Chicago’s Criminality vs. Attraction
How have significant people, places, and/or events made the city of Chicago what it is today?
Chicago Literature had a major focus on the good and evil of Chicago. It started off by concentrating on what represents Chicago; The Cubs, deep-dish pizza, and the Art Museum were all brought up quite frequently. Later, the course got into the World’s Fair and the serial killer, H.H.Holmes, in the book “The Devil in the White City” by Erik Larson, and eventually to the topic of vice districts, gambling, and gangs. All of these people, places, and things transformed Chicago into the city it is today. While Al Capone, H.H.Holmes, and the Housing Projects turned Chicago into a place where criminals thrived, Chicago …show more content…
The book “The Devil in the White City” by Erik Larson gave the stories of two men at the time of the World’s Fair - one being America’s first serial killer, H.H.Holmes. In this book it was seen that H.H.Holmes began the spread of crime when Larson wrote, “Graham called Holmes ‘the most dangerous man in the world.’ [...] As Holmes awaited execution, he prepared a long confession, his third, in which he admitted killing twenty-seven people” (Larson 385). During Holmes’s killing spree, everyone was distracted by the World’s Fair therefore enabling him to make at least “twenty-seven people” disappear without others noticing.The detective named Graham called Holmes the “most dangerous man in the world” to show how destructive and cruel he truly was. He was the type of man to be afraid of. Indirectly, his insanity and cruelty influenced others to become serial killers and criminals just like him therefore infecting Chicago with evil. Similar to Holmes, Al Capone was also a deadly man: “You want to get Capone? Here's how you get him: he pulls a knife, you pull a gun, he sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. It's the Chicago way and that's how you get Capone.”-(David Mamet, U.S. screenwriter, and Brian DePalma. Jimmy Malone (Sean Connery), The Untouchables, advice to Elliot Ness (Kevin Costner) on how to stop …show more content…
In the article “Robert Taylor Homes” from the Chicago Days, Flynn McRoberts wrote about the failure of the Robert Taylor Homes --a part of the housing projects -- which were high-rise buildings crammed with thousands of poor black families. It was seen that the Robert Taylor Homes increased the amount of crime in the city when McRoberts wrote, “In CHA developments unemployment ran as high as 90 percent, and residents were at least twice as likely to be the victims of serious crime as other Chicagoans” (McRoberts). McRoberts used these statistics to emphasize how big the housing projects issue really was. Shoving a large number of uneducated and unemployed people into a small vicinity will only bring anger and frustration. These homes gave the blacks a place to start crime and to escalate the violence that comes with it. Similar to McRoberts, Royko also wrote about the failure of the housing projects in 1970 in his article “A Shovelful of Bad Thinking”. In this article it was seen that the housing projects played a major role in creating horrible violence and crime when Royko wrote, “Riding the elevators in the buildings may be the most dangerous form of transportation in this city. ‘I’d rather drive without brakes on the Dan Ryan expressway,’ said a black man who lived there until he could find a flat in a conventional slum. Police have been trapped in stalled elevators
How have significant people, places, and/or events made the city of Chicago what it is today?
Chicago Literature had a major focus on the good and evil of Chicago. It started off by concentrating on what represents Chicago; The Cubs, deep-dish pizza, and the Art Museum were all brought up quite frequently. Later, the course got into the World’s Fair and the serial killer, H.H.Holmes, in the book “The Devil in the White City” by Erik Larson, and eventually to the topic of vice districts, gambling, and gangs. All of these people, places, and things transformed Chicago into the city it is today. While Al Capone, H.H.Holmes, and the Housing Projects turned Chicago into a place where criminals thrived, Chicago …show more content…
The book “The Devil in the White City” by Erik Larson gave the stories of two men at the time of the World’s Fair - one being America’s first serial killer, H.H.Holmes. In this book it was seen that H.H.Holmes began the spread of crime when Larson wrote, “Graham called Holmes ‘the most dangerous man in the world.’ [...] As Holmes awaited execution, he prepared a long confession, his third, in which he admitted killing twenty-seven people” (Larson 385). During Holmes’s killing spree, everyone was distracted by the World’s Fair therefore enabling him to make at least “twenty-seven people” disappear without others noticing.The detective named Graham called Holmes the “most dangerous man in the world” to show how destructive and cruel he truly was. He was the type of man to be afraid of. Indirectly, his insanity and cruelty influenced others to become serial killers and criminals just like him therefore infecting Chicago with evil. Similar to Holmes, Al Capone was also a deadly man: “You want to get Capone? Here's how you get him: he pulls a knife, you pull a gun, he sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. It's the Chicago way and that's how you get Capone.”-(David Mamet, U.S. screenwriter, and Brian DePalma. Jimmy Malone (Sean Connery), The Untouchables, advice to Elliot Ness (Kevin Costner) on how to stop …show more content…
In the article “Robert Taylor Homes” from the Chicago Days, Flynn McRoberts wrote about the failure of the Robert Taylor Homes --a part of the housing projects -- which were high-rise buildings crammed with thousands of poor black families. It was seen that the Robert Taylor Homes increased the amount of crime in the city when McRoberts wrote, “In CHA developments unemployment ran as high as 90 percent, and residents were at least twice as likely to be the victims of serious crime as other Chicagoans” (McRoberts). McRoberts used these statistics to emphasize how big the housing projects issue really was. Shoving a large number of uneducated and unemployed people into a small vicinity will only bring anger and frustration. These homes gave the blacks a place to start crime and to escalate the violence that comes with it. Similar to McRoberts, Royko also wrote about the failure of the housing projects in 1970 in his article “A Shovelful of Bad Thinking”. In this article it was seen that the housing projects played a major role in creating horrible violence and crime when Royko wrote, “Riding the elevators in the buildings may be the most dangerous form of transportation in this city. ‘I’d rather drive without brakes on the Dan Ryan expressway,’ said a black man who lived there until he could find a flat in a conventional slum. Police have been trapped in stalled elevators