Brooklyn Gained One Individual Landmark in 2021: Duffield Street's Abolitionist Home

With 2021 almost at an end, we take our annual look back at the Brooklyn buildings and neighborhoods considered significant enough to merit designation by the Landmarks Preservation Commission during the year. It was a quiet year for designations in the borough, with just one individual landmark getting approved.

It was a significant designation though, one that was decades in the making. On a Downtown Brooklyn street that was once filled with brick and frame houses, the Harriet and Thomas Truesdell House at 227 Duffield Street is the last survivor on the block. Built 1848-51, the three-story brick house was designated for its association with active abolitionists Harriet and Thomas Truesdell, who lived there from 1851 to 1863.

The house was calendared in 2020 and finally designated in February of this year with a unanimous vote. That vote followed a complicated struggle to preserve the property, which has had a tangled ownership history, including records of low payments to longtime owners by developers. The ownership is now secured; in March of this year, the city’s Department of Citywide Administrative Services finalized the purchase of the building for $3.2 million and work to stabilize the building will be moving forward.

If there is a building or neighborhood that you think is worthy of designation or is endangered the Historic Districts Council is giving you a chance to make a pitch. Fill out their online survey by December 31 with as much information as you have about the property. The organization will be highlighting chosen properties throughout 2022. Community activists looking to bring some attention to their preservation efforts also still have time to apply to the annual “Six to Celebrate” program. The application deadline is also December 31.

Related Stories

• Locals Overwhelmingly Favor Landmarking Downtown Brooklyn Abolitionist Home
• Brooklyn Gains New Individual Landmarks and Historic Districts in 2019
• Brooklyn Gains New Landmarks in 2018

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