A while back my peoples over at UnKut.com asked me to lend a hand in a piece they were creating for the best Hip-Hop magazine on the planet, the U.K.’s Hip-Hop Connections.
The piece was to focus on the most notorious New York City housing projects. I’m glad that UnKut came to me for the assist. If I am nothing else I want to be a repository for NYC’s history, both good and bad, but mostly actual and factual.
The Unkut Guide To Hip-Hop’s Most Notorious Projects – Part 1
The Unkut Guide To Hip-Hop’s Most Notorious Projects – Part 2
“The housing projects plan isn’t flawed until you fill it with poor people. When these building were filled with working class folks it seemed like there might be a better life for people.
Generations stayed up in those buildings too. Remove the manufacturing and shipping industry from NYC and add the rampant access of drugs like alcohol, heroin and then crack and the housing projects devolve into what we have now.
The government smartened up with regards to warehousing the poor and disenfranchised. In the early 1900’s they gave away tracts of land to the Native Americans for them to drink themselves to death. The housing project is the same idea except the acres are stacked on top of one another instead of being spread out.
This aids in the control and regulation of these populations as well. Police can black off a few traffic arteries if the native get restless now.
Housing projects are just reservations in the sky.”
