City Council members and several preservation groups accused a high-ranking
Bloomberg administration official of lying this week in testimony he gave
about efforts to determine the historic status of three buildings that
would be torn down under the proposed Downtown Brooklyn Plan.
The full council is scheduled to vote on the sweeping property condemnation
and rezoning plan on June 28.
At the council’s public hearing on June 8, the chief operating officer
of the city Economic Development Corporation, Joshua Sirefman, testified
that a dozen historic organizations had been consulted in making the determination
that houses along Duffield and Gold streets in Downtown Brooklyn had no
connection to the Underground Railroad, as had been claimed by property
owners there.
Sirefman testified that neither 227 Duffield St., 233 Duffield St. nor
436 Gold St. met the National Parks Service criteria for preserving the
history of the Underground Railroad.
That research, Sirefman said, was partly based on consultations with more
than a dozen agencies including the highly respected Schomburg Center
for Research in Black Culture.
But Christopher Moore, exhibitions research coordinator for the Schomburg
Center, testified on Monday that nobody from the city had ever contacted
his organization regarding Duffield Street.
“I have never spoken to any representative of your firm about the
possibility or probability of Underground Railroad activity on or near
Duffield Street,” said Moore, who is also a city Landmarks Preservation
commissioner.
“Had any representative of your firm actually spoken to me, I would
have informed them, without hesitation, that the entire length of Duffield
Street is one of the city’s most promising areas for the study of
the Underground Railroad activity,” Moore said at a land use sub-committee
meeting on June 14.
“I am astonished, offended and distressed by the error, or mistake,
or disregard for the truth,” he said.
Those feelings were echoed by a number of council members at Monday’s
meeting, which had been carried over from last week because of concern
over the plight of the buildings.
East New York Councilman Charles Barron, a former Black Panther and potential
mayoral candidate, accused the Bloomberg administration of outright lying.
“They lied and I don’t think they should get off without some
sort of reprimand,” said Barron, a member of the Land Use committee,
which agreed to approve the Downtown Plan on the condition that a special
hearing on the Underground Railroad claims be held.
“They gave false information to get this project through,” Barron
charged.
No date has been set for the Duffield Street hearing and it will likely
occur after the council votes on the Downtown Plan.
Council speaker Gifford Miller could not be reached for comment by press
time.
Through a spokesman, the mayor declined to comment.
In addition to the Schomburg Center, two other prominent historic preservation
organizations, which Sirefman mentioned, told The Brooklyn Papers they
were never consulted.
“Nobody doing research for the city ever contacted me,” said
Pamela Green, executive director of the Weeksville Society, a non-profit
organization dedicated to preserving remains of the free African-American
community dating back to the early 19th century.
AKRF, an environmental consulting firm, completed the environmental impact
statement for the Downtown Brooklyn Plan as well as the subsequent investigation
into ties to the Underground Railroad.
Green said AKRF never contacted anybody in her organization until they
received a message on June 16, a day after The Brooklyn Papers started
calling about the inconsistencies in Sirefman’s statement.
“That’s the first time I heard from them,” she said.
Bridge Street Church, the first black congregation in Brooklyn and a known
stop on the Underground Railroad that housed and fed slaves in its basement,
was also noted by Sirefman.
This week, Andy Smith, an assistant to both the pastor and the church
historian, Dr. Amos Jordan, said nobody from either the city or AKRF had
called the church.
“No one has contacted us about this,” she said, referring to
the Duffield Street buildings.
AKRF referred all calls to the Department of City Planning, the agency
that co-sponsored the Downtown Plan application along with EDC.
Sirefman, who was on vacation, was not available for comment and EDC officials
referred all calls to City Planning.
“We feel the administration did not do the proper research,”
said the sub-committee’s chairman, Queens Councilman Tony Avela.
Councilman Eric Gioia, also of Queens, said he was “extremely dissatisfied
with the testimony the city brought to us.”
Several locations throughout Brooklyn, including the Plymouth Church of
the Pilgrims, in Brooklyn Heights, and the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian
Church, in Fort Greene, are known to have been stops on the Underground
Railroad.
The complex rezoning of 60 blocks to make way for office, residential
and academic towers and turn downtown into what city and borough officials
say will be a bustling, 24-7 hub, would be accompanied by the condemning
of at least seven acres of private property, including 130 residential
units and 100 businesses.
The Duffield Street properties would be among the first to go to make
way for Willoughby Square — the centerpiece of the area’s new
office development — and a road to surround it.
The Downtown Plan would encourage the construction of at least 4.5 million
square feet of office space, 1 million square feet of retail, 1,000 units
of housing and 2,500 parking spaces.
So far, Moore says, he is not impressed with the preservation research
the city claims to have performed.
“This is historical analysis that would require real investigative
research not just calling people and saying, ‘What have you done?’
You need a real archeologist who might have to do some real digging,”
Moore said.
Joy Chatel, who with her husband owns 227 Duffield St., said nobody from
the city even visited the building until after she raised a stink at the
public hearing last week. Chatel runs a hair salon on the first floor
of the four-story brick building
Rachaele Raynoff, a spokeswoman for City Planning, said researchers had
visited the outside of the house but “out of respect” for residents
did not ring their doorbells.
Asked about Moore’s claim that no one had contacted the Schomburg
Center, Raynoff said that the organization had been contacted.
“AKRF has indicated that they had made this contact and there is
no reason to doubt that,” said Raynoff. “It is a reputable organization.”
AKRF is also the environmental consultant on the plan to build an Ikea
big box store on the Erie Basin in Red Hook and on a plan by the Jehovah’s
Witnesses to build a four-towered residential development on a massive
assemblage of land at 85 Jay St. on the edge of DUMBO and Vinegar Hill.
Asked about the Weeksville Society and Bridge Street Church’s claims
that they, too, were never contacted by the city or the consultants despite
Sirefman’s claim to the contrary, Raynoff said the list cited by
Sirefman only indicated organizations “AKRF spoke to or made multiple
attempts to contact.”
But in his testimony Sirefman said, “Representatives from a number
of agencies, organizations and institutions were also contacted for any
information that they might be able to provide.”
He went on to list the following organizations: the state Office of Parks,
Recreation and Historic Preservation, the city Landmarks Preservation
Commission, the Brooklyn and Queens Historical societies, the Museum of
the City of New York, the New York Historical Society, the Schomburg Center,
the Weeksville Society and the Bridge Street Church.
After holding the vote over twice since last week, the zoning and franchise
sub-committee voted 7-0 in favor of the plan. The full land use committee
voted 15-0 in favor of passing the plan, pending the Duffield Street public
hearing.
