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October 12, 2007

On the Trail of Brooklyn’s Underground Railroad

The NY Times
By John Strausbaugh

To bring you up to date on the land grab in Downtown Brooklyn on Duffield Street, last month, the City dubbed the street, "Abolitionist Place." Then last week, the City withdrew its eminent domain determination for two historic homes because, according to an HPD official, "the city had failed to enter a blight determination into the public record." We can expect the City to make another pass at trying to condemn and demolish these homes.

Today, the Times ran an article on the history of the Brooklyn Underground Railroad, including a visit to the Duffield Street homes. There's no mention that the "plans to demolish the small houses" included their seizure by eminent domain.

LAST month the City of New York gave Duffield Street in downtown Brooklyn an alternate name: Abolitionist Place. It’s an acknowledgment that long before Brooklyn was veined with subway lines, it was a hub of the Underground Railroad: the network of sympathizers and safe houses throughout the North that helped as many as 100,000 slaves flee the South before the Civil War.
...
Even as the city unveiled the new sign, however, it was considering plans to demolish the small houses on Duffield Street as part of an economic development plan for downtown Brooklyn. New hotels, underground parking and a public square would replace much of what now stands on the block.

Joy Chatel, a cosmetologist who lives at 227 Duffield Street, and Lewis Greenstein, a retired city employee who owns 233, have fought that plan since it was announced in 2004. They believe their houses, both probably dating to the 1840s, were stops on the Underground Railroad and should be preserved.

In his sub-basement, Mr. Greenstein showed me what appeared to be a capped well and an exit shaft to the surface. Former tenants told him of finding old stoves and iron cauldrons there, since removed. It all led him to believe his house was “a feeding station” for escaped slaves passing through Brooklyn.

Posted by lumi at October 12, 2007 4:49 AM