In Fast-Gentrifying Bed-Stuy,

a Celebration of

Early Black Settlers

By ALEXIS OKEOWO

Jennifer Scott, vice director and director of research, left, and Emily Bibb, collections manager, in the basement where the collection is mostly held of the Weeksville Heritage Center. (Eric Michael Johnson for The New York Times) 

 

On a clear spring day in 1968, residents of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, including retirees and Boy Scouts, were on their hands and knees, digging underneath the intersection of Troy Avenue and Dean Street in what would become a major neighborhood archaeological excavation.

What they found were the remnants of a village called Weeksville, one of the country’s first free-black communities where blacks owned property and ran businesses, a hospital and a school as nearby states like New Jersey continued to sanction slavery.

Many of the houses were torn down by the New York City Housing Authority to make way for public housing. But a remaining few were restored by a group called the Society for the Preservation of Weeksville and Bedford-Stuyvesant History that worked to unearth and preserve the village. The society later became the Weeksville Heritage Center, an organization that promotes African-American history.

The traces of a place that has been largely forgotten are finally resurfacing as the center prepares to display artifacts from over 50 years of excavations. The objects, most of which have been in storage for decades, will be on permanent rotation at the heritage center’s new $30 million extension, a building that will have space for more arts and educational offerings when it opens next year.

“This was a history that was lost, and part of our mission is to make sure that doesn’t happen again,” said Jennifer Scott, research director at the Weeksville Heritage Center.

The original Weeksville was discovered when a community-survey class at the nearby Pratt Institute studied old maps and directories of New York, and noticed the existence of a black colony. They decided to see if physical vestiges remained. An instructor for the class, Jim Hurley, had been researching Bedford-Stuyvesant and wanted to investigate a cluster of houses in the neighborhood that he suspected were from the 19th century, when Weeksville was established. He met Joseph Haines, a Metropolitan Transportation Authority engineer and pilot who was interested in his effort, and they rented a propeller plane to fly over the area looking for architectural evidence.

Within the cluster, they discovered four houses that were not aligned with the street, an oddity that suggested to Mr. Hurley that the houses’ construction predated the modern street grid. Mr. Hurley verified through property deeds and tax documents that the houses were part of the historic village. After learning that the city was going to tear down the houses, he and neighborhood residents mounted a successful campaign to save what became known as the Hunterfly Road Houses.

A donated map of the Weeksville area, one of the country’s first free-black communities where blacks owned property and ran businesses. (Eric Michael Johnson for The New York Times)

 

The history of Weeksville stretches back to 1838, when a black longshoreman, James Weeks, who was a well-known leader in the black-suffrage movement, bought property from a black landowner to gain citizenship and voting rights.

At the time, black men could not become citizens or vote without owning at least $250 worth of property. Mr. Weeks bought $1,500 in land, and a few other other free black men did so as well and founded Weeksville. Mr. Weeks and his partners divided the land into plots and sold them to other black families, many of whom had come from the South. They placed ads in several newspapers recruiting new residents. At its height, Weeksville was home to 700 families.

Some of the artifacts from Weeksville are already on display at the Hunterfly Road Houses, including photographs from the late 1800s of well-dressed residents at social clubs, playing cards, sports and music. Other items, including remarkably intact China, glass inkwells, tintypes of nattily attired men and women, and illustrated dance cards, will be shown when the center opens. There will also be recorded oral histories, film clips and newspaper articles.

The heritage center’s ambitious campaign to preserve the neighborhood’s history has inspired residents who are working to protect the neighborhood from gentrification.

“We get a lot of calls for advice on how to get where we are today from people who want to landmark other sites in Bed-Stuy,” Ms. Scott said.

In recent months, residents have petitioned the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission to expand the existing Stuyvesant Heights Historic District and to establish new ones, including a district called Bedford Corners.

A rope bed (from the same time period as the Weeksville double house 1840-80s) on display in one of the homes at Weeksville. (Eric Michael Johnson for The New York Times)

 

“These blocks are a catalog of fine architecture through the 19th century,” said Claudette Brady, the chairwoman of the Bedford Corners Historic District Joint Block Association, as she walked down a block of Hancock Street on a recent day. Elegant, neo-brick brownstones in browns, lavenders, creams and reds were adorned with stone carvings, glimmering metalwork, terra cotta tiles, wrought-iron railings and stained glass.

An amateur architectural historian, Daniel Thompson — Ms. Brady joked that he was “possessed by the ghost of a little old Victorian woman who used to live in his house” — accompanied her. “What’s surprising is that these buildings have remained so intact through the years with no protection, but development is much more aggressive now,” said Mr. Thompson, who has lived in Bed-Stuy for 11 years. “Some of this architecture, you won’t find in Manhattan. So if it’s lost here, it’s lost forever.”

The Weeksville Heritage Center is also applying to have two churches, a school and a public art sculpture that fall within the historical boundaries of the original Weeksville community declared landmarks.

Residents want to hold on to the past because the story of Weeksville and many parts of Bedford-Stuyvesant is “really rare,” said Elissa Blount-Moorhead, director of programs and exhibitions at the Weeksville Heritage Center. “There’s no other narrative like this.”