The Brewster-Douglass Housing Projects (officially named the Frederick Douglass Homes, and alternately named Frederick Douglass Projects, Frederick Douglass Apartments, Brewster-Douglass Homes, and Brewster-Douglass Projects) were the largest residential

housing project Public housing, also known as social housing, refers to Subsidized housing, subsidized or affordable housing provided in buildings that are usually owned and managed by local government, central government, nonprofit organizations or a ...

owned by the city of

Detroit Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...

. It was located in the

Brush Park The Brush Park Historic District is a neighborhood located in Detroit, Michigan.Detroit Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, near the

Chrysler Freeway The Chrysler Freeway is the name given to a freeway in the Detroit area. It is composed of: *Interstate 375 (Michigan) south of the junction with the Fisher Freeway *Interstate 75 in Michigan Interstate 75 (I-75) is a part of the Interst ...

, Mack Avenue and St. Antoine Street. The housing project is named after Brewster Street, which ran through the area, and

Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, February 14, 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, Abolitionism in the United States, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. He was the most impor ...

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

abolitionist Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the political movement to end slavery and liberate enslaved individuals around the world. The first country to fully outlaw slavery was Kingdom of France, France in 1315, but it was later used ...

, author, and reformer. It was demolished in phases between 2003 and 2014. The complex was home to such notable figures as

Diana Ross Diana Ross (born Diane Ernestine Earle Ross March 26, 1944) is an American singer and actress. Known as the "Queen of Motown Records", she was the lead singer of the vocal group the Supremes, who became Motown#Major divisions, Motown's most suc ...

, Mary Wilson,

Florence Ballard Florence Glenda Chapman (''née'' Ballard; June 30, 1943 – February 22, 1976) was an American singer and a founding member of the Motown vocal female group the Supremes. She sang on 16 top 40 singles with the group, including ten number- ...

Loni Love Loni Love (born July 12, 1971) is an American comedian, television host, actress, author, and former electrical engineer. While working as an electrical engineer in the early 2000s, she switched to music engineering, until later launching a caree ...

, and

Etterlene DeBarge Etterlene Louise Rodriguez (previously DeBarge, née Abney; October 13, 1935 – February 16, 2024) was an American gospel singer, songwriter, and the matriarch of the American R&B/soul vocal group DeBarge. She was the author of ''Other Side ...

, during their early years.

History

Hastings Street

Hastings Street, originally the center of the Jewish community in Detroit, had become the center of Black culture in Detroit between the 1920s and the 1950s. Located at the southern edge of the future Brewster-Douglass Homes, the street was the home of innumerable salons and entertainment venues. With the addition of the high-rises and an influx of people moving into the housing, Hastings Street was billed as the place one could fulfill any conceivable need. Hastings Street was most famously referenced in the

John Lee Hooker John Lee Hooker (August 22, 1912 or 1917 – June 21, 2001) was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. The son of a sharecropper, he rose to prominence performing an electric guitar-style adaptation of Delta blues that he develo ...

song "

Boogie Chillen' "Boogie Chillen'" or "Boogie Chillun" is a blues song first recorded by John Lee Hooker in 1948. It is a solo performance featuring Hooker's vocal, electric guitar, and rhythmic foot stomps. The lyrics are partly autobiographical and alternate ...

Brewster-Douglass Homes

The Brewster Project and Frederick Douglass Apartments were built between 1935 and 1955. They were designed by Harley, Ellington & Day of Detroit. The Brewster Project began construction in 1935, when First Lady

Eleanor Roosevelt Anna Eleanor Roosevelt ( ; October 11, 1884November 7, 1962) was an American political figure, diplomat, and activist. She was the longest-serving First Lady of the United States, first lady of the United States, during her husband Franklin D ...

broke ground for the 701-unit development. The first phase, consisting of low-rise apartment blocks, was completed in 1938. An expansion of the project completed in 1941 brought the total number of housing units to 941. The Frederick Douglass Apartments, built immediately to the south of the Brewster Project, began construction in 1942. Apartment rows, two 6-story low-rises, and six 14-story high rises were completed between 1952 and 1955. The combined Brewster-Douglass Project was five city blocks long, and three city blocks wide, and housed anywhere between 8,000 and 10,000 residents at its peak capacity. The Brewster-Douglass Project were built for the "

working poor The working poor are working people whose incomes fall below a given poverty line due to low-income jobs and low familial household income. These are people who spend at least 27 weeks in a year working or looking for employment, but remain und ...

". The Detroit Housing Commission required an employed parent for each family before establishing tenancy. As the Commission became less selective, crime became a problem in the 1960s and 1970s, and the projects fell into disrepair. The Frederick Douglass Apartment towers were converted to senior housing. In 1991, the low-rise apartment blocks north of Wilkins Street, the original Brewster Project, were demolished, and by 1998 had been replaced with 250 townhomes. This new public housing, administratively distinct from the Frederick Douglass Homes project, was dubbed the "Brewster Homes", and still exists today. The remaining housing on the project site continued to deteriorate. Two of the six 14-story Frederick Douglass Apartments towers, 303 and 304, were demolished in 2003, in an effort to consolidate living space and reduce maintenance costs. By 2008, only 280 families remained in the Frederick Douglass Homes complex, and the decision was made to shut down the housing entirely. The buildings south of Wilkins street were left abandoned after that date. On July 29, 2013, 23-year-old French artist Bilal Berreni was found dead from a gunshot wound on the property of Brewster-Douglass, having last been seen the day before. Found without identification, Berreni's body was not identified for 7 months. Jasin Curtis and Drequone Rich each pled guilty to second degree murder and received 25–30 year prison sentences in 2015. Dionte Travis received a 60-year prison sentence in January 2016. Demolition of the remaining buildings of the Frederick Douglass Homes began in September 2013. Demolition was substantially complete by the end of August 2014. From historic marker on the site of Brewster Homes

Between 1910 and 1940
Detroit Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...
,
Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...
's
African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...
population increased dramatically. In 1935, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt broke ground for the Brewster Homes, the nation’s first federally funded public housing development for African Americans. The homes opened in 1938 with 701 units. When completed in 1941 there were 941 units bounded by Beaubien, Hastings, Mack and Wilkins Streets. Residents were required to be employed and there were limits on what they could earn. Former residents described Brewster as 'community filled with families that displayed love, respect and concern for everyone in a beautiful, clean and secure neighborhood.' The original Brewster Homes were demolished in 1991 and replaced by 250 townhouses.

Demolition

In March 2012,

Mayor of Detroit This is a list of mayors of Detroit, in the U.S. state of Michigan. The current mayor is Mike Duggan, who was sworn into office on January 1, 2014. History of Detroit's executive authority During the earliest part of its history, Detroit was a ...

Dave Bing David Bing (born November 24, 1943) is an American former professional basketball player, businessman and politician who served as the 74th mayor of Detroit, Michigan from 2009 to 2014. He is a member of the Democratic Party. After starring at ...

announced that the Detroit Housing Commission planned to request funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to demolish all remaining housing on the Frederick Douglass Homes site, but redevelop the abandoned

Brewster Brewster may refer to: People *Brewster (surname) *Brewster Kahle (born 1960), American computer technologist * Brewster H. Shaw (born 1945), American astronaut * Grace Brewster Hopper (born 1906), American computer scientist, mathematician, and ...

-Wheeler Recreation Center. The vacant land would then be developed as affordable housing and commercial space. The demolition was announced in November 2012 and began in September 2013.

Constituent buildings

The six concrete-framed towers were designed in the

Modern movement Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

architectural style An architectural style is a classification of buildings (and nonbuilding structures) based on a set of characteristics and features, including overall appearance, arrangement of the components, method of construction, building materials used, for ...

and were faced in brick. They were virtually identical in look. Each rose to the height of 15 floors.

Schools

The buildings were zoned to the following

Detroit Public Schools Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD) is a school district that serves Detroit, Detroit, Michigan, and high school students in Highland Park, Michigan. The district, which replaced the original Detroit Public Schools (DPS) in 2016, ...

facilities: * Spain Elementary School (K–8) * Martin Luther King High School (9–12)High School Boundary Map
"

. Retrieved on October 20, 2009.

In popular culture

* The

claymation Claymation, sometimes called clay animation or plasticine animation, is one of many forms of stop-motion animation. Each animated piece, either character or background, is "deformable"—made of a malleable substance, usually plasticine cl ...

animated series An animated series, or a cartoon series, is a set of Animation, animated films with a common title, usually related to one another. These episodes typically share the same main heroes, some different secondary characters and a basic theme. Series ...

The PJs ''The PJs'' is an American adult stop motion-animated black sitcom created by Eddie Murphy, Larry Wilmore, and Steve Tompkins for Fox. It portrays life in an urban public housing project. The series starred Eddie Murphy, and it was produced by ...

'' was based on the housing project. * It was seen in screenshots for the movie ''

Dreamgirls ''Dreamgirls'' is a Broadway musical, with music by Henry Krieger and lyrics and book by Tom Eyen. It is based on the show business aspirations and successes of R&B acts such as The Shirelles, James Brown, Jackie Wilson, and others, and p ...

'', as well as

D12 D12 (an initialism for the Dirty Dozen) was an American hip hop group from Detroit, Michigan. Formed in 1996, the group achieved mainstream success with its lineup of ''de facto'' leader Eminem, Proof, Bizarre, Kon Artis, Kuniva and Swifty McV ...

's debut music video. * Brewster-Douglass is mentioned in the first verse of singer/drag queen

RuPaul RuPaul Andre Charles (born November 17, 1960) is an American drag queen, television host, singer, producer, writer, and actor. He produces, hosts, and judges the reality competition series ''RuPaul's Drag Race'' and has received List of awards ...

's hit single "

Supermodel (You Better Work) "Supermodel (You Better Work)" is a song by American dance music singer and drag queen RuPaul. It was released as a double A-sided single alongside " House of Love" on November 17, 1992 by Tommy Boy Records. The song served as the lead single fr ...

". * Rapper

Elzhi Jason Powers (born May 12, 1978), better known by his stage name Elzhi (stylized as eLZhi), is an American rapper from Detroit, Michigan. He is a former member of Slum Village and now records as a solo artist. In his youth, he made numerous visi ...

shot the album cover for his 2011 album '' Elmatic'' at the Brewseter-Douglass basketball court. * It is the location for the copper scavenging scenes of ''

Ryan Gosling Ryan Thomas Gosling ( ; born November 12, 1980) is a Canadian actor. His work includes both independent films and major studio features, and his accolades include a Golden Globe Award, in addition to nominations for three Academy Awards, a ...

s 2014 surreal fantasy thriller, '' Lost River''. * It is the setting for the basketball court scene of the 2014 science fiction drama '' Monsters: Dark Continent''.

References

External links

Fredrick Douglass Projects at Detroiturbex.com

Google Maps location of Frederick Douglass Homes

SkyscraperPage.com's pages on Frederick Douglass Homes
* {{Detroit African-American history in Detroit Public housing in Detroit Residential buildings completed in 1955 Demolished buildings and structures in Detroit 1955 establishments in Michigan 2014 disestablishments in Michigan Buildings and structures demolished in 2014 Urban decay in the United States