Next Wednesday will mark the beginning of the demolition of the last remaining high-rise at Cabrini-Green.
Poetry and lights will mark its passing, as we learn from the Chicago News Cooperative.
Poetry? Cabrini? Had I lived in and been leaving Cabrini, I’d think of these stanzas from Byron’s When we two parted:
The dew of the morning
Sunk chill on my brow—
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame:
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o’er me—
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well:
Long, long shall I rue thee,
Too deeply to tell.
…
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?
With silence and tears.
The above photo of the demolition of the next-to-last Cabrini high-rise was shot early last December.