Image from United States Geological Survey

El Museo presents a screening of The Pruitt-Igoe Myth, a 2011 documentary film by Chad Friedrichs, on Thursday, October 24, 6pm, at the Frank E. Merriweather, Jr. Library (1324 Jefferson Ave). The screening will be followed with a discussion led by Henry Louis Taylor Jr., Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University at Buffalo.

The event is free and open to the public.

From the filmmaker:

It began as a housing marvel. Two decades later, it ended in rubble. But what happened to those caught in between?

The Pruitt-Igoe Myth tells the story of the transformation of the American city in the decades after World War II, through the lens of the infamous Pruitt-Igoe housing development and the St. Louis residents who called it home.

The world-famous image of its implosion has helped to perpetuate a myth of failure, a failure that has been used to critique Modernist architecture, attack public assistance programs, and stigmatize public housing residents.

The Pruitt-Igoe Myth seeks to set the historical record straight. To examine the interests involved in Pruitt-Igoe’s creation. To re-evaluate the rumors and the stigma. To implode the myth.