A Brooklyn home with ties to the abolitionist movement was designated a historical landmark on Tuesday, effectively preserving an important piece of African American history in New York City.
Home of Brooklyn Abolitionists Receives Landmark Status
Twenty years of campaigning to preserve a Downtown rowhouse ends in success for neighborhood activists.
Shawné Lee, an owner of the property, at 227 Duffield Street, a house that historians believe was part of the Underground Railroad.Credit.Aundre Larrow for The New York Times
By Zachary Small
Feb. 3, 2021
After a 20-year effort by activists to save it from destruction, a rowhouse in Downtown Brooklyn received landmark status Tuesday for its connection to the antislavery movement of the 1800s.
A unanimous vote by the Landmarks Preservation Commission has designated the house, at 227 Duffield Street, as historically important. The designation prevents demolition of or alterations to the structure without the commission’s approval.
DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN, Brooklyn (WABC) A home in Brooklyn linked to the Underground Railroad was granted landmark status Tuesday, the culmination of a decades-long battle we profiled last year during Black History Month.
The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission s decided to preserve 227 Duffield Street, the last remaining original structure on a block co-named Abolitionist Place due to several anti-slavery activists who lived there during the mid-1800s, as a historical landmark.
Since her time on the New York City Council, Attorney General Letitia James has worked to preserve this historic site. In 2007, she passed legislation to rename the block of Duffield Street Abolitionist Place and successfully stopped the city from tearing down the structure for new development.
Save this story for later.
On February 17th, the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino, in Atlantic City, is to be demolished by implosion. Shuttered since 2014, the thirty-seven-year-old building has already been stripped of most of its concrete façade, falling chunks of which began crashing onto the boardwalk last year. Never an architectural treasure, it now resembles the shaky remainders of a truck bombing. Donald Trump hasn’t even owned it since 2009, and in 2016 his residual ties were severed in bankruptcy court. Yet a moot question must be raised: Might this building have merited preservation as a site for future generations to contemplate the forces and passions that shaped the forty-fifth President? If Abraham Lincoln or Theodore Roosevelt or even Grover Cleveland had owned a casino, wouldn’t it be cool if it were still standing and you could play a few slots?
Payson House. Photon: Alon Danino/City of Berkeley
A 132-year-old brown shingle house in North Berkeley bears an interesting history, but doesn’t warrant landmark preservation status under the city’s preservation laws, the City Council decided on Thursday.
The decision clears the way for the Payson House at 1915 Berryman St. to become a residential townhouse development with 10 units.
The front of the Payson House is blocked by several live oak trees. Photo: Supriya Yelimeli
About 70 Berkeley residents appealed the decision of the landmarks commission to the City Council. The January 21 appeal hearing was held remotely.
Subscribe to the Daily Briefing