New CPS school grounds being built on site of estimated 38,000 unmarked graves
New CPS school grounds being built on site of estimated 38,000 unmarked graves
A 15-year effort to build a school in the city’s Dunning neighborhood is underway with an unusual complication: Construction workers are taking careful steps to avoid disturbing human remains that may lie beneath the soil.
The $70 million school is to be built on the grounds of a former Cook County Poor House where an estimated 38,000 people were buried in unmarked graves. Among the dead are residents who were too poor to afford funeral costs, unclaimed bodies and patients from the county’s insane asylum.
“There can be and there have been bodies found all over the place,” said Barry Fleig, a genealogist and cemetery researcher who began investigating the site in 1989. “It’s a spooky, scary place.”
Workers have until April 27 to excavate and clear the site, remediate the soil and relocate an existing sewer line. The school is scheduled to open in time for the 2019-20 academic year, though a spokesperson for Chicago Public Schools would not say what type of school it will be.
A sign on the northeast corner of Oak Park Avenue and Irving Park Road reads “Building a New Chicago” to announce the upcoming Read Dunning School at 4071 N. Oak Park Ave.
While the site contracts indicate it will be a middle school, Ald. Nicholas Sposato, 38th, said he is confident the campus will be either a new four-year high school for the Dunning neighborhood or a freshman academy for Taft High School.
“I’m sure they’re gonna be on top of some graves, but this is progress,” Sposato said. “It’s an economic boom for the community.”
Full story at site
New CPS school grounds being built on site of estimated 38,000 unmarked graves
A 15-year effort to build a school in the city’s Dunning neighborhood is underway with an unusual complication: Construction workers are taking careful steps to avoid disturbing human remains that may lie beneath the soil.
The $70 million school is to be built on the grounds of a former Cook County Poor House where an estimated 38,000 people were buried in unmarked graves. Among the dead are residents who were too poor to afford funeral costs, unclaimed bodies and patients from the county’s insane asylum.
“There can be and there have been bodies found all over the place,” said Barry Fleig, a genealogist and cemetery researcher who began investigating the site in 1989. “It’s a spooky, scary place.”
Workers have until April 27 to excavate and clear the site, remediate the soil and relocate an existing sewer line. The school is scheduled to open in time for the 2019-20 academic year, though a spokesperson for Chicago Public Schools would not say what type of school it will be.
A sign on the northeast corner of Oak Park Avenue and Irving Park Road reads “Building a New Chicago” to announce the upcoming Read Dunning School at 4071 N. Oak Park Ave.
While the site contracts indicate it will be a middle school, Ald. Nicholas Sposato, 38th, said he is confident the campus will be either a new four-year high school for the Dunning neighborhood or a freshman academy for Taft High School.
“I’m sure they’re gonna be on top of some graves, but this is progress,” Sposato said. “It’s an economic boom for the community.”
Full story at site
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