Why Pruitt-Igoe Was Abandoned: St. Louis Documentary

In 1972, a demolition crew imploded an eleven-story public housing tower in St. Louis in front of television cameras, and the photograph became one of the most famous images of failure in American history. For fifty years, Pruitt-Igoe has been taught as proof that modernist architecture failed. The record says something different. This documentary follows the Pruitt-Igoe housing complex from the clearance of the DeSoto-Carr neighborhood, through the Housing Act of 1949 and the financing formula that required maintenance to come entirely from tenant rents, Minoru Yamasaki's original design and the federal cost ceilings that stripped it, the early years when residents called it the poor man's penthouse, the collapse of St. Louis's population, the rent spiral, the welfare man-in-the-house rule, the Carr Square Village comparison, the 1969 rent strike that produced the Brooke Amendment, the 1972 demolition, and the urban forest that grew on the 57 acres left behind. The famous explanation blames the buildings. The cause of death was in the paperwork. Chapters: 0:00 The poor man's penthouse 1:48 A neighborhood declared obsolete 3:22 The formula in the Housing Act 4:23 What the budget office left of the design 8:24 The years the towers worked 10:27 The spiral 16:12 The rent strike that changed federal law 21:28 Demolition, the myth, and the forest Sources for this episode include the Housing Act of 1949 and the Brooke Amendment, census records for St. Louis, Lee Rainwater's study Behind Ghetto Walls, Oscar Newman's Defensible Space, accounts of the 1969 St. Louis rent strike, reporting on the demolition and on the Pruitt-Igoe site today, and the 2011 documentary The Pruitt-Igoe Myth. Get The Field Guide Now: https://www.allansabandonedamerica.co... About This Channel: Allan's Abandoned America tells the stories of abandoned ghost towns, forgotten tourist resorts, and declining infrastructure across the United States. Each video investigates who built these places, who profited, and who was left behind. WATCH Next: How America's Motor City Went Bankrupt: Detroit Michigan:    • How America's Motor City Went Bankrupt: De...   Full Playlist: Abandoned Places in America:    • Abandoned Places in America   SUBSCRIBE for weekly documentaries on the places America left behind. READ the full written report at allansabandonedamerica.com/places/pruitt-igoe-st-louis DISCLAIMER This video is for educational and documentary purposes. Visit any locations mentioned at your own risk. Some visual sequences in this video are dramatic re-enactments created for illustrative purposes and do not depict real footage.