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Suit: Underground Railroad homes at risk

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

June 18, 2007

231-233-235 Duffield Street in Brooklyn. (Photo by Jefferson Siegel / June 17, 2007)

A lawsuit filed against the city aims to save seven unassuming houses that may have been a stop on the Underground Railroad used by escaping slaves.

The houses are slated for demolition to make way for a massive redevelopment of Downtown Brooklyn.

"There is no debate at this point that prominent abolitionists lived at 227 Duffield St.," said Jennifer Levy, a lawyer with South Brooklyn Legal Services, which filed the suit Friday.

"But the city didn't include that fact in its final environmental impact report. I guess they missed it."

The suit seeks to show the city violated its own laws by failing to fully examine the historical significance of the houses it wants to demolish. Preservationists say the houses were important stops along the Underground Railroad in the 19th century. They criticize the city for not holding public discussions on their demolition.

They also accuse the city of rushing forward with its Development Plan for Downtown Brooklyn, which is projected to create 4.5 million square feet of commercial office space and 1,000 housing units around a new park called Willoughby Square.

The houses on Duffield sit right where the city wants to build Willoughby.

"Saving these houses wouldn't stop the development of downtown Brooklyn," said Levy. "But it might make them change their picture of what it looks like."

Before approving the needed zoning changes, the City Council asked for a historical study. That study, released earlier this year, found evidence of strong abolitionist feelings in the neighborhood of the time, but no "positive evidence" that the houses themselves were stops along the Underground Railroad.

Friday's lawsuit asks a state judge to find the historical study incomplete, and to order the city to do another one.

The mayor's office referred questions Sunday to the city's Corporation Counsel, which said it is waiting to receive the legal papers and wants to review them before commenting.

Some City Council members and local residents are planning a protest this week on Duffield Street to demand the city take another look at the historical significance of the homes there.