Wikipedia:Peer review/Pruitt–Igoe/archive1

Pruitt–Igoe

I've listed this article for peer review for feedback ahead of a potential FAC nomination (which would be my first). rblv (talk) 13:15, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

• @Rublov: It has been over a month since this has been posted. Are you still interested in receiving feedback? Z1720 (talk) 21:14, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

  @Z1720, yes I still am. rblv (talk) 01:12, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

• @Rublov: I suggest posting a request for feedback at Wikiprojects attached to this article, asking for comments. Also, since you are still working on your first successful FAC, I suggest seeking the help of a mentor who can leave comments here. Lastly, I suggest that you review some articles at FAC to help you learn about the FA criteria and build goodwill amongst other FAC reviewers. Z1720 (talk) 01:16, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Comments from Ajpolino

Fantastic to see work on an article for such an important topic. I don't have much pre-existing knowledge on the topic, but drove by the site plenty when I lived in St. Louis. Some scattered thoughts as I read through. All gentle suggestions that can be taken or left:

Lead

• At the time of opening... in the country - Any way you could break up that sentence? It's a lot for my brain to take in the project's composition, architect, and superlative all at once.
• soon after completion, and by the mid-1960s - Would a period be better there? "after completion. By the mid-1960s..."
• imploded by explosives - no comment, but a funny turn of phrase
• St. Louis' precipitously declining population and fiscal problems with the local housing authority. - not a big deal of course, but I stumble reading this because I think "declining population" and "fiscal problems" are both referring to "St. Louis". I might rephrase to "St. Louis' precipitously declining population and the local housing authority's fiscal problems."
• As of 2016, most of the Pruit-Igoe site remains vacant and overgrown" is there nothing more recent we can say? The NGA headquarters is being built across the street, but I believe the site is unchanged since 2016.

Description

• Is there anything else we can add here? Any further description you can add about the buildings, the apartments themselves, common areas (I vaguely recall seeing playgrounds when I watched The Pruitt-Igoe Myth years ago, but I could easily be misremembering), et al. would be a huge value add for the reader.

History

• being said to resemble 'something out of a Charles Dickens novel' - love that quote. Evocative.
• Specifically, the(?) St. Louis Land Clearance and Redevelopment Authority
• Do any sources give a sense of how much the apartments rented for at the beginning? Was the rent largely or entirely covered by government agencies?
• Despite its size, the complex had no public mailbox. is interesting I guess, but seems like a disconnected factoid in a paragraph about the complex's decline.
• Large criminal gangs were not common in the project likewise seems an odd addition without context. Did someone assert they were?
• The stairwells and corridors... the skip-stop elevators. seems it would fit more smoothly with the other crime-related material later in the paragraph.
• Shocking to read how high the vacancy rates were.
• it raised the minimum rent from $20 a month in 1952... Is this a typo or are the sources unclear? I thought the the complex didn't open until 1954.
• Between 1963 and 1966 it was the subject of a sociological study by Lee Rainwater I thought you were going to go on to describe Rainwater's findings since you mention him by name, but you just cite his work without mentioning him. With that in mind, is this sentence necessary?
• By the late 1960s, Pruitt–Igoe was described as resembling "a city under siege". Similarly, I'm not sure this sentence is adding value for the reader. The quote is unattributed, and we already get the sense that it's "under siege" from reading the rest of the section.
• and the average woman would give birth to five or six children during her child-bearing years. seems unnecessary. It just leaves the reader uncomfortably wondering how a woman's 5 or 6 children are winnowed to four minors per household.
• the first building was demolished with explosives on it's such an uncommon word to read, that it feels repetitive after having just read it in the open of the prior paragraph.
• In 2021, a developer... redevelopment of the site can we break this into two sentences?
• Should the 2020 Ponce announcement go before the 2021 McKee buildings announcement?
• Looks like McKee's proposal is moving forward (despite his checkered reputation and past issues with the city) [1]. That article says the site is still vacant as of 2023, in case you wish to update your 2016 statement.
• That's all for now. Will return to wrap up the legacy section shortly. Ajpolino (talk) 02:10, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

• Legacy - The overall quality of the construction... area subsequently turned to wasteland - Perhaps some of this belongs in the Description section (or History#Decline) instead of Legacy?
• See Also - Your call of course, but the See also list seems a bit long. It looks like it mostly predates your involvement in the article. If you're inclined to trim it to a set of most-relevant topics, I applaud you. If you like it as is, I won't bother you about it.

Done with a first pass. All-in-all an excellent and very readable article. I'll try to skim some accessible sources on the complex this weekend and I'll flag if any major aspects of the topic seem to be missing from the article or if there are conflicts. But I don't expect to find anything. If you're still interested in making the trip to FAC, let's flag a couple more editors who work in more similar topics (I typically work on medical topics, so I'm sure I have blind spots here). The more eyes you get on the article pre-FAC, the smoother the FAC tends to go. Thanks again for the interesting read. Ajpolino (talk) 04:12, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

@Ajpolino, I really appreciate the thorough review and helpful feedback. I'll get working on your suggestions this weekend. rblv (talk) 13:54, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Comments from RoySmith

• Overall, I like the article, nice job!

Lead

• You have "as of 2016 ...", that was seven years ago. It would be better to find a RS which talks about the current state of the site, then you can say "as of 2023 ...".
• Over the next four years, the rest of the complex vacated and demolished there's a verb missing
  • Done – rbv

Description

• Short declarative sentences like They were built of concrete and clad in brick read awkwardly. In this case, I'd combine this into the previous sentence, "Pruitt-Igoe consisted of 33 eleven-story concrete and brick apartment buildings..."
  • Done – rbv
• 170 feet in length -> "170 feet long". Also, use {{convert}} for metric.
  • Done – rbv
• Same sentence, and most contained ... though some buildings had ... -> "; most contained ... although some had ..."
  • Done – rbv
• and housed ... -> "housing ..."
  • Done – rbv
• The apartments were deliberately small, with undersized kitchen appliances Some explanation of why they were designed that way would help.
• The apartments were not equipped with balconies. another awkward short sentence.
• I'm not sure "skip-stop" is the correct description for this type of elevator service (the term is not used in the cited source). I think of skip-stop as having some cars that only stop (for example) on the even floors while other cars only stop on the odd floors. That doesn't seem to be the case here.
  • Oh, It looks like Meehan 1979, p. 72 talks about skip-stop, so maybe you've just got the wrong reference here?

Background

• In one place you refer to "Carr Square"; in another, "DeSoto-Carr". I assume these are the same thing. If so, use a consistent name for it.
• Link "the projects" to Subsidized housing in the United States.
• oters rejected the proposal for a municipal loan to finance the change it's not clear what "the change" refers to. Also, there's an awkward repetition of the word "change[d]" later in the sentence which may not refer to the same thing?
  • Clarified – rbv
• I'm not sure how WP:FACR deal with redlinks, but I'd be tempted to redlink St. Louis Land Clearance and Redevelopment Authority. And then get to work on writing it :-)
  • Done – rbv
• Likewise, St. Louis Housing Authority
  • Done – rbv
• Housing Act of 1949 should only be linked the first time it's used.
  • Done – rbv
• Link Leinweber, Yamasaki & Hellmuth to Yamasaki & Associates
  • Done – rbv
• The influence of the steamfitters' union the source says, "a tribute to the power of the local steam fitters", which isn't quite the same thing. Maybe it's OK, but worth considering rewording.
• overruns on the heating system caused a chain of arbitrary cost cuts in other vital parts of the building I don't see the source saying that.
  • Sources got scrambled here. I don't have immediate access to the original source, so removing for now. – rbv

Early years

• I'm not sure this short section needs its own heading. Mabye just combine it with the previuos section?
• Pruitt–Igoe was officially desegregated by a Supreme Court decision in 1954 this is confusing. Did it open as a segregated project, and then become desegretaged after it opened?
• the buildings lacked centralized air conditioning I see the source talking about the poor ventilation, but I don't see where it talks about the lack of air conditioning. I would expect that central air conditioning would have been a rarity is buildings of this era.
  • Removed the reference to A/C. – rbv

Decline

• The annual turn-over rate was 20 percent I don't know how to interpret that. Is that higher or lower than typical?
• Link Rent strike
  • Done – rbv
• apartments clustered around small, two-family landings it's unclear what this means.

Demolition

• damage to the buildings as "nearly unbelievable" Needs a citation for the quote.
  • Done – rbv
• Department of Housing and Urban Development this is linked to the same article as Department of Housing above. Maybe introduce the HUD acronym the first time, then use that consistently after?
  • Done – rbv
• The last three sentences ("Demolition cost...", They were the first ...", Footage of the demolition ...") read awkwardly due to the repetition of the short sentence structure.
  • Rephrased – rbv

Site

• as of 2016, as noted above, try to find a more modern source.
• In 2021, a developer submitted zoning applications for the construction of office buildings and a hotel on the site. This is confusing. In the previous sentence you say it's going to become a medical center, now you say it's going to become an office complex.

Legacy

• of its kind in America",[76] and architect William Ramroth, as in many places throughout the article I find these "X and Y" compound sentences to be awkward. Most of them would read better with ", and" replaced by a semicolon, or some other rephrasing.
  • Rephrased; will probably revisit this one. – rbv
• a biographer of Yamasaki -> "Yamasaki biographer Paul Kidder"
  • Done – rbv
• retrospectively appraised is there any other way to appraise something? I'd drop the "retrospectively"
  • Done – rbv
• Link modernist the first time it's used instead of waiting for "modernist architecture" later on
  • Done – rbv
• "ville radieuse" probably should be italic instead of in quotes.
  • Done – rbv
• including vetoing the original proposal of a mix of structures of different heights. It's not clear what "different heights" means. Did they want to do some minor variations like 9, 11, 15 floors, or was it a mix of high-rise and townhouses like they did at Co-op City, Bronx?
  • Referring to this earlier sentence: His initial proposal, which included walk-up and mid-rise buildings as well as high-rises, was accepted by the St. Louis authorities, but exceeded the federal cost limits imposed by the Public Housing Administration; the agency intervened and imposed a uniform building height of 11 floors. – rbv
• Criticism of the project's architectural design began in the 1960s This is immediately followed by a sentence describing the quality of construction, which has nothing to do with the architectural design.
  • Reorganized – rbv
• According to The Architectural Review... Two points here. First, the citation needs a specific page number. Second, is this really the editorial opinion of the journal, or just that of an individual author of an article published in it?
  • This is an online article which is not paginated. This is probably the individual author's opinion (who does not appear to be a regular contributor); can you think of a better way to phrase it? – rbv
• ...reputation as an architect, and he personally regretted... another of those awkward "X, and Y" sentences.
  • Think I'll keep this one – rbv

OK, that's it for me. RoySmith (talk) 15:16, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

RoySmith, thank you for the lengthy review! I've addressed the comments that could be resolved quickly, and shall continue to work through the rest. rblv (talk) 13:32, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Regarding, "Sources got scrambled here", yeah BTDT. Things start out good, but as you work on the article, statements get separated from the source that supports them. That was the most painful part of my first FAC. My suggestion is that you should go through the entire article, click through to every citation, and verify it's the right one and does indeed say what you think it says. It's annoying, but it'll be more annoying when somebody else does it. Better to find the problems yourself before you submit. RoySmith (talk) 15:30, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Comments from mujinga

Hi I thought I'd concentrate on whether the article meets the FA criteria:

well-written

Pending responses to the above queiries (and Talk:Pruitt–Igoe#Pre-FAC_comments) the article seems pretty well written to me.

• "Although each row of buildings was supposed to be flanked by a "river of open space" - i tnink you need to say who was doing the supposing here
• as of 2016 is too long ago, as other have mentioned, hopefully you can update this

comprehensive

Is there anything worth adding from the further reading? to make the article comprehensive then it should either contain all relevant sources or have a good rationale for each item being in the further reading and not in the sources. Since the number of sources used isn't huge, perhaps the further reading can be added in.

well-researched

• Seems pretty good to me, but at FAC you will be expected to have read everything you can get your hands on, so if you haven't already gone through JSTOR, muse, wiley etc etc now would be a good time. On this version:
• 10 - what is Decent, Safe and Sanitary Dwellings: The National Conversation About Public Housing, 2018? is it a report? just wondering if it needs quotes or italicizing
• 49 is title case but eg 75 is sentence case, don't mind which way you go but needs to be consistent
• 69:

  -The Economist should be marked as paywall

  -Economist should be italicised

  -Why is Economist wikilinked but not Guardian 35? I don't mind which to go but needs to be consistent

• Bristol has a publisher but the other journal sources don't
• for Rainwater, Aldine Transaction looks weird, on the link I see just Aldine Publishing Company
• for Newman, I'm not seeing DIANE Publishing but rather US Dept of Housing and Urban Development Office of Policy Development and Research
• at GA/1 I had some issues with text/source integrity, I can AGF that these are gone and in ay case at FAC you will get a stringent check

neutral / stable / lead / appropriate structure / consistent citations / length all seem ok on this quick look

Media

• Images used seem to be appropriately copyrighted
• Maybe add a pic of Minoru Yamasaki or other relevant people?

Thanks Mujinga, I've cleaned up the citations per your suggestions. Re: 10, this was added recently by an IP user and I haven't had time to get my hands on the source and double-check. So I will be revisiting that one. rblv (talk) 13:41, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Query from Z1720

@Rublov: It has been over a month since the last comment on this PR. Is this ready to be closed and nominated for FAC, or do you want more comments? Z1720 (talk) 15:48, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

@Z1720: I'm not quite ready to nominate for FAC, but the peer review can be closed. rblv (talk) 18:05, 23 January 2024 (UTC)