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Brooklyn redevelopment faces Underground Railroad conflict

By Justin Rocket Silverman, amNewYork Staff Writer
More stories | jsilverman@am-ny.com

October 30, 2007

The city's vision for a massive, multibillion-dollar redevelopment of Downtown Brooklyn ran into more impassioned objections Monday at a public hearing debating whether the city can destroy homes that may have been stops on the Underground Railroad.

"It's my opinion that [the city] is being driven by the [the city's] Economic Development Corp.," said Councilwoman Letitia James (Working Families, Brooklyn), "an agency that has no oversight and does not take social or historical impacts into consideration."

Owners of the 19th century-era houses on Duffield Street say they have uncovered evidence that their homes were used to feed and shelter escaping slaves before the Civil War. But a $500,000 report commissioned by the city found otherwise, stating that although the neighborhood figured prominently in abolitionist and Underground Railroad history, the research could not "conclusively document" that 233 Duffield St. and six other nearby houses were stops on the way to freedom.

After the report was issued, the city pressed on with eminent domain action to take ownership of the Duffield homes and 40 rent-stabilized apartments nearby, as well as a few other businesses. But earlier this month, after a number of lawsuits had been filed, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development withdrew that eminent domain application. An agency spokesman said it did so because of a paperwork oversight and has since been refiled.

James and others at the hearing blasted the city for what they said amounts to an effort to drive out lower income residents of color and replace them with upper class tenants.

"Downtown Brooklyn is being blacked out, for lack of a better term," James said.

The city's plan for the area around the houses includes demolishing the current housing stock and replacing it with Willoughby Square Park, a 1.15 acre green space that would be placed on top of an underground parking lot with space for 700 cars. The park and parking would serve office workers at the nearby MetroTech Center, as well as future tenants of housing and office buildings planned for the area.

Public comment on the use of eminent domain in Downtown Brooklyn continues through Monday, Nov. 5.