Artist begins three-month public engagement
process for contentious Abolitionist Place
BY KIRSTYN BRENDLEN
The artist selected by the
city to design installations for
Downtown Brooklyn’s Abolitionist
Place started a threemonth
public engagement process
for the project last week,
seeking community input for
the controversial project.
“The goal of the public programming
is to hear from different
communities about how
they are making sense of abolitionist
pasts, abolitionist presents,
and abolitionist futures in
order for me to generate the text
to be engraved and featured on
the free-standing structure,”
the artist, Brooklyn-based Kameelah
Janan Rasheed, wrote
on her website.
The city’s Department of
Cultural Affairs chose Rasheed
in 2020 to create a public
art piece commemorating
the history of the Abolitionist
movement and the Underground
Railroad in the neighborhood.
Last year, the Public
Design Commission approved
her conceptual designs for the
project.
Local activists and historians
COURIER L 30 IFE, FEB. 4–10, 2022
have long been at odds
with the city’s Economic Development
Corporation ever
since the agency announced
plans to use eminent domain
to demolish homes on Duffield
Street, which has since in
2004, to make way for a park –
what has since become Abolitionist
Place. In 2008, the city
announced that they would be
providing $2 million for “In
Pursuit of Freedom,” which
included funding for an art
installation commemorating
local anti-slavery activity, at
the park. Last year, neighbors
spoke out against the Rasheed’s
proposal, saying it did not adequately
represent local abolitionist
history, and the EDC for
a lack of transparency as they
commissioned the piece.
“I want to jump immediately
into an overview of the
concerns that have been expressed
about the public art
portion of this project, in particular
what I have sort of offered
as a proposal,” Rasheed
said at a virtual introduction
session on Jan. 24. “I think it’s
always good to start at a place
of, I love this. This is really exciting
for me, and I’m really
excited to be a part of this process,
and to hear from people
about the things that they’re
feeling about the project and
about my contribution.”
In her approved proposal,
Rasheed said her work, titled
“Questions Worth Having Answers
To,” would feature engraved
text acknowledging
the future of abolition on the
ground and on benches around
the park, and install a freestanding
statue. Neighbors and
activists immediately criticized
the work for not acknowledging
local anti-slavery activists,
including Harriet and
Thomas Truesdell, who lived
at 227 Duffi eld St., directly beside
the future park, or sisters
Sarah Smith Garnet and Dr.
Susan Smith McKenney.
Rasheed noted that she had
also been accused of being a
“puppet” of the EDC, and that
some locals had said that the
public engagement process was
“fake,” and that the feedback
she received would be ignored.
“What I’m hoping to do tonight
Artist Kameelah Janan Rasheed started the public engagement process
for her upcoming art installation at Abolitionist Place last week, to mixed
reviews from neighbors. Photo by NYC EDC
is not to petition for your
like of me or for the project, but
just to actually inform folks a
bit more about what the project
is designed around and ideas
that are important, as well as
the community engagement
process,” she said.
For now, that engagement
process includes a second introductory
session on Feb. 7
and two meetings of an “Abolition
Study Group,” though
the fi rst meeting of the study
group, on Jan. 30, was cancelled
just before the event was
set to start. Rasheed will also
be connecting directly with
local organizations and residents,
and invites them to send
their thoughts or schedule a
phone call on her website.
Last year, the city landmarked
and purchased 227
Duffi eld St., the fi nal house remaining
on the block, scrapping
a developer’s plans to demolish
the home and ending
a years-long struggle between
city offi cials, local activists,
and the residents of the houses.
This story has been edited for
brevity. For more on the public
engagement process surrounding
Abolitionist Place, visit
BrooklynPaper.com.
BY SUSAN DE VRIES
All traces of the streamlined
bands of ornament that
once graced the facade of the
former Fulton Street F.W.
Woolworth store are gone,
leaving a blank slate as the
building preps for a new look.
Filings show that plans for
facade repairs on the building
at 408 Fulton St. in Downtown
Brooklyn, which now houses a
Foot Locker, were approved in
April of 2021. A permit for converting
the two upper stories
to use as storage was issued in
June.
Upper windows were fi lled
in with cement block by the
summer, a photo on Google
Maps shows. Recently removed
scaffolding reveals upper
stories wrapped in cladding.
No longer visible are
the zig zag-ornamented aluminum
window spandrels
and vertical details that decorated
the upper stories of
what was a limestone facade.
Steven Gambino of Architectural
Collaborative is the architect
of record for the work.
The building has been owned
by Wharton Properties since
it was sold by Macy’s in 2001.
Construction originally
began on the building in 1936
and it was opened to some
fanfare in June of 1937 as the
“largest and most elaborate”
of the Woolworth stores in
Brooklyn. According to the
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, deluxe
appointments included
its own bakery, a lunch counter,
air conditioning, marble
fl oors and walnut counters.
The store was designed by
Arthur F. Winter and the published
notice of the plan fi lings
list his working address as
that of the Woolworth Building
in Manhattan. The notice
also classifi ed the building as
a four-story “5 & 10 cent store.”
It wasn’t the fi rst Woolworth on
Downtown Brooklyn’s Fulton
Street; the company had grown
out of two prior buildings before
constructing this new
store on the corner of Gallatin
Place. The retailer operated out
of the building until the struggling
company closed the last
of its remaining stores in 1997.
Unlike nearby stretches of
Fulton Street where buildings
are making way for taller towers,
it appears that 408 Fulton
St. will stay at its current size,
just with a new look.
Monumental action
Downtown’s old Woolworth’s loses art
deco facade as it awaits remodeling
BROOKLYN
Total strip show
(Left) The stripped facade of the former Woolworth’s in Downtown Brooklyn. (Right) The building in 2017.
Photos by Susan De Vries
/BrooklynPaper.com