Brewster Housing Project - Detroit, MI - American Guide Series on Waymarking.com

76. The BREWSTER HOUSING PROJECT, an area of ten blocks bounded by Mack, Wilkins, Beaubien, and Hastings Sts., is one of the two Federal Housing projects in Detroit completed during 1938. Constructed on a 28-acre site formerly occupied by the worst slums in Detroit, the project, which cost $4,820,000, contains 701 dwelling units for Negroes in the lower middle-income bracket. Planned with open areas and superimposed on the original street pattern, the 39 buildings, though plain structures of reinforced concrete faced with brick, present a pleasing appearance in contrast to neighboring streets flanked with dilapidated houses. The dwelling units have two to five rooms each, for families of two to seven persons. Each unit includes a bath, kitchen, electric stove, refrigerating unit, and steam heat from a central plant. Annual rents range from $158.40 to $360. Applicants must be employed occupants of substandard quarters, who have lived in Detroit for more than one year. The minimum family income must be slightly more than four times, but not more than five times, the rent. An addition of 146 dwelling units has already been built and occupied at a cost of $640,000, and plans have been made for a still further enlargement of the project. The latest addition, which it is estimated will cost $400,000, will contain 92 dwelling units and will be built on land now owned by the Detroit Housing Commission. The design, in which space requirements and economy were stressed, was by the Eastfield Associates, a group of 15 architects supervised by George D. Mason.-Michigan: A Guide to the Wolverine State, 1941

It was such a strange site around this area when the six towers were demolished leaving an empty skyline in that section. Violence and crime had overtaken the area and the mayor did what he had to. The state of Michigan placed a historical marker at the site that reads:

Between 1910 and 1940 Detroit’s African American population increased dramatically. Faced with restrictions on where they could live, many African Americans were forced into substandard housing. 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 “a 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.

Photos of the Brewster Project before demolition here

Book: Michigan Page Number(s) of Excerpt: 273-274 Year Originally Published: 1941

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