A History of the Logan Fontenelle Housing Projects

Aug 20, 2015

—

in Civic Infrastructure, Economics, Historic houses, Near North Side, North 16th Street, North 24th Street, Race riot, Racism, schools, White flight

Omaha’s original federally-funded public housing projects were cut from the mould. Built as long, low terrace-style apartments and as tall towers, they were well-cared for when they were filled with white people, and poorly up-kept and deeply despised when filled with African Americans. Regardless, they were home to thousands of families striving for something more, something closer to the American dream.

Once upon a time, there was a massive public housing project located at the intersection of North 24th and Paul Streets in the Near North Side neighborhood. Originally named the “Northside Village Public Housing Project,” the name was officially changed in honor of the famous Omaha tribe leader Logan Fontenelle. Starting in the late 1970s, these projects were unofficially known as “Little Vietnam”. They were called that in reference to the Vietnam War because of the violence that plagued the area for more than 25 years of their existence. They’re gone now, and many African American and white people act like they’d rather forget they ever existed.

In 1996, they were completely demolished and replaced by the mixed-income Conestoga Place neighborhood. This is a history of the Logan Fontenelle Projects.

This is an aerial pic of the Logan Fontenelle Housing Projects in the Near North Side neighborhood, circa 1954. Opened in 1938, there were more than 550 units in this complex, which was completely demolished in 1995.

Beginning of Omaha’s Projects

The federally-funded Logan Fontenelle Public Housing Projects were built in 1938-39 to house low-income residents. They were demolished in the late 1990s. They were located near N. 24th and Paul Streets.

Before there was a Logan Fontenelle Housing Project, there were houses, churches and other buildings filling this section of the Near North Side neighborhood. Located immediately north of downtown Omaha, the Near North Side is a historic district that was originally home to many European immigrant families, eventually becoming the center of Omaha’s African American culture, commerce and religious communities.

The original half of the Logan Fontenelle Projects was opened in 1938. Located at North 24th and Paul Streets, the second half was finished in 1941, finishing the final section to Clark and North 20th Street. At its peak, there were more than 550 units in the projects for more than 2,100 residents.

A group of officials poses in front of the office at the Logan Fontenelle Public Housing Project when it was initially completed in 1938.

Built by the federal government, these projects were originally the home to hundreds of new immigrants to the United States who were coming primarily eastern European countries, including Czechs, Slovaks, German Jews and others. Fleeing the oppression of the Nazi empire, these people desperately needed places to live and the government was trying to employ people through its Depression Era agency, the Public Works Administration.

Designed for utility, the projects were built as long, two story buildings. They were wrapped around a central courtyard with a playground owned by the City of Omaha. The Omaha School District maintained the Kellom Elementary School along the southern side of the projects.

These kids were playing on a playground at the Logan Fontenelle Project when this pic was taken in 1939.

These units were applauded for giving equal housing opportunities to whites and Blacks when they first opened. However, even early on, Logan Fontenelle was called “the ghetto.”

Designed to be temporary housing, when residents couldn’t escape the tension of poverty, they were originally charged more to stay. Eventually that practice stopped, and more and more the boundaries of the projects formed barriers to move out of, instead of opportunities to move beyond.

Things Changed

Officer Monroe Coleman talks with children living in Logan Fontenelle in 1948. Pic courtesy of the Omaha World-Herald.

As the European immigration ended after World War Two, white inhabitants of the projects continued to become better paid and moved out of Logan Fontenelle. The projects were still necessary though, and conditions became worse. In the 1950s, labor problems at the Omaha Stockyards and Black migration from the South brought a new rush of African Americans emigration to Omaha. The segregation that had kept Black families out of Logan Fontenelle Projects ended; however, it was replaced by segregation within the projects. There were separate units for Black families and white families, and kids weren’t allowed to play together.

Within a decade, the projects were almost entirely African American. By this point, the projects were the only modern homes available to Blacks in Omaha. Obvious from the surging Civil Rights movement in Omaha, the families in Logan Fontenelle were increasingly unhappy with the segregation, neglect, and racism they faced everyday in their neighborhood. Omaha’s police department notoriously over-policed the area, working to ensure Blacks stayed within carefully decided lines drawn by the city’s real estate, insurance, and bank industries. The neighboring Kellom school became entirely segregated shortly after African Americans moved into the projects, too.

Conditions got worse at the projects over the years. Buildings weren’t kept in good condition, as the need for low-income housing became greater, the units got packed. Too many people living in too few places in a confined area created a boiling pot of violence and righteous indignation. Despite struggling with this issue for decades, the Nebraska Legislature and Omaha Housing Authority couldn’t manage to relieve the situation.

The projects led many people to achieve and succeed, escaping the clutches of community depression, racism, and white privilege. Baseball player Bob Gibson grew up in Logan Fontenelle, just like media titan Cathy Hughes of Radio One.

Others never made it out.

Police Violence and Riots

Omaha Police officer James Loder and 14-year-old Vivian Strong. In 1969, Loder killed Strong during a check-in at the Logan Fontenelle Projects.

In 1969, a police officer shot an unarmed Black youth in the head near the projects. Vivian Strong, a 14-year-old who lived in Logan Fontenelle, came to see a neighbor getting arrested by police. When police called at her and her friends, they ran away. An officer pulled out his gun and shot her dead.

After a judge found the officer not guilty, youth from the projects and surrounding neighborhood descended on the North 24th Street commercial district and started rioting. Firebombing a dozen buildings, the riot took several days to stop, with armed National Guard members eventually sending all the protesters and rioters home. This was one of four major riots that ate away North Omaha’s commercial and cultural heart.

Citizens in the projects regularly clashed with police, who alternately ignored Logan Fontenelle and over-policed the area. In a recent memoir, one Omaha policeman bragged they were allowed to keep their practices after being suspended by a chief for these practices. “Luckily for me that chief of police did not last much longer.” [*] A

Alternately though, police regularly ignored the neighborhood too. In 1988, The New York Times reported on a part of Logan Fontenelle called the crack corner for its drug deals.

Demolition

This is the new Logan Fontenelle Park at N. 21st and Charles Streets.

With remorse by few and no obituary, the Omaha Housing Authority began demolishing the projects in 1991, and finished completely in 1995. Today, there is no plaque where they stood. There’s little acknowledgment anywhere beyond the Wikipedia article I wrote.

After being forcibly kept in the projects for more than 40 years by racist policies and practices, a group of African Americans sued the federal government for disallowing them to move from Logan Fontenelle. In 1994, they won a US Supreme Court trial called Hawkins v. Cisneros that called on the federal Housing and Urban Development agency and the Omaha Housing Authority to development options to the segregated projects.

Since then, the area was redeveloped with suburban-style single-family homes, New Urbanist-type houses, and businesses.

Comments

8 responses to “A History of the Logan Fontenelle Housing Projects”

Laurel Danner Royal

August 26

I am so glad I don’t remember all of this,and I lived there during this time!

Reply
1. Mike Berney
  
  October 3
  
  My Family also lived in the Logan Fontenelle Projects. Still remember our address, 1711 North 21st.. Just north of the park. I recall that area a lot. Went to St. john’s school on the Creighton campus.. Recall Shrago’s grcery store on 16th and Clark, the Bonton Tavern . Our neighbor the Seymours, the Father worked at TIPTOP on 16th st. Remember the Kellom School and pool. Glad they are gone now. such a nice area it is now..
  
  Reply
  1. Leon Hollins
    
    October 4
    
    Such a rich set of titanium memories as a product of the LF housing projects (2214 Charles Street). Bob Gibson as our baby sitter on occasion, Josh Gibson as our neighborhood role model, Rodney and Maggie Weed as neighborhood mentors, the Goldston family’s generosity, the Omar man’s deliveries, fear of Ms. Fletcher’s social services visits, the Park Wagon Show performances during the summers, the old Kellom School red brick building with high windows requiring a pole hook to open and shut them, the Fuller brush man, the Metropolitan Insurance man’s weekly knock for parents to pay their premiums, horse drawn wagons selling melons for two cents per pound, the smell of girl hair and vasoline married into Shirley Temple curls every Easter eve, the ugly sight of maggots in the community trash cans during July/August,lest I forget the bookmobile visits on Saturdays sponsored by Omaha Public Schools, occasional Saturday cartoon shows at the Orpheum Theatre with the entry cost of five Folger coffee keys.
    
    So many memories, so many athletes per capita, so many welfare families, so few Black educators, so many jewish shop keepers, so many liquor stores on North 24th Street.
Quatesha Kern

May 19

I think it is historically and culturally disrespectful for the City of Omaha to not create a positive historical monument of lives and times of Families that grew up in the Logan Fontanelle Housing Projects. I proudly grew up there (2207 Seward Plaza) and became a successful member of society. People that are from there deserve beyond the jaded history that society would like to “forget” or pardon from the Omaha’s history. Vietnam for Life!!!

Reply
Leon Hollins

October 25

I, too was born and reared as an African American child in the Logan Fontenelle projects. My address was 2214 Charles Street. While most of our neighbors were considered poor – we all had obvious pride and promise. I recall fondly of North 24th Street; which was five walking distance minutes from our apartments, and there we would shop at the establishments owned by our own, i.e., drug stores, clothing shops, you name it. I also remember being babysat by the late Bob Gibson who was a neighbor at the time.
There are so many memories to recount – most of which bring wide smiles of recollection.

Reply
Niles M Hansen DDS

February 28

Lived in LFH form1951 -1957. Address was 1725 North 21st Street. At the time my father was student at Creighton University. This was post WW2 and there were other married Creighton student families, mostly med and dent students .My guess is that there was some sort of agreement with Creighton to house their professional students. I have many fond memories of living there. I was sad when I went back and saw them demolished, but it had to be done. Now there is a nice single family house at 1725 North 21st Street. What a change! Fontenell Park was still there. It was our playground. I remember it as being white. I remember playing with the black kids across Clark Street along Clark Street the ngoing to our respective communities/homes at evening time. I remember walking home from St. John grade school on creighton campus and down North 24th Street and stopping at various stores to but candy and riding my bicycle north of Clark street into black neighborhoods. I guess I was too dumb or too young and innocent to know about racism at that time.

Reply
Liggins Legacy-building in ‘this life’ – GoodGenesGenealogyServices 2.0

March 20

[…] as youthful residents in the Logan Fontenelle Housing Development “The ‘jects” https://northomahahistory.com/2015/08/20/a-history-of-the-logan-fontenelle-housing-projects/. Cathy’s Dad, William Alfred Woods, attended Creighton University and became the first […]

Reply
Mike Alberts

October 28

This was my mom’s childhood home and while the buildings were segregated she said all the kids played together which is how she got to know Bob Gibson and how we became lifelong Cardinal fans!

Reply