Several news outlets have covered the Duffield Abolitionist homes.

The Real Estate Observer gives us a nice shout out.

Curbed summarizes the last DailyGotham post.

The Gowanus Lounge also wades in, and NY Magazine offers a few words.

NoLandGrab offers original analysis by picking up a point published here. AKRF/NYCEDC chose to print a map without its legend, and NoLandGrab suggests that the missing legend offers support of the residents' oral histories.

Thanks y'all for keeping this on the burner!

Today I gave a talk to the Latvia Special Interest Group of the Jewish Genealogical Society. In it I had cause to quote a local Brooklyn politician, Bill Batson who has served on Community Board 8 and who is running for Assembly. More about that talk in another diary when I get the chance to adapt it to the blog format. The connection with Bill Batson wasn't political, but cultural, regarding the preservation of heritage and the importance of heritage.

Coincidentally, today I received Bill Batson's campaign newsletter, and in it he has a success story of preserving Brooklyn's heritage...in fact preserving AMERICA'S heritage. From the Batson campaign:

We are learning more about our ancestors' role in building New York city, especially through the African Burial Ground and the Historical Society's recent exhibit on Slavery In New York.

We were thrilled to discover an Underground Railroad Station on Duffield St. in Downtown Brooklyn. Escaping Slaves used the station as a safe house. Instead of celebrating this wonderful opportunity to teach our children about Black History in Brooklyn, the City used Eminent Domain to try and seize the URR site, knock it down, and turn it into an Underground Parking Lot for a new mall.

And who are these people, you ask?

Colonial Hall: Biography of William Floyd

Colonial Hall: Biography of Francis Lewis

Colonial Hall: Biography of Philip Livingston

Colonial Hall: Biography of Lewis Morris

They are New York's delegation to the Unites States' General Congress and signers of The Declaration of Independence

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.