NEW YORK \u2013 A newly identified Underground Railroad passageway once used by enslaved people fleeing to freedom is putting the spotlight on a New York City museum and its struggle against a proposed neighboring development.<\/p>\n
Staff at the Merchant’s House Museum \u2014 an upper crust family home built in 1832 in Manhattan\u2019s NoHo district \u2014 last month revealed that researchers can now explain the passageway’s historical purpose because they recently discovered that the home’s original owner was an abolitionist. Historians and Black activists hail it as the first \u201cintact\u201d Underground Railroad site found in New York in over 160 years.<\/p>\n
The discovery has substantially raised the museum’s foot traffic, along with hopes of staving off a possible nine-story mixed-use building next door because building it could damage the walls and foundation of the adjacent historic site.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat our engineers are saying is that there really is no way that a building of that size is built immediately next door to the museum without causing significant structural damage to our historic building,\u201d said Emily Hill-Wright, the museum\u2019s director of operations.<\/p>\n
The New York City\u2019s Landmarks Preservation Commission has been weighing whether to approve the development. Consultants and architects working on the project say the museum should not be heavily impacted.<\/p>\n
Revelations about the newly explained passageway come as an executive order by President Donald Trump is being used to remove references and imagery of slavery<\/a> from the nation\u2019s museums, parks and landmarks<\/a>. <\/p>\n New York-based civil rights activist Al Sharpton has cast the fate of the Merchant’s Museum House as a fight for Black and American history.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen engineers tell me that an African American heritage site is in danger of structural compromise or any other sort of irreversible damage, I listen,\u201d Sharpton said in a statement last week.<\/p>\n The Merchant’s House Underground Railroad passageway lies beneath a 2-foot-by-2-foot wooden hatch hidden under a dresser drawer in the second floor hallway. It goes down a 15-foot (4.5 meters) shaft with a built-in ladder. The passageway was first found in the 1930s as the home was being turned into a museum, but it wasn’t until 2024 that it came to light the home’s first owner, Joseph Brewster, was an abolitionist. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not a dumbwaiter. It\u2019s not a laundry chute,\u201d Hill-Wright said. \u201cWe\u2019re able to sort of cross off all of these other theories about what this might have possibly been used for.\u201d<\/p>\n The findings have drawn preservationists, history buffs and the general public.<\/p>\n \u201cFebruary was our highest month for visitors in over a year,\u201d Hill-Wright said. \u201cYou almost get choked up because it is a very visceral experience to see it with your own eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n