April 16, Thursday
7pm (doors open @ 6:30pm)
Gas Station Theatre
*Free admission*

About the film:

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.

It began as a housing marvel. Built in 1956, Pruitt-Igoe was heralded as the model public housing project of the future, “the poor man’s penthouse.” Two decades later, it ended in rubble - its razing an iconic event that the architectural theorist Charles Jencks famously called the death of modernism. The footage and images of its implosion have 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.

“A painstaking illustration of how racism, classism, and government serving the interests of big business all shaped the now-myth-like horrors of St. Louis’s notorious Pruitt-Igoe housing project. Maddening, riveting.” - Ernest Hardy, Village Voice

Panel Discussion on Housing:

The film will be followed by a discussion from a panel made up of representatives from a variety of sectors involved in housing. Christina Maes from the Social Planning Council will be representing the Right to Housing on the panel. I would encourage you all to attend this evening. It is being hosted by the Planner’s Network who have generously donated the space to promote the Red Tent Campaign petition to urge the Federal government step into the vacuum created by the expiration of the operating grants that pay the rent subsidies for co-op, and social housing.