Skip to primary menu Skip to main content Skip to footer content

Our mission is to preserve, promote, and propel the right of all people to a place where they can live and prosper—a place to call home.

    REC Room

    A person looks at an album cover while standing in front of shelves full of vinyl records

    Browse our record collection

    Photo by Joe Nolasco.

    Exhibition

    • The REC Room,
      2nd floor

    • Free

    From Brooklyn to Los Angeles, Houston to Chicago, Minneapolis to Memphis. From Klezmer to Hip-Hop, Country to Latin Rock, the music that has emerged from public housing projects represents a range of popular sounds that have expanded our idea of American culture and American identity.

    Curated by DJ Spinderella, the REC Room celebrates both the music created by artists from public housing and the music that shaped residents’ experiences of public housing. 

    Browse our extensive collection of records, spin your favorites on our record player, and learn more about public housing music history.

    More exhibitions

    Explore what’s on view
    A map with a red line and silhouetted figures are projected on a wall

    Historic Apartments

    Three recreated apartments at the heart of the National Public Housing Museum showcase the stories of diverse families who lived in the Jane Addams Homes.

    Read more
    Museum visitors look at a midcentury high school letterman sweater

    History Lessons

    History Lessons offers intimate glimpses of life in public housing through everyday objects and personal memories.

    Read more
    On a sideways piece of lined notebook paper with old fashioned handwritten text, a pencil drawing of three indigenous women wrapped in blankets look directly at the viewer. At the top of the page is a sliver of a Chicago street map.

    Still Here

    Still Here uses art, archives, and public dialogue to explore and connect histories of displacement on the land where the National Public Housing Museum is located. As an institution that addresses displacement of public housing residents, we also want to understand the forcible removal of Indigenous peoples that came before and grapple with how those experiences are interwoven…

    Read more

    Exhibition Resources

    Additional resources available at the front desk.

    Discover more as a member.
    Join today.