The article relates the squatting of an abandoned cafe by the women’s liberation movement in Geneva, and its transformation into a women’s center, to the politics of the urban social movements of the 1970s. While structured by a feminist understanding of urban power relations, the squat became practically linked to urban social movements’ claim to a “right to the city” and their opposition to urban planning and the destruction of quartiers populaires. The essay aims to show that the squat contained decisive practical and ideological elements that contributed to the development of the new urban social movements of the 1970s, laying the groundwork for the vibrant squatter movement of the 1980s.