told Spectrum News<\/a>, referring to the recent subsurface discovery.\u00a0<\/p>\nThe groundbreaking find perfectly coincides with Black History Month, an annual celebration of African American culture, torchbearers and global contributions. It, too, spotlights an unsung slice of New York\u2019s legacy that oft goes unacknowledged, says Manhattan Councilman Christopher Marte.<\/p>\n
This Underground Railroad passage is the first of its kind to be discovered in Manhattan in over a century. Merchant’s House Museum<\/p>\n
\u201cMany New Yorkers forget that we were part of the abolitionist movement,\u201d said Marte of the Empire State\u2019s push to end slavery. \u201cBut this is physical evidence of what happened in the South [during] the Civil War, and what\u2019s happening today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Patrick Ciccone, an architectural historian, agreed.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing an abolitionist was incredibly rare among white New Yorkers, especially wealthy white New Yorkers,\u201d said Ciccone. \u201c[Joseph Brewster] was the builder of the house, and he was able to make these choices and design it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brewster, a white abolitionist, built the house in 1832. He then sold it to the Tredwell family, upper-middle-class merchants, in 1835. The residence was ultimately transformed into a museum, granting visitors an exclusive glimpse at domestic life during centuries past. It became Manhattan\u2019s first landmarked building in 1965.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The trap door is accessed through a built-in dresser door and leads to a 2-by-2-foot tunnel down to the ground floor that connects to the subterranean pathway. Spectrum News NY1<\/p>\n
However, it\u2019s unknown whether the Tredwells were aware of their home\u2019s significant ties to black history.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Experts have reportedly praised Brewster\u2019s handiwork as \u201ca masterwork in deliberate concealment,\u201d owing to its strategic design \u2014\u00a0meant to be undetectable to the slave-hunters and city marshals of yore.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Upon removing the heavy bottom dresser drawer, stationed in a bedroom on the second floor of the house, there is a crudely cut rectangular opening in the floorboards. The small hole leads to a 2-by-2-foot enclosed, vertical space. A ladder then leads down to the ground floor.<\/p>\n
Brewster\u2019s construction has left architects and preservationists agog.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Merchant\u2019s House museum was built in 1832 by white abolitionist Joseph Brewster. NY Post Brian Zak<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been practicing historical preservation law for 30 years, and this is a generational find,\u201d gushed Michael Hiller, a preservation attorney and professor at Pratt Institute. \u201cThis is the most significant find in historic preservation in my career, and it\u2019s very important that we preserve this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Manhattan Councilman Harvey Epstein echoed similar sentiments.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a critical piece of the overall struggle for freedom and justice.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Enslaved Africans with dreams of being free found safety in the heart of NYC.\u00a0 To the naked eye,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":130404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[35604,21295,2999,881,231,232,75,84,83,57,9,24,63,47163],"class_list":["post-130403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-black-history-month","tag-freedom","tag-historic-buildings","tag-history","tag-human-interest","tag-lifestyle","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-slavery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}