Deteriorating Conditions
"...One day, we woke up and it was all gone."
-Ruby Russell (tenant) By 1961, Pruitt-Igoe's crime rate was higher than any other St. Louis housing project. Power failures, heating problems, broken water pipes, and other decay plagued the project.
“By the middle of the 1960s, the St. Louis Housing Authority was
the largest slumlord in the city.” –Eugene Meehan
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KMOX News Report, 1968
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"Damage in Pruitt and Igoe...was nearly unbelievable even when seen. As late as December 1969, some of the buildings still had water flowing freely through the halls and down the stairs." -Eugene Meehan |