Wilmington's Robert Taylor Homes-- Part 3

From the Wilmington (NC) Housing Authority Site.

The Robert R. Taylor Senior Homes are located today at 1308 N. 5th Street and are for seniors 55 and older. It is an apartment building and consists of 96 one-and-two bedroom units from 716 to 980 square feet. It is located less than one mile north of downtown Wilmington and has income restrictions to live there.

The Wilmington Housing Authority also has the New Brooklyn Homes at Taylor Estates located by the senior homes at 1205 N. 5th Street. This consists of 48 two-to-four bedroom units from 1021-1498 square feet. These are also low income.

I was unable to find out if any of these housing projects are the original one from before World War II, but imagine they are either original or on the site of those.

The New Brooklyn Homes built in the 1930s had 241 units back then before the name was changed to the Robert R. Taylor Homes after the death of Robert Robinson Taylor in 1942.

--Cooter

Wilmington's Robert Taylor Housing-- Part 2: Robert Robinson Taylor

From Wikipedia.

Robert Robinson Taylor (1868-1942) was the first accredited black architect in the United States. He was born June 8, 1868, in Wilmington, North Carolina, and enrolled at Massachusetts Institute of Technology as the first black in 1888.

As an architect, he designed most of the pre-1932 buildings at Alabama's Tuskegee University and was the second in charge of the institution behind its founder Booker T. Washington. The two men modeled Tuskegee on MIT.

The 241 units of the New Brooklyn Houses, built in Wilmington in 1938 for blacks, were renamed for him, probably after his death in 1942.

Chicago's Robert Taylor Homes were named after his son, Robert Rachon Taylor (1899-1957) who, like his father, was an architect, and a graduate of the University of Illinois in Champaign and early housing activist in Chicago.

His great granddaughter Valerie Jarrett is a senior advisor to President Obama. Dr. Taylor is buried along with his wife, Nellie Chesnutt Taylor at Wilmington, NC's Pine Forest Cemetery.

A Very Important Family. --DaCoot

Wilmington's Robert Taylor Housing-- Part 1

Back on October 8th, in my Tattooed On Your Soul World War II blog, I wrote about the Robert Taylor housing units being built in Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1938. The housing was built for blacks during that segregated period and in anticipation of a critical World War II housing shortage as workers and militarty personnel swarmed into the city.

The name Robert Taylor made me think of Chicago's Robert Taylor Homes which were built for low-income people originally and eventually became most all blacks and developed a myriad of problems. I saw them many times as I drove to Comiskey Park to watch the White Sox play. I thought it to be quite a coincidence that two housing projects were built with the same name, so had to do some research.

It turned out to be quite interesting and introdiced me to two significant men.

Two Robert Taylor Homes? --Cooter