Content Warning: This section of the guide contains descriptions of physical abuse and domestic violence.

The Women of Brewster Place begins with a short vignette that details how the housing block comes about through a series of “clandestine meetings” between an alderman and the director of a real estate company. The alderman wants the director’s company to build a shopping center, and the director wants the alderman to fire the district’s chief of police, who is “too honest to take bribes” (1). The two men reach an agreement, and as “an afterthought,” they also decide to construct Brewster Place, “four double-housing units on some worthless land in the badly crowded district” (1). Two years later, the alderman christens the block with a bottle of champagne while the community cheers. In the complex’s “youth,” the city is optimistic and filled with “a sense of promise” (2).

As the city grows, the boulevard alongside Brewster Place becomes a bustling thoroughfare, and the city decides to wall off some of the smaller streets to reduce traffic. The communities that inhabit these streets understand that losing access to the main boulevard will drain “the lifeblood of their community” (2), and they fight to keep

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