O’block

Parkway Gardens Apartment Homes , commonly also known as  O'Block , is a gated private apartment complex in the  Greater Grand Crossing   community area  on the border of  Woodlawn  and  Washington Park , on the  South Side  of  Chicago ,  Illinois . [ 2 ]  The complex was built from 1950 to 1955; architect  Henry K. Holsman , who planned several of Chicago's affordable housing developments, designed the  Modernist  buildings. The complex is listed on the  National Register of Historic Places , and has become one of Chicago's most violent blocks, being the epicenter for crime, gang, and drug activity, and serving as a hub for the  Black Disciples and the  Gangster Disciples . [ 3 ] [ 4 ] Parkway Gardens Apartment Homes, built from 1950 to 1955, was the last of Henry K. Holsman's many housing development designs in Chicago. Holsman began designing low-income housing in Chicago in the 1910s when an u...