Storm Damage at 4534 Racine, Uptown, Chicago, 1963

Based on the address, I think these homes were located under what is now Truman College, just south of Wilson.

According to Wikipedia: Amundsen High School hosted a night school offering two-year college programming for the North Side of Chicago in 1956. This was the result of community outcry for a two-year college for the economically ailing community areas north of downtown Chicago. Interested in a more permanent situation for the program, community leaders acquired a former elementary school campus in 1961 and enrolled 4,000 students in day and night classes. Further growth led to the construction of its present campus on West Wilson Avenue, opening its doors in 1976, naming the school after U.S. President Truman.

Fun Fact: Truman College was featured in the 2002 movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding written by and starring Nia Vardalos.

Purchase original image here:  4500 Block of Racine, Uptown

Play Commemorates 1995 Tragedy

I had just moved back to Chicago in the fall of 1994, and remember this summer well. From the Chicago Tribune:

Playwright Steven Simoncic recalls feeling haunted as rehearsals began for his play "Heat Wave," the drama detailing Chicago's 1995 summer meltdown that killed more than 700 people.

"You could feel the ghosts of the victims early on," he says, "especially on those evenings in January when it was pretty cold and pretty quiet. You could feel the energy of what was going on — a palpable feeling."

"Heat Wave" carries the added punch of being staged in an area that was brutalized by the tragedy. Walk a handful of steps in any direction from Pegasus Players' front door on Wilson Avenue in Uptown, and you'll find apartment houses or single-room occupancy hotels (or SROs, where rents are paid by the day, week or month) where five people perished. It happened within a one-block radius — and the toll jumps if you expand the circle to a five-minute walk from Pegasus' auditorium at Truman College...

For complete article, go to: Neighbor Ghosts Haunt Drama on Deadly Summer