Lathrop Homes

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Lathrop Homes February 2006

A visitor walking around the premises notices that there seems to be more boarded up windows than actual residents. The place looks deserted, almost like it's straight out of a ghetto during World War II.

Suddenly, shots fly out, sounding like thunder. These are no normal shots. No, the sound the visitor keeps hearing are originating from a shotgun. The whole scene seems like it has been built for Hollywood production.

This place is called Lathrop Homes. The audible shotgun blasts on this crisp winter morning are actually coming from a movie production nearby.

Lathrop Homes was deemed to be a good site to shoot the movie because of it's resemblance to a WWII ghetto and the doubt that the sound of shots would disturb the local residents, perhaps on the assumption that they were used to hearing gunshots.

But Lathrop homes wasn't always this way. One of the original four projects taken on by the Chicago Housing Authority, it was constructed in 1938. Lathrop Homes resides Chicago's near-northwest side between Buck town and Roscoe Village and is bordered by Clybourn on the north and Damen on the east, with the Chicago River forming it's boundaries to the south and west. Consisting of three- and four-story apartments, as well as two-story row houses, it was intended to house 925 white-only families. Now, almost 70 years later, it has become something completely different.

After entrance to Lathrop Homes due to racial barriers was eliminated, the public housing development began taking on people from all walks of life and origin. Over time, it became a model for public housing on how to have a segregated population without the problems.