Haitian community launches campaign to
save Brooklyn school, historic landmark
By Nelson A. King
A group of Haitian immigrants,
parents and faith leaders in Brooklyn
on Sept. 16 launched an effort
to build rent-stabilized housing in
Crown Heights that will also fund
the restoration of their historic
school building.
“This project will protect our past
and ensure our future by raising
needed funds to restore our school
building while providing rent-stabilized
housing for the Crown Heights
community,” said Dr. Daniel Honore,
the Haitian-born president of
the Northeastern Conference of the
Seventh-day Adventist Church.
“It is rare that affordable housing
for a community can be built in
order to preserve its history and save
a school,” he added. “But our proposal
does just that.”
Dr. Honore said the 40-year-old
Hebron Seventh-day Adventist Bilingual
School will be the beneficiary
of a collaboration with Hope Street
Capital to build more than 180 units
of rent-regulated housing on a parking
lot behind the school’s 131-yearold
landmarked building in Crown
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Heights, if the city’s Landmarks
Preservation Commission approves
the proposed project.
Proceeds will go toward making
needed repairs to the structure,
which has deteriorated in recent
years, Dr. Honore said.
He said the Hebron School – which
primarily teaches lower-income children
from Brooklyn’s Haitian Community
– is already in danger of
closing and that the school will not
be able to open and operate for this
upcoming 2020 school year due to
the current hazardous structural
conditions.
“We are proud to be a part of the
Crown Heights community, where
we have educated young Haitian
immigrants at our bilingual school
for 40 years as the first Haitian Seventh
day Adventist Church in North
America,” said school leader Pastor
Moise Manigat.
“We see it as our responsibility to
preserve a piece of Crown Heights’
history by restoring our landmarked
school building,” he added. “At the
same time, this project would allow
us to keep providing young people
from modest backgrounds with a
strong education and the foundation
they need to launch their lives
in America.”
By building rent-stabilized housing
on the vacant land, including 30
percent of affordable rental units, Dr.
Honore said the school will be able
to raise the funds needed to preserve
its building.
He said the new apartments will
also fit the style of the neighborhood,
following an understated redbrick
design purposely reminiscent
and respectful of the adjacent landmarked
building and similar in size
to nearby buildings.
The project’s developer, Hope
Street Capital, has won approvals
in the past to work on landmarked
properties, including a recent collaboration
with the 19th century
landmark Church of St. Luke and
St. Matthew preserve at 520 Clinton
Ave. in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, Dr.
Honore said.
He said the school families and
congregants of the church are organizing
to advance the project, as it
goes through a landmarks process.
Dr. Daniel Honore.
Photo courtesy of Dr. Daniel Honore
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