Pruitt-Igoe was supposed to be the new model of urban housing and the answer to low-cost housing needs and overcrowding in post-World War II St. Louis. But within 20 years, several of the 33 11-story apartment buildings constituting Pruitt-Igoe would lie in rubble following their widely televised demolition. Thick, overgrown foliage and trees now blanket the vacant site where the uniform high-rises once stood.