The Men of Brewster Place

Content Warning: This section discusses racism, suicide, and addiction.

The housing block where The Men of Brewster Place takes place symbolizes its residents’ oppression and disadvantage. Positioned in a forgotten corner of town, Brewster Place’s dead-end street suggests the residents’ lack of mobility and isolation from more affluent sectors of society. However, the street also “breathes through the hope or despair of its tenants” (171). It is still a place full of life, and its residents continue to hope for a better future and work hard, even if they are “just working at despair” (8). Ben argues that “a street is a street is a street” made of “cement and sand and water mixed up to dry” (7); it is a blank slate in which each character can cast his own experiences. By the novel’s end, Brewster Place is slated for demolition, and the street is quiet and abandoned. However, Abshu is the “tired warrior” walking into the dawn, suggesting the continued resilience of the block’s residents.

Brewster Place’s symbolic associations in this novel build on its function in The Women of Brewster Place. There, the women physically disassemble part of the block to transform it from a dead-end to a through street.