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Overlooked & Underrated Docs & Features
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The Pruitt-Igoe Myth: Anatomy of a Tragedy
Architect Minoru Yamasaki has had some bad luck in his career. His massive, 33-building public housing complex in Saint Louis, Missouri, built in the early 1950s, and intended to be a shining example of a golden future in United States urban planning, was demolished in the 1970s. The poor guy also designed the World Trade Center towers. I’d hate to see his Yelp rating.
But I digress.
Built for a number of reasons one of which was to be an alternative to the impoverished Black ghettos of Saint Louis, and first occupied in 1954, the Pruitt-Igoe public housing complex quickly devolved into a nightmare of poverty, segregation, and crime. Its tragic story was nationally and internationally infamous.
With “The Pruitt-Igoe Myth”, director/co-writer/co-producer Chad Freidrichs tells the project’s story through narration and interviews as well as archival photos and footage. His interviewees include people who lived in Pruitt-Igoe as children. A few of them remember their time there fondly—a tribute to the resiliency of childhood and to the brief time the giant project was properly maintained.
Freidrich has done a textbook job of describing the hope followed by the despair—with plenty of post-demise analysis. This is a story that will haunt you.
“The Pruitt-Igoe Myth” is a First Run Features release and includes a substantial amount of special features.