In the lobby of the McCormick Tribune Center, the barrel of a gun sits eye-level with the viewer. A young man leans against a ladder, staring at it critically. He is unfazed only because it was his camera 2 feet away from that gun.

The man — photographer Jack Bridges — began recording the demise of Chicago’s Robert Taylor Homes, once the largest federal housing project in the world, about three years ago. His work was unveiled for public viewing Wednesday.

“I started out documenting abandoned apartments,” Bridges said. “I would sneak into buildings and take pictures of people’s belongings that I found — a Bible, a pair of handcuffs. It didn’t come alive until I started doing portraits.”

Bridges, Medill ’02, “went in cold,” inspired by an interest in city life and photographer Bruce Davidson’s “East 100th Street,” a book about Spanish Harlem in 1970.

“I was really taking risks with my career,” Bridges said. “I had no grant, no one helping me. All I had was faith in a self-compelling body of work.”

But there was something else Bridges was missing: a single acquaintance in the struggling community. Rather than going in, taking pictures and getting out, Bridges spent time meeting and hanging out with residents or bringing copies of portraits he had taken to gain their trust. He became known as “the picture man.”

“I got sucked in,” Bridges said. “I took people to the hospital, I babysat. I realize I’m not going to win any ethics awards, but they appreciated that I committed so much of my own life.”

The 44 prints are some of the only visual records of Chicago’s tragic “$70 million ghetto.” In the autumn of 1962, the Robert Taylor Homes represented a “new era” for public housing. But by the latter part of the decade, the economy of the community began to plummet, and the first building was demolished in 1998.

Stephan Garnett, a Medill lecturer who had Bridges in class and did the writing for the project, said the photos represent the lost dreams of thousands of impoverished residents.

“I remember it from my childhood,” Garnett said. “I remember the euphoria, the hope that people had when it opened. It was a new project just for them, and it all went so wrong so quickly.”

Many of the audience members who attended the opening inquired as to whether the Chicago Housing Department had seen the photos, and what would be done with the property after the last building was demolished.

Wendy Walker, assistant commissioner for the City of Chicago Department of Planning and Development, said the homes will be rebuilt into mixed-income housing.

“It will be one-third public, one-third affordable, and one-third market rate,” Walker said.

In a 15-minute video presentation, directed by Bridges and written and narrated by Garnett, viewers came face to face with the residents of the community.

They met people who shared three-bedroom apartments with eight other people, and children for whom doing well in school is far less worthwhile than making $1,000 a day

dealing drugs.

“The peoples’ space in the photos is very clean … but it’s very clean because there’s nothing there,” Communication junior Justin Hwang said. “There’s a sadness of reality, a reminder that there’s people there that we forget about.”

Reach Kristyn Schiavone at [email protected].