How to Dress Up a Zombie Property
Yesterday, we covered graffiti artists’ covert attempts to spruce up the abandoned Damen Silos, one of Chicago’s most mysterious properties. Today, West Humboldt Park is working to beautify its distressed and vacant buildings with “artistic board-ups,” DNAInfo reports. (Pictured: Detroit's Heidelberg Project, a similar effort.) Part of the Department of Planning and Development’s Micro Market Recovery Program, the initiative deters violence, looting and squatting at the empty buildings while creating jobs and attracting potential buyers (including many low-income neighborhood residents).