Latest news with #NPHM
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Why We Need the Nation's First Public Housing Museum
Opening this week in Chicago, the National Public Housing Museum wants to reinvigorate our interest in collective well-being by tackling dominant narratives—of crime, poverty, and eventual destruction—head on. A 1936 advertisement for the New York City Housing Authority depicts the clamor of city life: a jumble of line drawings depict a leaping alley cat, trash can, train, and fire escape. Bold text in a quintessential Art Deco font plastered diagonally across the image reads, "Must we always have this? Why not HOUSING?," addressing both the energy and desperation of urban life in 1930s America. Funded by the Works Progress Administration, the ad was of a time when the federal government created massive public works projects across America to uplift the poor during the Great Depression. Though that era is now long over, the ad still feels relevant. We've reached a record high of unhoused people across the country: new housing construction is slow, rent costs burden more than 50 percent of Americans, and building housing is only getting more expensive. We may have driverless taxis coasting through cities and technology that delivers anything you desire in a matter of hours…but why not housing, indeed? The advertisement is one of many artifacts on display at the new National Public Housing Museum (NPHM) in Chicago, the country's only museum devoted to U.S. public housing, which opens April 4. Unlike other types of history museums which seek to keep the past alive, the NPHM is in a unique position because public housing itself isn't, technically, extinct. People still inhabit public housing developments built across the country after the U.S. Congress boldly declared in 1935 that housing is a human right. As such, the NPHM is doing something a bit different. They're not preserving objects and artifacts to encase public housing in amber; instead, the space squarely seeks to reinvigorate our interest in collective well-being by tackling public housing's dominant narrative—one of crime, poverty, and eventual destruction—head on. Located in Chicago's Little Italy neighborhood, the NPHM is housed in the remaining structure that was once part of the Jane Addams Homes—a 1937 low-rise public housing development that was mostly demolished beginning in 2002. According to NPHM executive director Lisa Lee, the building itself is the museum's biggest artifact, saved by a group of former public housing residents when the City of Chicago embarked on its 1999 Plan for Transformation that got rid of 18,000 public housing units and displaced more than 16,000 people. At that point, it had been the largest net loss of affordable housing in the entire United States, says Lee. See the full story on Why We Need the Nation's First Public Housing MuseumRelated stories: You Can Plug This $19K Backyard Office Into an Outlet "We're Going to Have Something Worse": What Dr. Lucy Jones Says Will Make L.A. More Fire Resilient The Push for Government-Run Grocery Stores—and Everything Else You Need to Know About This Week
Axios
19-03-2025
- General
- Axios
National Public Housing Museum opening in April
After more than a decade of planning, the National Public Housing Museum (NPHM) opens next month. Why it matters: The NPHM will be the first museum in the country dedicated to telling the stories and sharing the history of public housing in the country. A portion of the museum includes affordable housing where residents live today. Context: The museum is in the last remaining building of the Jane Addams Homes, in Little Italy. The Chicago Housing Authority tore down 11 public housing developments across the city, displacing thousands of residents, as part of the 1999 "Plan for Transformation." Flashback: After CHA dismantled the homes, longtime resident Deverra Beverly launched plans in 2002 for a museum that told the history from residents' point of view. "They knew that one of the reasons that it was so easy to dismantle their homes was because there was kind of one narrative, one mainstream narrative, about public housing and its failure," NPHM executive director Lisa Yun Lee says. "And so they wanted to have a place where their voices could be heard and they could challenge the mainstream narrative." Zoom in: The exhibits include artifacts such as photos, dishes, sewing machines and Sears catalogs in recreations of former residents' apartments. Speakers play stories about the families who lived there, as told by descendants of the onetime occupants. Fun fact: Artist Edgar Miller's large, playful concrete sculptures of animals, known as "Animal Court," are back in the courtyard of the museum after being removed for restoration. They were originally installed in 1938 when the Jane Addams Homes opened, and former residents, like the Rev. Marshall Hatch, share fond memories of them. "The biggest one was home base. I've always thought about what it meant to go around through the animal kingdom and then come back and touch home base. It was a metaphor for how that project development felt like: home," a quote from Hatch reads on the wall. What's next: Opening day is April 4, and the weekend will include discussions about housing policy, interactive art workshops and guided tours of the re-created apartments.
