Wentworth Gardens struggles to bridge the gap between neighborhoods, gangs

Beatrice Harris, resident leader at Wentworth Gardens

Beatrice Harris calls everybody baby.

"How ya doin', baby?" "Hey, baby." "Don't worry about it, baby."

She's earned the right. As one of the matriarchs of Chicago's Wentworth Gardens, she says she's had a tough job in the last few years, trying to make one community out of a divided complex.

For years, Wentworth, a small housing development directly south of the White Sox stadium, served as a "relocation resource" in the Plan for Transformation. As Chicago tore down the massive high rises that were Wentworth's neighbors, like Stateway Gardens and the Robert Taylor Homes, Wentworth took in many of those displaced by the demolition.

The low-rise development is a patchwork quilt of families from different parts of the city: Altgeld Gardens, Ida B. Wells, Stateway, LeClaire Courts, Harold Ickes, Deaborn Homes and the list goes on. Like families are living together, Harris says. One whole corner of Wentworth is dedicated to former Ida B. Wells residents, a trend Harris says serves to further divide people.

"Nobody wants to trust nobody," she says.

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