.
Come join us for this engaging panel discussion:
Wednesday, January 27th from 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm
Fourth Presbyterian Church, Buchanan Chapel - 126 E. Chestnut Street, Chicago, IL
THE PANEL
Mary Pattillo - Harold Washington Professor of Sociology and African American Studies, Northwestern University, will focus on families relocated with a voucher to other segregated and impoverished neighborhoods.
Amy Khare - PhD Candidate, Social Service Administration, University of Chicago, will discuss families who are living in the new mixed income developments.
Crystal Palmer - Assistant Director of Resident Engagement, the Chicago Housing Authority, will talk about families residing in traditional public housing.
Chris Klepper - Executive Director, Housing Choice Partners of Illinois, will focus on families who took a voucher and relocated to “opportunity areas” in the city and the suburbs.
Paul Fischer - Emeritus Professor, Department of Politics, Lake Forest College, will moderate the panel.
Each panelist will speak for 15 minutes, followed by cross-panel discussion and audience questions and comments.
See you there!
Image: Parkside of Oldtown, YoChicago
NPHM IN THE NEWS: CHICAGO ARCHITECTURE BIENNIAL EXHIBITIONS OCT - DEC 2015
"One of the biennial’s brighter ideas is to keep its attendees (some thirty-one thousand at the opening) the hell out of such archi-tourist traps as Frank Lloyd Wright’s Oak Park. Most of the programming outside the main venue, the Chicago Cultural Center on East Washington Street, is in such places as the National Public Housing Museum—lodged in the ruins of the former Jane Addams Homes, and exhibiting the engaging House Housing study from Columbia University’s Temple Hoyne Buell Center."
—Ian Volner, Artforum, December 2015
"The exhibitions offer anything but a conventional museum experience — paint is peeling off the concrete walls and steel door frames are rusting. Yet as arranged by curator Todd Palmer, the shows collectively humanize the residents of public housing even as they reveal how public housing itself became so dehumanizing. "
—Blair Kamin, Chicago Tribune, November 7, 2015
"Chicago has a very particular historic context in terms of housing. "Partnering with the NPHM, which grew out of that context, aided both institutions to expand the conversation about housing as a public good. "
— Susanne Schindler (with Jacob Moore) interviewed by Samuel Medina, Metropolis, November 2015
“We’re trying to draw attention to a problematic history to galvanize public interest in resolving these issues,” says NPHM curator Todd Palmer...The exhibition’s setting—the shuttered Addams building, abandoned since 2002—demonstrates the consequences of not resolving these issues. Visitors stroll past boarded up windows, peeling paint, and rusted doorframes, once the dwellings of residents. The rabbit-warren corridors where audio clips whisper Frank Lloyd Wright’s qualified approval of the Soviet Union and Frank Gehry’s ambitions for his Santa Monica House creates an aura of domesticity torn apart from within and without.
— Zach Mortice, Architectural Record, October 27, 2015
— Liz Chilsen, Chicago Now, October 13, 2015
"Particularly notable [at the Biennial] are the opening of Theaster Gates’s Stony Island Arts Bank on the city’s South Side, and a staging of the Temple Hoyne Buell Center’s House Housing exhibition at the nascent National Public Housing Museum. Both are located in historic buildings that rival the Cultural Center in social significance."
— Michael Abrahamson, The Architectural Review (London), October 14, 2015
Visits from our Chicago, U.S., and International Neighbors!
We're so happy to count among so many visits from our supporters! Above is a photo from the International Housing Partnership conference comprised of public housing practitioners from across the Commonwealth - United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand - as well as the U.S. The group came to Chicago for their annual conference and made a point to stop by!
This past weekend we also took advantage of one of our closest Taylor Street neighbors, UIC's Department of Urban Policy and Planning (left) as well as a a series of students from Urban and Cultural Geography classes from the University of Wisconsin Fox Valley (center and right).
We hope that you may be able to join us for the Biennial exhibits on display now through November 15th! For more information, click HERE. For information on paid private tours or to serve as a volunteer docent, please contact Katie Samples at ksamples@nphm.org or 773.245.1621.
We'll see you on Taylor Street!
House Housing and NPHM in the Architect's Newspaper
"...the biennial Thursday afternoon was marked by a preview of the complex, yet succinct exhibit House Housing capturing the history of inequality of designed inhabitation. Staged as an open house in one of last remaining buildings of one of the first federally-funded housing complex in Chicago, the exhibition is a walk-through into the part of the future home of the National Public Housing Museum (NPHM)." Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss
Come visit the NPHM's Chicago Architectural Biennial exhibitions: Oct 3rd to Nov 15th!
For our press release, CLICK HERE.
Be sure to come visit the National Public Housing Museum's future home at 1322 W. Taylor Street this October 3rd to November 15th. We are excited to partner with the Chicago Architectural Biennial and The Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture to put on two exhibits, House Housing and We, Next Door. A third exhibit curated by NPHM is also on view through November 15th entitled Collection, Building, Action. It's devoted to telling the story of the last Jane Addams Homes building still standing, and how it came to become the site of our museum in the making.
If you would like to volunteer during the Biennial, including opportunities to take part as a volunteer docent, CLICK HERE.
For information on special tours, please contact Katie Samples at ksamples@nphm.org or 773.245.1621.
Volunteer for the NPHM during the Chicago Architectural Biennial!
The Chicago Architecture Biennial will be an exciting time for NPHM, and an excellent opportunity to donate some of your time to the museum. Volunteers will benefit from three interesting and insightful exhibits, engaging stories and lectures, and lively conversation with museum staff, co-volunteers, and visitors. All of this, for just a small sacrifice of time!
Volunteer Requirements:
Volunteers should enjoy and have the ability to work well with the public, and have the ability to be a professional representative of NPHM. Volunteers should be able to commit to 2 shifts during the 6 week course of the Biennial. The shifts will be 3 or 4 hours long. If a volunteer is interested in working more than two shifts, or shifts longer than 3 or 4 hours, that would be great!
Volunteer Responsibilities:
Volunteers will be present in the exhibition space to answer visitors' questions and to help them engage the exhibits. Other opportunities may develop—stay tuned!
Volunteer Training:
Volunteers will select to attend ONE of the three training/“sneak peek” dates that we will be offering:
Thursday, October 1st
Friday, October 2nd
Saturday, October 3rd
Times are yet to be determined. Refreshments will be provided. Additional information about each exhibit will be provided in advance of the training/sneak peek events.
For more information:
http://chicagoarchitecturebiennial.org/
http://house-housing.com/
If interested in volunteering:
Please click THIS LINK to submit your name and information to our new Volunteer and Docent Coordinator, Katie Samples. Once she has received your form, she will add you to our volunteer list and will be sure to keep you up-to-date on all the latest developments of the volunteer program.
Questions? Contact Katie Samples, Volunteer & Docent Coordinator at ksamples@nphm.org or 773.245.1621
Hiring a temporary Volunteer & Docent Coordinator
Volunteer & Docent Coordinator
Position: The Volunteer & Docent Coordinator will work in partnership with the staff at the National Public Housing Museum to create a tour program between October 1st and November 15th. The tours will be set up to highlight three exhibits, two a part of the Chicago Architectural Biennial with which the Museum is a partner.
The successful candidate will work with the Museum’s staff and members of the Museum’s Youth Advisory Council to develop a docent program and recruit other volunteers as necessary throughout the exhibits' duration. This position will also include light curatorial work.
The successful candidate will have significant volunteer management experience, including scheduling, training, and maintaining contact with volunteers, as well as creating an overall pleasant and accountable volunteer experience.
Additional responsibilities will be assigned as needed. This posting is considered a summary, not a definitive list of responsibilities.
Special capabilities needed: Flexible schedule (ability to work nights and weekends Thursday - Sunday), Ability to lift 40 lbs., climb stairs, and adapt to changing work conditions, Spanish fluency a plus
Compensation: $15-$20 per hour DOE, 15-20 hours per week, Tuesday, September 8th through Friday, November 20th, this position is a temporary position and does not include benefits
Process: The position will close after 15 applications or by August 26th, whichever is soonest. Applicants are asked to submit a cover letter of no more than one page stating why they are the best fit for the position in addition to a resume. If needed, we will ask for references from the right candidate.
Potential Candidates for selection will be notified and briefly interviewed on the phone on August 27th and 28th. Finalists for the position will be interviewed in person at our offices at 625 N. Kingsbury St. on September 1st, 2nd, or 3rd.
Letters and resumes as well as questions about this posting may be directed to Daniel Ronan, Manager of Public Engagement, NPHM, dronan@nphm.org. If needed, you may call Daniel at 773.257.7241
Summer is best in the Sun! A Festa Week Recap
Volunteers at last week's Weeding the Grounds! Credit: DNAInfo, Below: Volunteers from last week's Festa Italiana tabling. Credit: NPHM
Thanks to all who attended a busy week of summer activities
Volunteers gathered together at the future home of the Museum to remove
5 bags of weeds
during Weeding the Grounds
before Festa Italiana
at which volunteers spoke with 400 people about the Museum and
56 people
checked in at our table! Thanks to those that came by!
Meanwhile, we also attended the annual summer reunionof the Clarence Darrow Homes alumni
13 years after demolition.
Would you like more public housing perspective? See
70 Acres in Chicago: Cabrini Green
on Sunday, August 30th at 1:30pm. Tickets going fast!
Have a question about the Museum? Contact Daniel Ronan, the Manager of Public Engagement, at dronan@nphm.org or 773.257.7241
Volunteer with the Museum! - Weed the Grounds and Festa Italiana
Summer is good for you!
Come join us as we Weed the Grounds TOMORROW, Tuesday, August 11th from 4pm to 6pm at 1322 W Taylor Street! (CLICK HERE to VOLUNTEER!)
Come and join supporters of the National Public Housing Museum as we “Weed the Grounds” in our latest installment of “Greening the Grounds,” a community effort to beautify our future home. Bring some gloves and some elbow grease!
Join us for Festa Italiana, August 13th, 14th, 15th, & 16th - (CLICK HERE to VOLUNTEER!)
Festa Italiana is the annual street fair featuring Italian-inspired art, culture, and food, in Chicago’s Little Italy neighborhood. The future NPHM will be housed in the historic Jane Addams Homes on Taylor where we will be hosting a series of programs this fall. Come and learn about these programs, connect with Museum staff and board, and celebrate Festa together with us - look for our table!
If you have any questions about the above two events and volunteering opportunities, please be sure to contact Daniel Ronan, the Manager of Public Engagement, at dronan@nphm.org or 773.257.7241
NPHM Mourns the Untimely Loss of P.J. Paparelli
The National Public Housing Museum lost a friend and collaborator when P.J. Paparelli died in a car crash in Scotland on May 21, 2015. He was the creative visionary, co-playwright, and director of “The Project(s)” – an acclaimed documentary play about public housing currently running at Chicago’s The American Theatre Company until June.
Paparelli approached the NPHM in 2009 for help, and board members Roberta Feldman, Annie R. Stubenfield, and Brad Hunt embraced his desire to tell the story of public housing on the stage. They connected him with public housing residents, and, over several years, Paparelli and his team collected little-known human stories that spanned from positive love to painful tragedy.
The play – with its skillful presentation of public housing’s complexity and emotions – is an extraordinary piece of theater. It demonstrates Paparelli’s ability to listen, empathize, probe, and challenge, all while being honest with his material. He cared deeply about residents and had plans to return from his vacation in Scotland in time to see the play performed at Wentworth Gardens, an event that took place on May 31 with great emotion from both the actors and audience.
“The Project(s)” received glowing reviews, and his death led to heart-wrenching tributes to an exceptional career. P.J. hoped to take his documentary theater method to other cities and countries, and he had already developed relationships with public housing residents in Glasgow. He was living the spirit of the National Public Housing Museum, which seeks to tell the human experience in public housing for social justice ends.
We will greatly miss P.J.’s charm, laugh, integrity, and passion for telling the stories of public housing.
– The NPHM Family
Plans for a memorial service organized by the American Theater Company are forthcoming.
Thank you: Sowing Seeds and Planting Community
On Wednesday 35 current and former public housing residents, Little Italy neighbors, and Museum supporters all came out for the Greening the Grounds event to beautify the future NPHM's front yard.
We are so grateful to these volunteers in addition to the support of our community partners, the Taylor Street Farms and the Garfield Park Conservatory. We also thank Anthony Ruzicka and Hollis Turner for their generous contributions to the event. Together we moved 15 cubic yards of soil to mulch the grounds and planted 30 plants.
Check out the photos of the fun below!
Come join us on Wednesday, June 3rd for Greening the Grounds!
Please note the new date of June 3rd!
Last August, members of the Little Italy neighborhood, including neighbors, Taylor Street Farms volunteers, University Village Association members, and residents of the ABLA public housing community, came together with other NPHM supporters to spiff up the grounds of the future Museum site. Scheduled right before the annual Festa Italiana in Little Italy, the event was an opportunity to beautify the grounds and reconnect with our neighbors.
On Wednesday, June 3rd, from 4:30pm to 6:30pm at 1322 W. Taylor St., we look forward to bringing out the shovels, moving the dirt, and planting the future blooms along the Museum building's front facade! Snacks and great company will also be in attendance as we continue our gardening tradition!
We are also looking for donations of planting soil, mulch, and plants for our raised beds. If you or someone you know could help sponsor these or other garden items for the event, please email Daniel Ronan, the Manager of Public Engagement at dronan@nphm.org or call him at 773.257.7241.
To RSVP, please view this link HERE.
Images: Last year's Greening the Grounds event on August 6th (left and right), NPHM; An historic photograph of Jane Addams Residents (center), CHA Archive
The Project(s): Thanks for a great evening!
Last night at the American Theater Company, over 100 supporters of the National Public Housing Museum gathered together in support of the Museum's spring fundraiser, a special viewing of The Project(s). For those who were able join us, we thank you -- we had a blast!
The stage manager captured the energy well, saying: "your group had the most vocal reaction, especially laughs of any audiences to date!" We know our supporters are passionate about the subject -- smiles of recognition were mixed with tears, frustration, pride and anger.
We were inspired by how effectively the play captured the imagination of all our guests, including those who are new to the perplexing questions the playwright, director and artists so effectively posed.
Whether you were in the audience or are catching the synopsis here, the evening's roller coaster of emotions truly addressed the diverse perspectives of public housing's legacy both in Chicago and nationally.
If you didn't get a chance to see The Project(s) yesterday evening, the theater just extended the show's run until June 21st. If you are former or current public housing resident or know of one who would like to attend the play for free, please contact Camille Acker at cacker@nphm.org or 773.257.7246.
Lastly, thanks so much to our sponsors who helped make yesterday evening's success possible:
The National Public Housing Musem thanks its May 14th Fundraiser Sponsors
The National Public Housing Museum would like to thank Brinshore, H.J. Russell, and Holsten for the generous support of the NPHM's fundraiser at the American Theater Company's play, The Project(s).
The generous contributions of these three organizations have helped to offset the cost of public housing resident tickets to tonight's show as well as other shows during The Project(s) run.
We are very grateful! Thank you!
NPHM WORLD PREMIERE IS SAT 4/18: TAKE A SNEAK PEEK AT THE TRAILER!
Join us Saturday, April 18, 2015
At Columbia College's Elizabeth Ferguson Hall 600 S. Michigan
DOORS OPEN 3:30 PM
OPENING REMARKS 3:50 PM
FILM SCREENING 4:00 PM
PANEL & AUDIENCE DISCUSSION 5:05 PM
PROGRAM END 6 PM
Join us in this, the first public screening of a new film by Terry Katz and Alan Stark with historian Nicholas Bloom. It features first-person stories voiced by dozens of residents of NYCHA'sPomonok Houses. As the documentary unfolds Bloom, the residents and filmmakers together contest myths about public housing.
Memories and histories combine to undo preconceptions of sites of crime, of places doomed to racial segregation or nests of social dsyfunction. "The projects" emerge as places where "the public good" delivered homes and the public came together as communities ... communities about which folks still dream...
The 65 minute film will be followed by a panel discussion that continues to challenge public housing myths through the lens of NYC and Chicago's distinct public housing experiences. Moderated by MIT's Larry Vale.
Todd Palmer Delivers Speech at Princeton representing the NPHM
On February 11, I along with Richard Anderson, one of NPHM’s Research Residents in 2014 participated in a discussion at New Jersey's Princeton University (which happens to be my alma mater), part of the new Princeton-Mellon Initiative in Architecture, Urbanism & the Humanities.
I couldn't help but be struck by the decade-plus that had passed since I sat as an architectural history undergraduate (mostly dutifully with innovative interdisciplinary 90's era coursework like "Sexuality and Space", if occasionally napping through "Structures") in the architecture school's Betts Auditorium.
I was there thanks largely to the efforts of Anderson, a PhD student at Princeton. He opened the noon-time talk with reflections about how he came to NPHM driven by his interest in public history. As a museum collaborator, Richard was at the table as we endeavored to craft a civic narrative through sometimes humble means (a planting day, a street fair information booth). All the while informing NPHM’s collections infrastructure by lending us his insights into Daley-era urban politics on the Near West Side.
My presentation was intended to share with the convened interdisciplinary scholars how my work with the museum addresses what I framed as a paradoxical promise. How we engage a complex historical site and grassroots-owned stories of public housing in the loaded institutional construct (and rarified building type) of "a museum".
I touched upon how the museum attempts to innovate in programming and curation to reclaim a place associated (unfairly) by the general public with “failure” and undermine misconceptions about the value of public housing through storytelling led by current residents.
I also spoke to the challenges of balancing a critical lens on contemporary issues while also pushing forward an ongoing building project to build out the museum's home -- one which is inherently immersed in the present day realities of urban planning and real estate development.
I was delighted to meet new Princeton Professor Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor who moderated the discussion between myself, Anderson and the Princeton community, drawing upon her deep knowledge of Chicago (gaving earned her PhD from Northwestern and starting her teaching career at UIUC).
Taylor deftly encouraged discussion about the NPHM project in the context of broader narratives she's researched deeply. She foregrounded ways the demise of public housing coincides with public policies emphasizing the moral virtue of single-family homeownership, encouraging “market-based solutions” for low-income families. Policies whose unraveling in the Great Recession, along with the disinvestment in public solutions to housing, continues to scar the American landscape.
Against the paradox of preserving a relic of a misunderstood and vanishing era of public building, the room brimmed with optimism about the museum’s potential to serve as a permanent site from which to rebuild a site of the “public good”. I left having discovered new allies (yes, even in the Ivy Leagues) who share our common concern to confront inequalities society has yet to fully resolve.
Written by Associate Director & Curator, Todd Palmer
Our Year In Review: Making Way, Making Connections
Happy 2015 and one last look back at 2014, a year when NPHM made big strides in our fundraising and programming efforts.
Individual donors like you stepped up and gave during our Annual Appeal, highlighting the important relationship between Jane Addams and Harold Ickes, and at small events through the year. We already have more than enough funds to do a phased opening of the building and restore four of the apartments in the Jane Addams Homes. Through the generous donations of the Alphawood Foundation and the Seigle Family Foundation, we're also that much closer to opening the complete vision of the National Public Housing Museum.
And, we're making change right where we are through programming at our offices at 625 N. Kingsbury with our Youth Advisory Council. We welcomed two interns this summer from the YAC, making the youth we serve that much more a part of the NPHM family.
Take a look at the infographics below about our fundraising and the YAC and then check out the Youth Advisory Council page and the Place page for more about both for even more details.
Be one of out first donors in 2015 and click here to give to NPHM and get us even closer to opening on Taylor Street. Thank you for helping us make 2014 a great year and we look forward to seeing you and engaging you in the work of NPHM in this new year!
Camille Acker, Programs and Development Associate, NPHM
Our Capital Development in 2014 and a highlight of the YAC 2014
Our Year in Review: Collections and Belongings
In this second of our three installment "Year In Review" newsletters, I'd love to share some of what you didn't always get to see. Behind the scenes there was consistently invaluable work being done.
For example, this summer (in the hat I wear as NPHM’s curator) we launched a collections analysis and inventory project staffed by Robin Bartram from Northwestern's PhD program and University of Chicago undergraduate Ayelet Pinnolis. This project was conducted in parallel to a qualitative assessment of the core exhibition research by Princeton PhD candidate and Research Resident Richard Anderson.
Pinnolis and Anderson also conducted new research of UIC’s Special Collections to augment NPHM’s resources on the history of the Jane Addams Homes. What they unearthed was surprising and quite frankly, revealed historical workings at our site which are of "national significance".
In this and other initiatives we together created a context that will enable us to increase the number of stories we’re able to integrate through oral history programming, and conceptually target the kinds of material culture, historical documents, visual representations and personal belongings we collect.
What follows is a chronological narrative highlighting what we, together with NPHM’s core staff, achieved -- not only in archiving NPHM's collections, but also in framing new narratives and "ways into" these stories.
All of this works together: museum collections are a means for engaging the public as participants in a lived history, and as co-authors in exhibits and programs which progressively come to terms with public housing: a most significant and relevant (but misunderstood) aspect of shared civic history.
-Todd Palmer, Interim Director & Curator
COLLECTIONS & BELONGINGS YEAR IN REVIEW
JANUARY Assembling of commitments for a curatorial advisory team as part of implementation planning for the Four Apartments project. NPHM looks forward to partners including University of Chicago’s Adam Green, Columbia University’s Cassie Fennell, Irina Zadov from the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum and Edward Goetz at the University of Minnesota.
JUNE NPHM accessions into its collections its second-largest physical artifact (to-date). We were happy to receive a “slice” of the Roosevelt Square sales center model, as a gift from Related Midwest. This 3D model represents planning for the original Hope VI redevelopment of the Jane Addams Homes and ABLA. It has become a relic because the sites it represents are to-be-newly-visioned in a 2015 masterplanning process led by CHA and Solomon Cordwell Buenz.
The largest material evidence of public housing history is of course our heritage site at 1322 Taylor Street.
JULY Based on work by NPHM’s Ayelet Pinnolis and Richard Anderson, NPHM is able to preview research findings that reveal a new insights into the national significance of the museum’s home site. It opened this year’s Annual Appeal on July 30: the date in 1935 when the government transaction to purchase real estate closes. The new findings set Chicago as a central stage where the shared vision of Interior Secretary Harold Ickes and progressive settlement house founders like Jane Addams play out: demonstrating the power of slum clearance to address a failed private real estate market, replaced with the new bold new architecture and social construct of public housing.
SEPTEMBER Collections analysis and inventory project completed by NPHM Research Resident Robin Bartram (a Northwestern PhD candidate) and University of Chicago Research Intern Ayelet Pinnolis.
OCTOBER NPHM learns that’s its community co-curation initiative will be supported by a Boeing grant. This initiative connects current public housing residents in NPHM’s Youth Advisory Council program (led by Programs and Development Associate Camille Acker) with NPHM’s personal narratives, civic history collections and engages NPHM’s scholarly and curatorial expert advisors as mentors and guides.
DECEMBER NPHM’s Telling Belongings program, moderated by Georgina Valverde, a Chicago artist and Art Institute of Chicago interpretive specialist is the first engagement of the public with representatives from three families (Hatch, Medor and Sopena) who’ve been involved in NPHM’s oral history and public housing resident engagement efforts.
Qualitative assessment of NPHM’s core exhibition research resources completed by NPHM Research Resident Richard Anderson (a PhD candidate at Princeton University)
NPHM Site Projects and Public Engagement Coordinator Daniel Ronan completes a preliminary preservation assessment of the Edgar Miller "Animal Court" sculptures with a visit to where they're being conserved (at Oak Park's Conservation of Objects and Sculptures Studio). NPHM endeavors to be a civic partner in the sculptures restoration, siting and intepretation: as these figures, with 1322 Taylor, are the only remaining large physical remnants of the Jane Addams Homes. The sculptures figure prominently in shared neighborhood memories of life in Little Italy from 1938-2002.