Given that an outside consultant failed to find evidence that the Under- ground Railroad stopped at seven imperiled rowhouses on Duffield and Gold streets (PDF), Mayor Bloomberg could have pressed on, letting the properties be condemned and then flattened to make way for a park and underground parking lot envisioned in the 2004 Downtown Brooklyn Plan.Today, though, comes the news that he will heed the recommendations of some of the peer reviewers of that study and has committed $2 million for capital and construction of “a project to commemorate abolitionist activity that occurred in Brooklyn in the 1800s.”
That doesn’t mean the houses will be saved; most likely the opposite will occur. But the memorial project—what it turns out to be will be decided as a result of a bidding process this fall—signals a more conciliatory approach toward City Council Members and others who criticized the Underground Railroad study when it came out in the spring.
More: Mayor Appeases on Underground Railroad Rancor
2 comments:
2 million dollars is a lot to pay for a
"commemorative project".
I wonder which one of mayor Mike's friends
will get the contract.
We're tired of seeing
what amounts to nothing less than another "tombstone" being placed on a grave site
where NYC has murdered another important part
of African American history.
Would "White (George Washington type) History"
be treated in the same manner?
It appears that there are still a discriminatory
factor involved in the selection
of who's history gets preserved !
Bloomberg's racist attempt to buy off
the destruction of a community's history
with a 2 million dollar
"historic plaque/marker/project" offer....
amounts to nothing less than
a plantation owner putting in a bid for a slave
at a southern auction!
Abolish the landmarks law now!
It's being applied
in an illegal and discriminatory fashion!
Unless the law equally serves all......
it shall serve no one!
That racist elitist body.....the LPC....
was given its marching orders by Mayor Bloomberg and his friends in the real estate industry.
They subsequently rejected the landmark worthy Duffield Street houses (after a bogus study)
to make way for a project
that will soon be paving over our history!
How many other deserving structures in Harlem,
for example, have also not been landmarked?
You've only to ask its leading preservationist
Michael Adams!
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