Hidden Landmarks: The "Missing" History

African Burial Ground National Monument, Civic Center, Lower Manhattan, Manhattan, New York, September 2021, Ted Weiss Federal Building

In this membership-drive mini-series, Tommy Silk, a licensed New York sightseeing guide, @LandmarksofNY on Instagram, and the author of Hidden Landmarks of New York: A Tour of the City's Most Overlooked Buildings (Black Dog & Leventhal, 2024), joins us to talk about some of the lesser-known historically significant buildings of NYC. Today,

=>EVENT: Register here to see Tommy Silk in conversation with Barry Bordelon, half of the viral duo the Brownstone Boys, at BPL's Center for Brooklyn History, November 7, 6:30pm

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Yes, it's the final day of the membership drive, so the final installment in our tour of less well-known but significant pieces of New York's history with tour guide Tommy Silk. You might know him from his Instagram account, the very popular @LandmarksofNY, or his brand new book, Hidden Landmarks of New York: A Tour of the City's Most Overlooked Buildings. Just came out this week. Hidden Landmarks of New York: A Tour of the City's Most Overlooked Buildings. We're going through a few of them. Hey again, Tommy. Thanks for coming on one more time.

Tommy Silk: Hey, Brian, Happy Friday.

Brian Lehrer: We're going to do something a little different for this last session and talk about some landmarks where there's no edifice in one instance, no building at all, at least in one instance, because that's the flaw with preserving history through buildings that stayed standing. Usually, they were put up by rich people or companies for rich people or rich companies. You acknowledge that in your book and you've come up with a few ways to be more inclusive with whose stories you're telling. Let's start way back with a site on Staten Island that goes back over 8,000 years. Really?

Tommy Silk: Yes. This site is directly adjacent to the Conference House Park in Tottenville, the south shore of Staten Island. It's officially known as Aakawaxung Munahanung, which translates roughly to Island Sheltered from the Wind. This is the only landmark in New York City that is dedicated to the Indigenous population that was here prior to the European arrival. What this site is, is it's the location of a seasonal village that we have evidence of human activity dating back to around the year 6000 BCE. Some of the things that have been found here include-- You have pottery, hunting equipment, hards, lots of evidence of just human activity in general. It lasted all the way from 6000 BCE up until about in the 1600s. It would have overlapped with the earliest European colonizers there.

One of the things that the landmark designation-- because if you go there, it's a beach in a wooded area, so you can't actually see much while you're there-- one of the reasons why it was landmarked is apart from obviously the history that was found there, is that in the 1800s you started to have archaeological digs occurring on the site. This was before there was any standardization in how to practice archeology. There also was no permission given by the Native peoples who had inhabited this, so the result was a lot of, effectively plundering of the site.

The idea behind this is to, one, pay tribute to the original tribes under the overarching Lenape people, and then to also protect the site from any future unsanctioned archaeological digs.

Brian Lehrer: There are also buildings that are believed to have been stops on the Underground Railroad in New York. Can you go through a couple of those where that history is documented?

Tommy Silk: Yes. Let's start in TriBeCa on White Street. There is a charming little two-and-a-half-story brick building at 2 White Street. This was the home for a few years of a gentleman by the name of Theodore Sedgwick Wright. He was the first Black graduate of the Princeton Theological Seminary, which made him one of the first Black college graduates in the United States.

For a period of time between 1842 and 1847, he used his home as a stop on the Underground Railroad, helping people who were escaping enslavement make their way further north up to Canada. He did that as part of a larger group that was known as the New York Committee of Vigilance. He was a member of that. That one is in TriBeCa. Then if we move on over into Brooklyn, this one, I think it perfectly encapsulates the term hidden landmark.

In the Jay Street-MetroTech redevelopment-- I know it has a new name and I'm blanking on it right now-- there's the former Bridge Street Church. It is this little Greek Revival building in the middle of this redevelopment site, which is currently owned by NYU. This was the home of the Bridge Street Church congregation, which still does exist. They moved to Bed-Stuy in the 1940s, but this was also a Black church that would literally harbor people escaping enslavement in the basement of the church. That building still exists in the pedestrian plaza of Jay Street-MetroTech. You won't ever see it just by driving by. You actually have to walk in and take a look at it there.

Not too far from that is actually a very recent landmark that had almost been torn down. It was this little townhouse that had been used as shops over the years, but it was the home of two abolitionists named Harriet and Thomas Truesdell. They originally were from Rhode Island and lived in Brooklyn. They were members of multiple anti-slavery societies. There is a lot of anecdotal evidence that they used their home as a stop on the Underground Railroad.

It was almost torn down a few years ago. There was a upswell of support through grassroots activism to preserve the building, and the city actually purchased it. They are currently working on restoring it. The one thing, though, to note about that one, and what makes stories like this a little bit more difficult, is obviously the Underground Railroad was meant to be secretive, so finding concrete evidence, written documentation, that's the kind of thing that you wouldn't want to have lying around.

If you were doing this, you would be going against the Fugitive Slave Act. That means that we have anecdotal evidence, but the Landmarks Preservation Commission is still basically trying to find more concrete evidence, which they may or may not find.

Brian Lehrer: It sounds like the Landmarks Preservation Commission is well aware of the need to be more inclusive in what it preserves and why. Let's get one more in here before we run out of time. Decently preserved, but mostly missing, Weeksville in Crown Heights. Give us about 30 seconds on Weeksville, and then we're going to be out of time.

Tommy Silk: Okay. Weeksville was the largest free Black community in New York State before the Civil War. It was in Eastern Crown Heights. It was a place where a lot of free Black families would move because in order to vote as a Black man in New York State before the Civil War, you needed to own property. This was one of the affordable places that one could do that. Now, just to note, there was no requirement for white men to do that at that time.

It was centered around this diagonal street known as Hunterfly Road. In the 1960s, during an aerial survey, a few houses that were originally on this road, they were able to determine that, oh, wait, these homes that had been hiding in plain sight were actually along that original roadway. These homes have now been preserved. They are part of the Weeksville Heritage Center, which has then updated the interiors of these different homes to represent what it would have been like for these families living in different time periods throughout its history.

Brian Lehrer: We have to leave it there. We thank Tommy Silk for all your time this week, four days in a row. We'll follow you on Instagram @LandmarksofNY. Congratulations on the book, Hidden Landmarks of New York: A Tour of the City's Most Overlooked Buildings. I see you have another book event for those who might have missed Wednesdays or just can't get enough of you. This one is at the Center for Brooklyn History. That'll be on November 7th. We'll have a link on our webpage. Tommy, this has been so much fun and interesting. Thank you very, very much.

Tommy Silk: Thanks for having me, Brian. I really enjoyed it.

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