"Blackwood, there's trouble in the old neighborhood! Murder in the sanctuary of the Church!" The church in question is St. Lucy's, a humble edifice at the heart of a venerable Chicago neighborhood now suffering the throes of gentrification. St. Lucy's has long stood as a bulwark against evil and change, which some in the community have often seen as much the same thing. Now three dead bodies have been left in the sanctuary, stripped, mutilated,...

On the streets of 1970s Brooklyn, a daily ritual goes down: the dance. Money is exchanged, belongings surrendered, power asserted. The promise of violence lies everywhere, a currency itself. For these children, Black, brown, and white, the street is a stage in shadow. And in the wings hide the other parents; cops; renovators; landlords; those who write the headlines, the histories, and laws; those who award this neighborhood its name. The rules appear...

Eight interconnected stories follow the tenants in the Banneker Homes, a low-income high rise in Harlem where gentrification weighs on everyone's mind, as they weave in and out of each other's lives, endeavoring to escape from their pasts and forge new paths forward.

"Sydney Green is Brooklyn born and raised, but her beloved neighborhood seems to change every time she blinks. Condos are sprouting like weeds, FOR SALE signs are popping up overnight, and the neighbors she's known all her life are disappearing. To hold onto her community's past and present, Sydney channels her frustration into a walking tour and finds an unlikely and unwanted assistant in one of the new arrivals to the block -- her neighbor Theo....