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About this series Today's column is the fifth in a series that examines Pruitt-Igoe, the site of a massive housing project just west of downtown that was razed in the early 1970s and hasn't been redeveloped since. Pruitt-Igoe was once home to thousands of families, including my own, from 1963 to 1966. Over the course of this year, I will try to unravel why nothing has been done with the site during the past three decades and look at possibilities for renewing Pruitt-Igoe's promise. I hope readers will submit memories of their years either living or working at Pruitt-Igoe so that I can share the sense of community that existed there. Please contact me at my e-mail address, sylvesterbrown@post-dispatch.com; or by phone at 314-340-8374.
Alderman April Ford-Griffin was only 6 when Missouri Conservation Commissioner James T. Blair ended his fight in 1977 to put a lake on the old Pruitt-Igoe site. The last of the 33 high-rise buildings had been dynamited a year prior, yet no one had offered a concrete plan to develop the site. Today, nearly three decades later, most of the site remains fallow and choked with weeds.
Young April had no idea she'd one day preside over a ward with a 30-year albatross.
Ford-Griffin has politics in her blood -- her parents, Ida and Louis Ford, were 5th Ward committee leaders for decades. Louis Ford also served as a state representative...