Duffield Street Historical Report Disputed
From the Downtown Brooklyn Star
‘Liars’ Now Seeking Truth
by Nik Kovac
Dateline : Thursday, March 22, 2007
Two and a half years ago, the research firm AKRF was publicly embarrassed in front of the City Council. At that time, they were charged with investigating the “historical significance” of the vast swaths of Downtown Brooklyn the city hoped to demolish to make way for high-rise hotels, office buildings, condos, and parking garages.
It turns out that portions of their testimony – in which they described which organizations they consulted for their research – were fabricated. At the time, East New York councilman Charles Barron threatened to make a “citizen’s arrest” of “the people who lied,” but in the end the only punishment meted out to AKRF was that they go back to the drawing board and do more a thorough job, in particular regards to the Underground Railroad history of several rowhouses along Duffield Street.
Their conclusion, presented in hundreds of pages of research last week, is more thoroughly researched but essentially the same: Go ahead and tear those buildings down! “The sensitive context,” reads the report, “in which the buildings on Duffield Street and Gold Street/Albee Square existed, however, is not sufficient in itself to presume a potential connection to the Underground Railroad.”
Those words were squeezed through the ringer by a team of consultants who make their living via big development projects like the Downtown Plan. The comments of several of the peer reviewers – independent academics charged with keeping an eye on those politically connected consultants – tell a much clearer story, however.
“I urge the city,” wrote Leslie Alexander, “to seriously consider reconfiguring their development project to take the historical significance of Duffield Street and the surrounding neighborhood seriously. This process has revealed a wealth of documentary evidence indicating this region was actively involved in abolitionist and Underground Railroad activities, and it would be a monumental injustice to destroy such evidence without making a concerted effort to acknowledge the incredibly important role that Brooklyn played in the liberation movement against slavery.”
“I am in favor,” agreed Andrew Jackson, “of the City preserving these sites for further research and answers to the possibility of connecting our present to our past. The past is too valuable to be lost for purely economic development reasons.”
“I have repeatedly stated,” wrote a frustrated Cheryl Laroche, “the time constraints associated with the Downtown Brooklyn Development project and the research time required to document this previously unverified potential Underground Railroad site are in fundamental opposition.”
Dr. Laroche wants more time to learn more, but she is sure of this much: “Duffield Street has all the markers of an Underground Railroad site – surrounded by black churches, abolitionist associations, nearby abolitionist activities, a Quaker meeting house, proximity to water, and Civil War service, in addition to oral tradition.”
“The City would do well,” concluded Judith Wellman, “to consider creating a Freedom Center on Duffield Street.”
The AKRF report, however, consistently argued that the evidence is not sufficient to warrant a cancellation of the demolition plans. “To be blunt,” responded Craig Wilder, “the very fact that the decision to explore the historical claims of these communities generally comes only when they stand in the path of a greater urban plan does and will continue to breed suspicion and reservation.”
“I shudder at the thought,” wrote A.J. Williams-Myers, “of the eventual demolition of the buildings, especially given their location in the heart of downtown Brooklyn which was once a community caught up in the throes of the clandestine operations of the Underground Railroad.”
The consensus among the peer reviewers seemed to be that AKRF had done – for the most part – a thorough and laborious research job, but that its overall conclusions were inappropriate.
“After reading the comments of my fellow peer reviewers and the responses by AKRF,” wrote Raymond Dobard, “I feel that the standards for accepting evidence in support of recognizing the Duffield houses, especially 227 Duffield, is set too high.”
“I think good research was done,” concluded James Driscoll of the Queens Historical Society in a phone interview, “but I am not too happy with the conclusions.”
A City Council hearing to review the report and the peer reviewers’ response to it was scheduled for this week, but has now been delayed until next month.