Bus Tours

On September 29, We The People Media board members Sunil Garg and Jonathan Rothstein hosted a special benefit bus tour featuring writer Alex Kotlowitz, the author of "There Are No Children Here" and "Never a City So Real," More than 25 people attended, including former Cook County Hospital Chief Ruth Rothstein and Adam Green, a University of Chicago historian who is the son of Ernest Green, one of the 'Little Rock 9.' The tour participants visited the field where Robert Taylor Homes, at the time the world's largest development, and examined one of the many mysteries of Chicago's public housing - why the trees around the high-rises were painted white. The white trees of public housing were the subject of an article Alex wrote for The New York Times Magazine. The tour participants also stopped in the Henry Horner Homes development on the West Side, the site of Alex's first book, "There Are No Children Here." The discussion at Horner was enlivened by the presence of William Wilen, a public interest attorney who was the advocate for Horner residents. Alex, Bill and the other participants debated the pros and cons of the ongoing Plan for Transformation, the Chicago Housing Authority's massive effort to demolish the city's high rises and replace them with mixed-income communities. Kotlowitz brought Brenda Stephenson, a former Rockwell Gardens resident, into the conversation. The tour ended at the Swift Mansion, a historic site in the Bronzeville area, where participants were treated to bakery goods from the nearby African American-owned Abundance Bakery and learned about the work of the Swift Mansion's owners, the Inner City Youth Foundation.