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Storied Brewster-Douglass housing projects in Detroit may soon be demolished
March 11, 2012 | Comments
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The Brewster-Douglass towers offered low-income housing. / KATHLEEN GALLIGAN/Detroit Free Press
By Steve Neavling
Detroit Free Press Staff Writer
Filed Under
Local News
City of Detroit
Dave Bing
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The storied and abandoned Brewster-Douglass public housing complex that once offered housing to low-income Detroiters, including the families of Motown legends Diana Ross and Smokey Robinson, is now a towering symbol of the city's residential decline.
The four 14-story high-rise apartments -- decaying, windowless and tagged with graffiti -- greet drivers along I-75 across from Ford Field.
Two six-story apartments and rows of burned-out town houses also line the 30-acre grounds, littered with heaps of trash, vermin and discarded needles.
"Ain't nothing left," Angelo [[Baldy) Hill, 48, said, sitting on the steps of an abandoned town house that he occasionally uses for shelter. "Looks like a war came through here."
Across the freeway from downtown and adjacent to historic Brush Park, Brewster-Douglass may soon be demolished under a plan announced Wednesday by Mayor Dave Bing during his State of the City address.
"You've got a piece of property that is in a prime location, and we aren't getting anything out of it right now," Bing told the Free Press on Friday, adding that he met with U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Director Shaun Donovan on Thursday. "I think we can get the funding."
Asked what would replace the housing projects, Bing responded: "I can't get into that." But in his speech Wednesday, he said, "We will create affordable housing and commercial development in its place."
The Detroit Housing Commission, which is handling the demolition plans, said the area will be revitalized once the $9.8-million demolition project is completed. Plans also include renovating the abandoned and adjacent Brewster-Wheeler Recreation Center on Brewster Street, which once included a swimming pool, basketball court, open gym and game room, said Eugene Jones, executive director of the Detroit Housing Commission.
"We want to bring the rec center back to its old glory," Jones said.
Whatever replaces the housing projects, Jones said, will benefit Detroiters.
"We want to make a greater community that the residents deserve," Jones said. "We want to make sure the property is revitalized so it won't be vacant."
In the 1950s, so-called working poor Detroiters began occupying the Brewster-Douglass Housing Development, which went through many incarnations as apartments and were demolished and replaced with newer housing units.
In December 2000, a fire in one of the apartments killed five children. But drugs and crime, especially during the 1980s, began to deteriorate the community, leading to a drawn-out exodus that left the housing units vacant in 2008.
Despite its abandonment, the towers are still a draw to urban explorers and photographers, who often climb to the top for a bird's-eye view of downtown.
Once the buildings are demolished, Jones predicts the area will sprout with new growth.
"We owe it to the residents of Detroit to create something special," Jones said.
Contact Steve Neavling: 313-222-8655 or
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