The Last Days of Cabrini-Green Audiobook By Ben Austen, Harrison David Rivers cover art

The Last Days of Cabrini-Green

Preview

Try for $0.00
Access a growing selection of included Audible Originals, audiobooks, and podcasts.
You will get an email reminder before your trial ends.
Audible Plus auto-renews for $7.95/mo after 30 days. Upgrade or cancel anytime.

The Last Days of Cabrini-Green

By: Ben Austen, Harrison David Rivers
Narrated by: Ben Austen, Patina Miller, Harry Lennix, Corey Stoll
Try for $0.00

$7.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $24.95

Buy for $24.95

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

In 1992, the deadliest year in Chicago’s history, seven-year-old Dantrell Davis was shot and killed in front of his elementary school inside the public housing complex Cabrini-Green. What happened to Dantrell led to a truce among Chicago’s gangs, but it also ignited a national panic about poverty and violence in America’s cities. Dantrell’s name would soon be used to demolish all of Chicago’s high-rise public housing, displacing tens of thousands of low-income families.

Through first-person accounts, original reporting, and dramatized scenes, The Last Days of Cabrini-Green tells the story of Dantrell Davis and his mother Annette Freeman and how Cabrini-Green’s rise and fall changed the course of American public housing.

Please note: The Last Days of Cabrini-Green has some fictionalized accounts of real events, including violence.

This is a co-production from AT WILL MEDIA and Campside Media.

©2024 At Will Media (P)2024 Audible Originals, LLC
Black & African American Politics & Government True Crime
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

About the Creator

Ben Austen is a journalist from Chicago. He is the author of Correction: Parole, Prison, and the Possibility of Change, which was named one of the best books of 2023 by the Washington Post. His book High-Risers: Cabrini-Green and the Fate of American Public Housing was longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal of Excellence in Nonfiction and named a best book of the year by Booklist, Mother Jones and the public libraries of Chicago and St. Louis.
A former editor at Harper’s Magazine, Ben teaches in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Chicago. His feature writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, GQ, Wired and many other publications. He is the writer and host of the Audible Original podcasts The Parole Room and The Last Days of Cabrini-Green, and he is the co-host (with Khalil Gibran Muhammad) of the podcast Some of My Best Friends Are….

About the Creator

Harrison David Rivers is an award-winning playwright, librettist and television writer based in St. Paul, Minnesota. His works include The Salvagers (Yale Rep), we are continuous (Diversionary, Uptown Players, New Conservatory Theatre Center, Geva, Williamstown), the bandaged place (Roundabout), This Bitter Earth (Seattle Public, TheaterWorks Hartford, InterAct, About Face, Penumbra, New Conservatory Theatre Center), among others, and the musicals Last of the Red Hot Mamas with Sue and Lloyd Ecker (Bucks County Playhouse) and We Shall Someday with Ted Shen (Theater Latté Da). Harrison is currently under commission by Roundabout, Transport Group, La Jolla Playhouse, Geva, Penumbra and History Theatre. His television credits include Peacock’s One of Us is Lying, HBO’s The Nevers and Amazon’s Wytches. Harrison sits on the Board of Directors of The Movement Theatre Company and Playwrights’ Center.

About the Performer

Patina Miller recently made her highly anticipated Broadway return in the critically acclaimed revival of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s 1987 musical, Into The Woods. Miller received rave reviews starring as the Witch, a role she played during a Hollywood Bowl production of the musical in 2019. This marks the first time in 8 years that she graces the Broadway stage since she won a Tony Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical in 2013. Miller can currently be seen on screen as lead Raquel ‘Raq’ Thomas in STARZ’s critically acclaimed Powerbook III: Raising Kanan, which returns for Season 4 this winter. Miller’s Broadway credits include: Pippin (Tony Award winner, Outer Critics Circle Award winner, Drama League Award honoree and Fred & Adele Astaire Award nominee). Sister Act (Tony, Drama Desk, Drama League, Outer Critics Circle Award nominations and Theatre World Award winner). Off-Broadway: Ragtime, Lost in the Stars, Romantic Poetry. West End: Sister Act (Olivier Award nomination). TV and Film: Madam Secretary, Mercy Street, Word Party, All My Children, The Many Saints of Newark, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Parts 1 and 2. Miller performed her first solo concert at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts during its 2013-2014 theatrical season. She then made her New York City debut in February 2014 as part of Lincoln Center Theater’s “American Songbook” series, which subsequently aired on PBS. Miller received a degree in musical theater from Carnegie Mellon University and currently resides in New York City.

About the Performer

Harry Lennix currently stars as "Harold Cooper," Assistant Director of Counterterrorism for the FBI on the hit NBC series THE BLACKLIST.
Moviegoers worldwide saw Harry in the Warner Bros. blockbusters MAN OF STEEL and its sequel BATMAN VS SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE as "General Swanwick." Lennix received widespread critical acclaim and a Golden Satellite Award as "Aaron" in Julie Taymor’s TITUS with Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lange. Other film credits include CANAL STREET, TROUBLED WATERS, THE ALGERIAN, STATE OF PLAY, ACROSS THE UNIVERSE, the Oscar-winning RAY, BARBERSHOP 2, THE MATRIX: RELOADED, THE MATRIX: REVOLUTIONS and LOVE AND BASKETBALL.

About the Performer

Well known to film and television audiences, some of Stoll’s favorite roles include Billions as ‘Mike Prince', the Ant-Man films playing ‘Darren Criss/M.O.D.O.K.’, Midnight in Paris (Independent Spirit nomination,) West Side Story, The Many Saints of Newark, Ryan Murphy’s Ratched, four seasons of Guillermo Del Toro’s The Strain, and the first season of David Fincher’s House of Cards opposite Kevin Spacey and Rachel Brosnahan (Golden Globe nomination). He can also currently be seen on Netflix in Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon. Most recently he completed shooting the series The Better Sister for Amazon, starring opposite Jessica Biel and Elizabeth Banks.
Born and raised in New York, theater is his first love. He received a Tony nomination this season for his role opposite Sarah Paulson in Brandon Jacob-Jenkins’s APPROPRIATE. Other highlights include playing the title role in MACBETH at CSC, ‘Iago’ in OTHELLO and ‘Brutus’ in JULIUS CAESAR at the New York Shakespeare Festival’s Delacorte Theater, and in Lynn Nottage’s breakthrough INTIMATE APPAREL opposite Viola Davis (Drama Desk Award nomination.). Stoll has an MFA in Acting from NYU’s Tisch School.
He lives with his wife and son in Brooklyn, NY.

What listeners say about The Last Days of Cabrini-Green

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    30
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    27
  • 4 Stars
    5
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    30
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

An Incredible account of a senseless death in Chicago public housing and the public and political reaction to this tradgedy.

Ben Austen and team did an excellent job telling this story! I have a better understanding of the life in Cabrini Green, the people that lived there, the senseless tragedy of children, the plain clothes police and activists working there, and the community that made up the area.

In addition, I now have a better view into the Political Will throughout the decades to tackle problems that have existed in Chicago's Public Housing and the lives of people that have destroyed and stressed. I'm amazed, saddened, and impressed all at the same time at the conclusion of this program. Job well done !

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Unknown American history

I had heard of Cabrini-Green and watched the original "Candy Man" movie. Learning this much about the Cabrini-Green area and high-rises was interesting. I didn't know how the city of Chicago viewed the area. I enjoyed the story about Dantrell and knowing how his death impacted so many people and changes in the Chicago area. The narration and dramatizations were good. Definitely worth a listen.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A Must listen for every Chicagoan

This story is timeless —such an important listen. Every Chicagoan, especially those living where Cabrini Green once lived, should hear this podcast.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Chicago Housibg

I felt this was very informative. I had to re wind several times to absorb. So many lies over the years and so sad for the poor.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A Gripping and Necessary Work

This is a must-listen, heartbreaking, devastating depiction of political manipulation. Everybody knows the film Candyman, but the tragic story of the Cabrini-Green housing project is mostly unknown. For a Chicagoan like me, it brings back the memory of how the city of Chicago took advantage of people in need and how it lied to its low-income residents, how it destroyed the lives of so many people. Thank you for making this audiobook.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!