The book begins with the title piece, "The House on Mango Street." The young narrator, Esperanza, recalls how her family did not always live on Mango Street and only moved to it in the 70s after living in a terrible place on the third floor of a rundown building on Loomis Street. There was a Laundromat on the first floor of that building, which had been robbed, and as a result, boarded up, making the building look barren and dangerous. There were bars on the windows of her third floor home, so that she and her brothers and sister would not fall out onto the street. (read more)