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.

Year in Review: Welcoming Community, Inviting Conversation

The past year has seen exciting growth in our public engagement efforts. Whether it's through our own programming or partnership events, we are always looking to actively engage audiences in our mission. This is the first of three installments of our "Year In Review." 

JANUARY

17 January – Bronzeville Visitor Information Center presents Audrey Petty in conversation with Monroe Anderson and a panel of Chicago residents, scholars, politicians and cultural leaders discussing High Rise Stories including NPHM Interim Director Todd Palmer

23 January – NPHM co-presents Larry Vale (MIT) speaking about Purging the Poorest with “One Book, One Chicago” at the Chicago Public Library

30 January – NPHM in partnership with Newberry Library “Meet the Authors” event Public Housing, Urban Politics, and Reform in Postwar Chicago & Milwaukee with Brad Hunt (Roosevelt University), Eric Fure-Slocum (St. Olaf College) and Leon Fink (UIC)

31 January – Social media coordinator and University of Birmingham UK exchange intern and Rachael Foster presents the NPHM story at the UIC Urban Innovation Symposium Pecha Kucha

MARCH

18 March – “Total Reset” Roundtable at the Institute for Public Architecture New York City, moderated by David Burney in conversation with national public housing experts and advocates including NPHM Board Chair Sunny Fischer

22 March – NPHM’s 1322 Taylor Street building tour for Lake Forest College “American Cities” class    

APRIL        

30 April – We Are A Part of Them: A Community Open House brings 30-plus individuals into a communal discussion with the staff and Board.  The gathering reveals NPHM’s  multifaceted stakeholders include artists from Cabrini-Green, local advisory leaders from Washington Park and ABLA, former CHA employees, high-school aged mixed-income housing residents from Park Boulevard, funders from Chicago Community Trust and Alphawood, scattered site parents from the North Side, housing advocacy journalists, architects, U Chicago PhD candidates and professionals with family heritage and lore in NYCHA.

MAY

5 May – Chicago Community Trust in partnership with IIT’s Institute of Design “Social Sector Service Systems Workshop” exhibition. Features the work of public housing resident and photographer/teacher Annie Stuebenfield’s alongside other community-created and -informed projects created by IIT with NPHM and the Segundo Ruiz Belvez Cultural Center in Humboldt Park.

29 May – “Creating the Inclusive City: We Are A Part of Them 2” brings five practitioners from diverse areas of arts, culture and the humanities into conversation with the audience to imagine what a less-divided urban community might look like. With film producer and Cabrini-Green activist Teddy Bernard and Groundswell Films’ Sam Spitz; U Chicago race and literature professor Adrienne Brown; Chicago Home Theater Festival’s Irina Zadov; Aguilar of the Graffiti Institute, and Youth Struggling for Survival’s Sandra Sosa.  

JUNE

25- 28 June – NPHM hosts “Preserving the Past and Envisioning the Future of Public Housing” as a special program of the American Institute of Architects’ Convention. After an introductory session for the AIA Housing Knowledge Community workshop, NPHM’s Todd Palmer is joined by “mobile symposium” guides Pete Landon (Principal, Landon Bone Baker Architects), Professor Bob Brueggman (UIC) and NPHM Youth Advisory Council alumna Salyndrea Jones to look at lesson learned at 1322 Taylor Street and across Chicago with 30 national architects.

AUGUST

6 August – Greening the Grounds, an event bringing NPHM neighbors to help clean up our future home at 1322 W Taylor Street. The University Village Association, ABLA, Taylor Street Farms, and many NPHM friends came out to enjoy an afternoon of flower bed planting and general grounds clean up. 

8 August – NPHM on CAN-TV “Housing Matters with Recorder of Deeds Karen Yarborough”

SEPTEMBER

19 September – NPHM Interim Director and Curator Todd Palmer participates in IIT’s Institute of Design/Open Society Institute “Future of Work” roundtable                 

30 September – 1 October University of Chicago Graham School 66th Annual Know Your Chicago Tour, “Sweet Home Chicago: Problems and Promises of Public Housing”                                    

NOVEMBER

20 November – Te-Nehesi Coates Conversation in partnership with the University of Chicago's Institute of Politics and the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture.  

DECEMBER

10 December – Telling Belongings, a community storytelling event bringing the objects of our daily lives to help tell the story of public housing, curated by Interim Executive Director Todd Palmer.

Thanks for a great year!

Daniel Ronan, Coordinator of Site Projects & Public Engagement, NPHM

Telling Belongings: A Moving Night

While Telling Belongings concluded our “We Are A Part of Them” 2014 program series (made possible with a grant from the Illinois Humanities Council), do look for it to be the first of ongoing opportunities that connect the dots in NPHM between “public housing” and “museum.”  That’s to say -- in a one hour mash-up of storytelling and “show-and-tell” we sought to link the (stuffy) stewardship role of *all* museums (collecting and displaying “stuff,” or more politely, “belongings”) to the powerful and innovative mission of *this* museum: telling and remembering diverse first-hand stories of the American public housing experience.

What happened?

Jack Medor  drew our attention to a power of a family heirloom. His belonging: a simple bowl with a patina of chop marks in a delicate pattern that attests to generations making gefilte fish. In his telling we could almost taste the subtle flavorings that the bowl helped bring to life. Jack (who happens to be NPHM Board Treasurer) told the story on behalf of his mother Ines (Turovitz) Medor. He illuminated how cherished his ancestor's brand-new apartment would have been in 1938 as a cradle for keeping age-old spiritual traditions. The Turovitz-Medor family history will figure prominently in the core Museum apartment exhibitions.

Rev. Marshall Hatch, pastor at New Mt. Pilgrim Missionary Baptist, recalled witnessing the Sears Tower going up in the early 70s just before his family left to purchase a home further west, saying: “It gave me a sense of how close it was, yet so far away for me.”  In a Chicago where much of the city remained off-limits to Blacks, Rev. Hatch spoke of an embracing community in the Jane Addams Homes – approaching a kind of utopia.  An ideal place where his family proudly displayed a World Book encyclopedia set (depicted in a photo from his “show and tell” biography). Coupled with the government’s commitment to local schools, in the Hatch family home (and one of our core exhibition "apartments") what was “public” was very good, indeed.

Maria Sopeña delivered a poignant account of her sometimes painful journey from exile in Cuba to being “raised by the streets” of Uptown. Ultimately the struggles of single motherhood brought her in the 90’s to CHA’s North Side scattered sites.  As a resident has consistently raised her voice to transform her community and serves now as a Central Advisory Council resident leader.  She shared a different side of her zeal to make an impact through her shared object.  Her painted Caribbean scene pointed to ethnic origins, but also to the possibility that home can also be a site for dreams and transcendence. Her story is a story of today, reminding us that the museum will be reflecting not just the past, but engaging present-day lives and touching on questions of the future.

Georgina Valverde deftly wove these distinct voices and stories into a moderated conversation and at the end, invited the audience in to share stories of their own. We had three incredible takers. A handcrafted hat revealed a story of friendship (and a place to sleep in a strange town).  A baseball revealed an ordinary day intersecting with world history. And a proudly worn Henry Horner Homes t-shirt and handwritten journal came to evoke the profoundly supportive impact of public housing in one woman’s life.

What did this interdisciplinary artist and (by day) educator at the Art Institute of Chicago make of these varied belongings and the stories about them? Georgina insisted to me afterwards: “they must be told -- so lived experience can become history! They can help heal people, not just those who lived and still live in public housing, but all of us.

by Todd Palmer, Interim Director and Curator, NPHM

A Look Back: NPHM Research Reveals a Progressive Partnership that Built Real Change

For the last seven months I have worked as a research resident for NPHM. One of my most rewarding tasks involved researching the relationship between Jane Addams–namesake of the community the museum commemorates–and Harold Ickes, the federal official most instrumental in bringing public housing to Chicago during the New Deal. Their three-decade association illuminates the history of public housing at the neighborhood-, city-, and national level, reminding us of the rich story the NPHM will tell. 
 
Addams, of course, founded and directed Hull House, which provided education, arts and cultural programming, and social services to the immigrant neighborhoods of the Near West Side. Ickes served as U.S. Interior Secretary and director of the Public Works Administration (PWA), the agency that built the Jane Addams Homes near Hull House in 1938. The name of the new housing project honored the recently deceased Addams, also representing a culmination of a long-standing partnership between Addams and Ickes. 

The pair first met in the early 1900s. Ickes was a young lawyer and former newspaper reporter, in many ways Addams’s polar opposite. Ickes hailed from a modest railroad town in western Pennsylvania and carried a famously sour disposition titling his memoir, Autobiography of a Curmudgeon. In contrast, the very proper Addams grew up in a middle-class Iowa family. Their friendship grew out of a common commitment to social justice and willingness to challenge Chicago’s plight of the poor.   
 
Ickes began providing legal assistance to Hull House. When the Chicago police chief shot to death a young Russian immigrant in 1908, Addams persuaded Ickes to aid the boy’s sister at the inquest. In 1911, Ickes defended Hull House co-founder Ellen Gates Star following her arrest for picketing with striking workers.
 
Ickes eventually left Chicago, but he and his wife, Ann, remained close friends with Addams and financial supporters of Hull House. In their correspondence, Addams and Ickes discussed the political reform campaigns they embraced during the 1900s and 1910s. “Progressivism” advocated more efficient and honest government that would better serve the most vulnerable citizens and solve the country’s most pressing problems, with Ickes representing Addams at the 1914 Progressive Party convention.
 
Many ideas from the progressive movement enjoyed a second life in the 1930s through President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, however Addams and Ickes initially disagreed over Roosevelt. Ickes supported Roosevelt in the election of 1932 and agreed to become his Interior Secretary. Addams voted for the new president’s Republican opponent, Herbert Hoover. Yet, Addams–like Ickes–valued principles above parties. She soon recognized that Roosevelt planned an aggressive response to suffering caused by the Great Depression and became an enthusiastic supporter of the New Deal.
 
When the federal government decided to build low-cost public housing, the task fell to the PWA, which Ickes also helmed, consulting Addams during the site selection process. "I would like to have a slum clearance project as near Hull House as possible” Ickes informed her in 1933, “because that would give the fullest opportunity of cooperation between your institution and the federal government." Addams enthusiastically agreed. "We have tried so long and so ineffectually to have something done in Chicago on housing,” she wrote to Ickes three months before her death. "We always decided that nothing could be done.” 
 
By 1938, something had finally been done about housing in Chicago, although Addams did not live to see it. Many of the people she served at Hull House became the first residents of the Jane Addams Homes, the relationship between Addams and Ickes had coming full circle. What began as a partnership to improve the lives of ordinary people in Chicago’s neighborhoods became a dialogue about the direction of national policies with the efforts of federal action filtering to streets of the Near West Side.

by Richard Anderson, NPHM Research Resident, Princeton University Ph.D. Candidate  

Welcome our new Executive Director!

Dear Friends and Supporters of the National Public Housing Museum:

We are delighted to announce the appointment of Charles Leeks as the NPHM Executive Director.

Charles has a long history in community building and engagement. As a strong advocate of asset-based community development he saw the value of utilizing the powerful stories of communities and the physical environment as ways to foster social justice within communities and to affect policy that helps determine outcomes in those communities. This was particularly true in Chicago ’s North Lawndale community where Charles has been director of the program for Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago (NHS). In addition to the NHS focus on community revitalization through homeownership, Charles also focused on image, physical conditions, and community engagement in the affordable housing arena as a way to change perceptions about such communities. 

During his tenure at NHS in North Lawndale, he participated in projects and partnerships with the University of Illinois at Chicago considering outcomes for Chicago Housing Authority developments, including Ogden Courts, Harrison Courts, and the Lawndale Complex. He developed the Historic Chicago Greystone Initiative, and developed Lawndale exhibits featured at the Chicago Architecture Foundation. His understanding of historic preservation, his ability to create strong community, and his understanding of how to build institutions will serve NPHM well as we move forward to securing our building and creating the permanent museum. 

A resident of public housing in his early childhood, he developed abiding respect for the broad societal benefits offered by an opportunity to provide quality housing to those families that were outside the private market looking in. 

The Museum team is strong. Todd Palmer, who has served as interim director for the past year, has done an exceptional job in this transitional year. He has provided essential direction for programs, site development, and fund development. We are delighted that Todd will be staying on as Associate Director and Curator.   

Those who attended our Telling Belongings event last night were able to meet Charles in person and we look forward to formally introducing him at an event early in 2015. If you have any questions, please call the Museum at (773) 245-1621. 

Thanks for your support and interest in the work and promise of the NPHM. Look for more exciting news about our programs on "The Public Good" in the new year. 

Wishing you the best for the holiday season, 
Sunny Fischer, Chair 
For the NPHM Board of Directors