Brewster-Douglass Housing Projects
building
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) comprised the largest government-subsidized residence and housing project owned by the city of Detroit. It was located in the Brush Park section on the east side of Detroit, Michigan, United States, near the Chrysler Freeway, Mack Avenue and St. Antoine Street. The project was named after Brewster Street, which ran through the area, and Frederick Douglass, African American abolitionist, author, and reformer. All of its buildings were demolished in phases between 2003 and 2014.
The complex was home to such notable figures as Diana Ross, Mary Wilson, Florence Ballard, Loni Love, Smokey Robinson, and Etterlene DeBarge during their formative 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 song "Boogie Chillen'".
“Brewster-Douglass Housing Projects” enters the record as building. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Brewster-Douglass, Housing and Projects can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Brewster-Douglass Housing Projects” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Brewster-Douglass, Housing and Projects provides the most credible route into that argument.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q911412. Authority coordinates are 42.345, -83.047. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2003 and 2014.
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This entry incorporates text from “Brewster-Douglass Housing Projects” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.