Lawmakers To Consider Fate of Seven Brooklyn Houses

A bitter fight over the fate of seven Brooklyn houses is coming to City Hall today, with community activists vowing to poke holes in a city report denying the houses should be saved as historic landmarks despite claims they were used in the Underground Railroad. The houses are to be razed to make way for a parking garage.

The historic preservation battle has won support from a City Council member of Brooklyn, Charles Barron, a former Black Panther, and a Brooklyn organization, Families United for Racial and Economic Equality, which is upset by development plans for the borough. The homes under threat of demolition are in Council Member David Yassky's district.

Mr. Yassky said yesterday that the study and effort to save the homes are highlighting Brooklyn's role in the Underground Railroad and in the history of slavery, a point he said should not be forgotten.

"There are a huge number of historical resources that we still have to help people understand the history of slavery, of underground railroads," he said. "It absolutely is a top priority to preserve this history and help make it accessible."

He added, however, that it's not clear whether these particular houses were involved in the effort to free slaves.

When the City Council approved the Downtown Brooklyn development plan in 2004, the Economic Development Corporation said it would investigate the purported connection between seven houses on Duffield and Gold streets to see if the claims could be substantiated. The city hired a consulting firm, AKRF Inc., which spent more than two years researching the homes and found no evidence of Underground Railroad activity at the houses, a spokesman for the Economic Development Corporation, Andrew Brent, said.

"We asked AKRF to conduct as thorough and exhaustive an examination into the possible connection between these houses and the Underground Railroad as possible," Mr. Brent said in a statement. "We had a team of experts review and validate the methodology and research of the report."

The executive director of Families United for Racial and Economic Equality, Ilana Berger, said there is tremendous evidence of Underground Railroad activity on the property, which historians and other residents will present at today's hearing of the council's subcommittee on landmarks, public siting and maritime uses.

"It's a particularly striking example of city development plans taking precedence over history, culture — particularly black history — in Brooklyn," she said.