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BROOKLYN WEEKLY, JULY 5, 2020
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
City landmarking gurus will
soon vote on whether to landmark
a 19th century row house that once
housed slavery abolitionists at 227
Duffi eld St. in Downtown Brooklyn,
after a push from City Hall, offi
cials said at a Tuesday hearing.
“We have been increasingly
seeking to address diffi cult history
in our designations, documenting
when there was institutional racism
and racist government policies,”
said Sarah Carroll, chairwoman
and a commissioner of the
city’s Landmarks Preservation
Commission at a June 30 virtual
hearing. “And one aspect of our research
has been the people and the
institutions engaged with the antislavery
movement before the civil
war, whether through political and
religious activism or by housing
freedom seekers.”
The preservationists panel
scheduled a public hearing “in the
near future” on potentially granting
a landmark designation to the
building, which housed two prominent
anti-slavery activists for more
than a decade in the mid-1800s, citing
a push to do so by Mayor Bill de
Blasio and the ongoing movement
of nationwide protests decrying police
brutality against Black people.
“The fact that consideration of
the property aligns with our commitment
to tell the complete story
of the African-American experience
and heritage in New York City
through its designations — especially
in this current moment — I’d
like to urge that we vote to calendar
this property for consideration as
an individual landmark,” Carroll
said.
Abolitionists Thomas and Harriet
Lee-Truesdell lived in the
building from 1851 to 1863 and it remained
in their family’s possession
until 1921, LPC researcher Kate Lemos
McCale said.
The couple were founders of
several abolitionist organizations
in New England and were also acquaintances
of prominent abolitionist
and suffragist journalist
William Lloyd Garrison, who cofounded
the American Anti-Slavery
Society, said to the researcher.
The home, along with several
others along Duffi eld and Gold
streets, may have served as stops
along the Underground Railroad,
according to local lore — although,
McCale and her fellow researchers
found no evidence of any such stops
at the site. Those networks, she
said, are often hard to verify.
“Verbal accounts that 227 Duffield
was a stop on the Underground
Railroad have not been verifi ed after
extensive research and physical
analysis,” she said at the hearing.
“However, historians agree that
227 Duffi eld St. in Downtown Brooklyn. Photo by Susan De Vries
housing fugitives and enslaved persons
was a dangerous and secretive
activity making Underground Railroad
activity diffi cult to document
or verify.”
If LPC votes to landmark the
building, any alteration, reconstruction,
demolition, or new construction
affecting the structure
would have to be approved by the
agency fi rst.
The building changed ownership
several times, and developer
Samiel Hanasab bought it from the
two remaining owners at a combined
price of $588,000 between
2015-2017 — a steal in the business
district where properties frequently
fetch millions. Hanasab fi led for demolition
in June 2019, but the structure
has remained standing.
An attorney for the developer
said his client was strongly against
landmarking the building, claiming
the restrictions would scare
away any development of the site
— but they would be wiling to include
a museum on the lower fl oors
of their planned 10-story development.
“We believe it’s in the best interest
of the community to allow
us to develop the property and put
the museum in there and my client
is willing to be bound by that,” he
said.
Preserving history
City to consider landmarking famed
abolitionist house in Downtown Brooklyn