The Caution Box

This small concrete bunker can be found on the overgrown lot where the City's housing projects once stood. We call it The Caution Box. It's unclear what its original purpose was. Maybe it was used for firefighter training, or playground equipment, or enhanced police interrogation, or maybe it's some remnant of a boiler room or bomb shelter from one of the buildings that used to be here.

The Projects were monolithic blocks jutting into the sky, 33 identical buildings, each 11 stories tall, all built to house the poor and working class living in the city. When first conceived, the site design was universally praised for its simple, modern austerity. The buildings were unembellished blocks without flourishes or unnecessary details. Included in the plans were playgrounds, plenty of parking, green spaces, community centers. Residents of this city had faith in architecture and we were quietly happy that the slums had been cleared and that the poor could be housed somewhere else, unseen. We thought buildings, architects, and city planners had solved the problems of cities, poverty, social inequality. But less than 20 years after they were built, The Projects were torn down. The demolition was aired on national television.

They had to go, really. The failure of The Projects was so profound that no one person or reason could be blamed. Aesthetically it was a disaster. The simple design was seen by residents as cold, oppressive. Some thought the rectangular blocks in neat rows resembled giant gravestones, or prison cell blocks. Management of the site was underfunded and nearly nonexistent. The facades of the buildings were always stained black by smoke; curtains blew out of broken windows; the grass in the green spaces grew long and then died. The contractors who built The Projects must have been either corrupt or lazy, as the buildings were filled with their shoddy workmanship. Some apartments were never finished at all. The elevators didn't work. Neither did the heat -- it was either always on or always off. Electricity failed regularly, and the doors jammed shut. It was a hard place to live.

The Projects were dangerous. Fires and shootings were common. Needles littered the playground. The vertical design of the buildings made them hard to police, so they never were. Inside, criminal gangs, sexual predators, murderers staked out territories. Dealers dealt, users shot. The drugs sold here made you desperate, the desperation made you turn on your neighbor, and everyone else got caught in between. Those that could got out. The population declined and some of the buildings stood empty for years, unwatched hollow shells, inviting more trouble. Those that stayed struggled to stay alive, with no hope, no money, and no way out.

So The Projects were imploded. 1 by 1, the 33 towers came down, collapsing into rubble. The reaction here was mixed; people were happy to see The Projects go ("they're so depressing"), people were sad to lose their homes. The rubble is still there, on that big 6 city-blocks-square lot, under the trees and tall grass. The prairie is taking it all back. The site of The Projects is now both a forest reserve and dump, in the center of the city, in the middle of a blighted neighborhood, overgrown, unrecognizable. Jump the gate. Follow the access road inside. Be careful -- you never know who you might run into there. This is where you can find The Caution Box. We just don't know what it's for.