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Altgeld Gardens Homes

Populated places established in 1945Public housing in ChicagoResidential buildings in Chicago
Altgeld Gardens
Altgeld Gardens

Altgeld Gardens Homes is a Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) public housing project located on the far south side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. It sits on the border of Chicago and Riverdale, Illinois. The residents are 97% African-American according to the 2000 United States Census. Built between 1944 and 1945 with 1,498 units, the development consists primarily of two-story row houses spread over 190 acres (0.77 km2).

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Altgeld Gardens Homes (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Altgeld Gardens Homes
South Corliss Avenue, Chicago Riverdale

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Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 41.6553 ° E -87.603 °
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Address

South Corliss Avenue 13212-13234
60827 Chicago, Riverdale
Illinois, United States
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Altgeld Gardens
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AVR 661

AVR 661 is an R-1 type United States Air Force "crash boat", a boat used in air-sea rescues. It is 85 feet long and has two Packard Marine 4M-2500 engines of 1500 horsepower, instead of the normal three that PT boats usually were equipped with. It has a top speed of 40 knots. The craft was unarmed normally, but in the event of deployment to hostile areas could have been armed with a variety of light weapons. These types of boats were used to rescue aircraft crews at sea. The designation AVR was used for "Aircraft Rescue Vessel", so it was one of the small, fast craft, that were used for rescuing pilots from downed planes. AVR 661 was built in 1943 for the Army Air Corps and served in the Gulf of Mexico during World War II as one of the Crash boats of World War 2.After the war the Air Force sold many of its crash boats to private parties for use as yachts or commercial vessels. Many others were used as targets and sunk. AVR 661 was kept in active service assigned to Tyndall Air Force Base, near Panama City, Florida. During the Vietnam War, AVR 661 towed targets for helicopter gunship training and anti-mine training as well as to recover drones.In 1971, the Air Force decided to preserve AVR 661 as one of the last remaining crash boats from World War II. She was to be placed on display at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, near Dayton, Ohio. That plan was scrapped as the boat was too large for the cargo plane. She was then donated to the PT Boat Museum in Memphis, Tennessee That, too, proved problematic. As she was being run upriver to Memphis, she struck a submerged obstruction and damaged her running gear. Once at Memphis, the boat sank at her moorings.The US Naval Sea Cadet Corps expressed an interest in salvaging the crash boat. The boat was placed on a barge and shipped to Chicago. The Sea Cadets' "Chicago Division" restored the boat (including removing the tree that was growing in the engine room) and used it as a training vessel for a short time. Running out of operating funds, they planned donate her to a museum, but donated to the Northern Illinois Sea Scouts for training.

Kensington/115th Street station
Kensington/115th Street station

Kensington/115th Street is a commuter rail station on the far south side of Chicago that serves the Metra Electric Line north to Millennium Station and south to University Park and Blue Island. The station is located at 115th Street and Cottage Grove Avenue in the Pullman & West Pullman, Chicago neighborhoods. It is the last station for Blue Island Branch trains before those split off of the main line for Blue Island. As of 2018, the station is the 37th busiest of Metra's 236 non-downtown stations, with an average of 1,136 weekday boardings. The South Shore Line diverges to Indiana immediately south of this station. It had previously stopped at this station prior to February 15, 2012, with the reconfiguration of the junction to minimize congestion.In 1991, an advocacy group formed to press Metra to make necessary cosmetic and safety upgrades to this station, one of the busiest on the Metra Electric line. Dubbed "Operation Restore Kensington," the group pressured railroad officials to work closely with the city to upgrade parking, enhance station lighting, landscaping and security, and persuade local vendors to open concession stands in the station. For its efforts, O.R.K. monitored the railroad's efforts to build a brand new station and assisted with the railroad's efforts to increase station parking facilities. O.R.K. was disbanded in the 1990s.The station was also served by Illinois Central intercity-trains from Chicago to points south.A station typology adopted by the Chicago Plan Commission on October 16, 2014, assigns the Kensington/115th Street station a typology of Local Activity Center. A Local Activity Center typology is primarily characterized by the Metra station being the central focus of a built-up and identifiable neighborhood.