A portrait of street life in a New York neighborhood depicts routines, desires, and everyday conflicts through close domestic observation and scenes of public bustle. The narrative follows a young woman negotiating sexual self-awareness and survival within a crowded family household, and a tough, volatile youth whose loyalty to kin coexists with a taste for fighting and criminal ventures. Vivid physical description and colloquial speech convey social ambitions, petty cruelties, and a hardening city atmosphere as the action moves between cramped interiors, noisy elevated trains, and tawdry storefronts.