[3] It was the start of the Chicago Housing Authority's post-war use of high-rise buildings to accommodate more units at a lower overall cost,[6] and when it opened in 1950, the first to have elevators.

[1][2] While still unfinished, it was used to receive lower-income residents displaced by redevelopment;[7] half the buildings were also increased in height by three floors when more money became available during construction.

[8] The buildings soon fell victim to vandalism; in 1958 a Chicago American reporter visited Dearborn and wrote of "torn window screens, mutilated storm doors, yards littered with garbage, .

[5][11] In 2006, following an undercover drug conspiracy bust, numerous people living at and near the housing project died of overdoses from a potent form of heroin.

[14] From 2009–2010, The Chicago Housing Authority renovated the buildings, adding detailing—stone quoins and triangular ball-topped gables and metal porches—to give the original plain brick a neo-Georgian appearance,[2] and has installed its first resident computer center there.