You can see still pictures of the 3 remaining Ida B. Wells buildings at http://bit.ly/e8CNDX

In one of my winter 2007 videos, Ida B. Wells was still standing; the CHA works very quickly when they want to.

One of the CHA's earliest projects (along with Jane Addams on the near west side and the Cabrini rowhouses on the near north side), it opened on January18, 1941, and housed almost 1,700 low-income black families. It covered 47 acres between South Parkway (now King Drive), 37th St., Cottage Grove and 39th St, and consisted of two-story rowhouses and three-story apartment buildings.

In the beginning, it was a place residents were proud to come home from work to (yes, back then, most adult CHA residents WORKED) and watched out for their children and other people's children. Over the years, Wells and Madden high-rises were added to the mix, extending north almost to 35th Street.

Most of Ida B. Wells and all of Madden were torn down in the last five years. All that are left is two rowhouses and an apartment building at the corner of 37th and Evans, across the street from a gleaming new apartment building and surrounded by an uneasy mix of vacant lots and new construction. Most of the construction seems to be happening around the Cottage Grove side of the site. The King Drive side, except for two signs advertising "Oakwood Shores-Chicago's Next Great Lakefront Neighborhood" looming over an obsolete sign listing the address for the Wells-Madden Management Office, remains vacant and bare.

With the economic meltdown, how quickly this vacant land will be filled in remains in limbo; the City's Planning Department was estimating 8 to 10 years BEFORE the meltdown.

How did things go so horribly wrong? How did living conditions descend to the point where two 10-year-olds dropped a 5-year old to his death from a high-rise window because he refused to steal candy for them? And where did those two 10-year olds go to when Wells and Madden were torn down? Will we ever return to being able to hold parents personally responsible for their children's behavior?

I'll let the earnest, fresh-faced college students at Northeastern Illinois University's Inner City Studies department on Oakwood Boulevard figure that one out. But in case they don't know it, in the beginning, and for a good 30 years after it opened, IDA B. WELLS WAS A BEAUTIFUL PLACE TO LIVE.

We've got to stop holding buildings responsible for all of society's ills. If high-rises were the problem, then Dr. Theodore K. Lawless Gardens (kitty-corner from what used to be Ida B. Wells), Lake Meadows, Prairie Shores, South Commons, Indian Village, Sandburg Village and all of North Lake Shore Drive would be festering slums.