Rolling through Chicago projects' past

CHICAGO — The tourists sitting in the aging school bus pressed their noses to the glass, eager to catch a glimpse of the modern face of Chicago's infamous public housing projects.

There wasn't much left to see.

Along South State Street, tour guide Beauty Turner pointed out the empty dirt lots where the ominous concrete high-rises of the Robert Taylor Homes once stood.

Down the road, she nodded toward construction crews building new brick-and-glass condominiums in the shadows of the Ida B. Wells complex -- where drug dealers waged war. Now, white-collar families in gleaming SUVs fill the streets.

Nearby, picnicking couples and Little League baseball games filled a park -- an expanse of lush green, Turner noted, that replaced graffiti-covered shops that once catered to the city's poor.

"You may see all this new money, all these new buildings, as a good thing," said Turner, 50, a former public housing resident. But what was here before, she says, was not all bad -- it was a place where families lived, children played and meals were shared.

As for the transformation?

"I see it as the death of a community."

Since January, the monthly "Ghetto Bus Tour," as the three-hour outing is known, has been bringing scores of visitors to what were some of the nation's most notoriously crime-ridden areas.

For $20, the curious can wander through the remaining projects and talk to the residents, most of whom are black, about what life there is and was like.

Most of the tourists are white, live locally, and range in age from students in their 20s to retirees in their 70s. Some have rarely ventured this far south of Madison Street, which physically and philosophically divides the city.

"I've read about how awful life was for people here, and I've read about how the city's plans have changed the South Side," said Molly Lazar, 73, who lives in the northern suburb of Winnetka. "I've lived in this city for years, and figured it was about time I see what's happening down here for myself."

Indeed, the city's South Side landscape has radically changed in recent years, thanks to the Plan for Transformation.

Since 1999, the Chicago Housing Authority has been gradually emptying dozens of high-rises as part of a 15-year, multibillion-dollar plan to redesign public housing and create mixedincome neighborhoods.