Cabrini-Green

Cabrini-Green, comprising two adjacent housing projects named after Frances Cabrini and William Green, is one of the most infamous and dangerous housing projects in the world. It is located on the North Side of Chicago, near the North/Clybourn Red Line stop along with the Chicago and Sedgwick Brown Line stops. The project is bordered by Evergreen Ave., Sedgwick St., Chicago Ave., and Larrabee St. It was made up primarily of mid- and high-rise apartment buildings, many with exterior porches ("open galleries") so that residents enter their apartments like motel rooms.

Television and Movies

The 1975 film Cooley High was set in and around the Cabrini-Green projects, though primarily filmed at another Chicago-area housing project. The real-life Cooley High School served students from the Cabrini-Green projects, and acquired a formidable reputation in the 1970's as a school overrun with violence, crime, and drug use.

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Cabrini-Green was the setting for the film Candyman, made in 1992. The film chronicles the legendary life of the infamous Candyman (played by Tony Todd), a black slave who was brutally killed because of a love affair with the daughter of a local, and white, plantation owner. In the film, Candyman was killed on the site that the future Cabrini-Green would be built (though this plot line would later be changed in the sequel), and within the film the residents of the housing project are under his sway, though most consider him nothing more than a figment of the collective imagination. The main character, Helen Lyle (played by Virginia Madsen) was researching the urban legend of Candyman and her journey took her to Cabrini-Green, though the housing project was only used for long distance and aerial shots according to online trivia of the film.

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The sitcom Good Times (1974-1979) was ostensibly set in Cabrini-Green. Although Cabrini-Green was never mentioned by name as the housing project in which the Evans family of Good Times lived, exterior shots of Cabrini-Green were shown in both the opening and closing credits sequences of the sitcom.

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