Back when Brooklyn was little more than farmland and rolling hills, the town of Weeksville was one of the largest black communities in New York. Nestled in modern-day Crown Heights, it became a refuge for black families in the years after New York state banned slavery, thanks in part to its then-remote location across the river from Manhattan.

"You had to take a boat to get here and get across the river," Weeksville Heritage Center executive director Rob Fields told WNYC. "And they could build a life and they could be in a community that was largely free from racially-inspired violence."

Founded in 1838, Weeksville drew dozens of black families who bought parcels of land—a requirement for being eligible to vote. At its peak in the late-1880's, Weeksville was home to about 500 people.

"There were two churches that came out of this community, one of which is still right down the road from us. There was an orphanage, there was a retirement home, there was Colored School Number Two, there was a baseball team, there was a newspaper," Fields said.

Historians still aren't sure why the community disappeared in the early 20th century, but it's possible that the town was an early victim of gentrification. After the Brooklyn Bridge was completed and more and more people crossed the East River from Manhattan to make their homes, Weeksville was slowly absorbed by the growing borough. In fact, the town's history was almost entirely forgotten before a Pratt Institute historian named James Hurley discovered four houses still standing in 1968. After one was destroyed in a fire, the last three were preserved and opened to the public as the Weeksville Heritage Center in 2005.