Wednesday, August 13, 2008

robert taylor homes

The Robert Taylor Homes housing project was completed in 1962 and named for Robert Taylor, an African American activist and Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) board member who in 1950 resigned when the city council refused to endorse potential building locations throughout the city of Chicago that would induce racially integrated housing.

At one time, it was the largest housing project in the country, and it was intended to offer decent affordable housing. It was composed of 28 high-rise buildings with 16 stories each, with a total of 4,321 apartments, mostly arranged in U-shaped clusters of three, stretching for two miles (three kilometers).[1] The Robert Taylor Homes were also home at one time to such celebrities as Mr. T, Kirby Puckett, and current Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick.

Robert Taylor Homes faced many of the same problems that doomed other high-rise housing projects in Chicago such as Cabrini-Green. These problems include narcotics, violence, and the perpetuation of poverty.

Planned for 11,000 inhabitants, the Robert Taylor Homes housed up to a peak of 27,000 people. [2] Six of the poorest US census areas with populations above three people were found there. Including children who are not of working age, at one point 95 percent of the housing development's 27,000 residents were unemployed and listed public assistance as their only income source, and 40 percent of the households were single-parent, female-headed households earning less than $5,000 per year. About 99.9 percent were African-American. The 28 drab, 16-story concrete high-rises, many blackened with the scars of arson fire, sat in a narrow two-block by 2.5-mile[3] (300 m by 3 km) stretch of slum. The city's neglect was evident in littered streets, poorly enforced building codes, and scant commercial or civic amenities.

Police intelligence sources say that elevated number of homicides was the result of gang "turf wars," as gang members and drug dealers fought over control of given Chicago neighborhoods. Its landlord, the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA), has estimated that $45,000 in drug deals took place daily. Former residents of the Robert Taylor Homes have said that the drug dealers fought for control of the buildings. In one weekend, more than 300 separate shooting incidents were reported in the vicinity of the Robert Taylor Homes.[disputed] Twenty-eight people were killed during the same weekend, with 26 of the 28 incidents believed to be gang-related.[disputed]

On June 25, 1983, an infant, Vinyette Teague, was abducted from Robert Taylor Homes after her grandmother left her alone in the hallway for a few minutes to answer a phone call. An estimated 50 people were in the hallway at the time of the abduction, but police were unable to gather enough evidence to make any arrests. She has never been seen or heard from since. [

Cooking Tables

Kitchen-maker Alno has created some Cooking Tables that combine “the hearth and kitchen table as the focal point of home life once again.”. The table-cooking collection includes the Liberty Island, a mobile cooking element with a glass cover and mobile container that can be positioned against a dining table, either indoors or out. When opened, the glass cover protects against splattering while cooking and closed, it covers a dual-zone induction cook-top. LongIsland can be positioned anywhere in the room and combines a fixed ‘cooking block’ with a sliding tabletop that’s supported by a base frame (it can be moved to the right or left). A four-zone electric cook-top is flush-fit in the stainless steel cooking block. All the Cooking Tables were originally created by design students at the Muthesius College of Art in Kiel, Germany.

ONE is a new duo of rings by Studio Bloomm available in gold or silver that fit together, tongue and groove, when united by the wearers.

Shaka yacht, designed by Lazzarini Pickering Architects and Farr Yacht Design for Wally, was yet another winner of the ADI Compasso d’Oro 2008 Award

love this table!!

Nike Sportswear Air Max 95 Chili Red

ORIGINAL FAKE F/W 2008 B.D. SHIRT

NAS & SPIKE LEE PHOTOSHOOT FOR THE COVER OF THE SOURCE MAGAZINE 20TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE