Stateway Gardens

Stateway Gardens
2007 photograph of the last remaining building of the Stateway Gardens public housing project preparing for demolition.
Location	Bounded by 35th Street and Pershing Road and Federal and State Streets. Chicago, Illinois  United States
Status	Demolished
Constructed	1955–58
Demolished	1996–2007
Governing Body	Chicago Housing Authority

Stateway Gardens was a Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) public housing project located in the Bronzeville neighborhood of the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. It was located alongside the Dan Ryan Expressway, adjacent to the former Robert Taylor Homes. Stateway Gardens was a part of the State Street Corridor which included other CHA properties: Robert Taylor Homes, Dearborn Homes, Harold Ickes Homes and Hillard Homes. Stateway Gardens was home to people living in mid- and high-rise apartment buildings. Over the years, gang violence and neglect created terrible conditions for the residents in Stateway.

In 1955, construction at Stateway Gardens began, with 1,644 units planned in eight high-rise buildings. The total cost for the project was $22 million. Three years later, construction was complete and approximately 3,000 people moved in. In 1978, a major CHA renovation plan costing $106.2 million was undertaken. This project rehabilitated Stateway Gardens, Robert Taylor Homes and most of the ABLA Homes on Chicago's Near West Side.

In August, 1984, Stateway Gardens was within the six poorest U.S. census tracts, according to a Roosevelt University study.Cabrini–Green on the North Side ranked seventh in the same study. Amid rising crime in CHA developments in the early 1980s, the Chicago Police Department launched a Public Housing Crime Unit to replace private security guards at those sites. In 1988, (prior to the forming of the CHA Police Department) the South Side's Wentworth Police District (which included Stateway Gardens and the Robert Taylor Homes) had 67 homicides, the highest of any district in the city. Stateway Gardens was infamous for its high rate of violent crime and drug activity through the late 1990s.