Pruitt-Igoe was taken down in stages, beginning in 1972. Video
of the demolition was broadcast around the world. What happened
in those brief intervening years is the subject of a new
documentary, “The Pruitt-Igoe Myth: An Urban History.” Star-
Ledger editorial writer Linda Ocasio spoke with filmmaker Chad
Freidrichs. Q. What inspired you to make the documentary? A. My
wife, Jaime, and I were decorating our first house and reading a
lot about Modernist architecture and design. I came across
Pruitt-Igoe while listening to an audio lecture about
architecture and the city. Pruitt-Igoe was billed as this giant
failure of Modernism, where the design had led to social
collapse. When I learned that this housing project was actually
in St. Louis, I got really excited because I went to high school
on the outskirts of St. Louis, but I had never heard of Pruitt-
Igoe. Q. What did you discover in your research? A. I came to
understand that there were far deeper issues than the project’s
design. Pruitt-Igoe had to be placed