New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday announced the creation of “More Than a Brook: Brooklyn Abolitionist Heritage Walk,” an interactive audio tour that explores Brooklyn’s history as a critical neighborhood in the national abolitionist movement.
The neighborhoods of Brooklyn Heights, Fulton Ferry, Downtown Brooklyn and Fort Greene contain a walkable concentration of important historic landmark sites associated with the Underground Railroad, and the larger anti-slavery movement before the Civil War through political and religious activism, a news release said.
“New Yorkers walk through Brooklyn every day, unaware of the history right under their feet and surrounding them,” said Adams. “This interactive audio tour allows all of us to celebrate the heroes who stood up against injustice, risked their lives, and fought for the freedom they deserved. To build a better future, we must first examine and understand our past. This Juneteenth, our city recommits to reckoning and recognizing our role in the historic fight for racial equity and justice.”
The three-part audio experience guides participants through Brooklyn's abolitionist history, incorporating 19 stops and highlighting the many landmark sites along a 4.5-mile walkable path, including the residences of abolitionist Lewis Tappan and Harriet and Thomas Truesdell, and religious spaces, including Plymouth Church, Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church and the Friends Meeting House.
The audio tour also introduces important local historic figures, including businesswoman Elizabeth Gloucester, pioneering sisters Dr. Susan Smith McKinney-Steward and educator Sarah J. Tompkins Garnet, and Plymouth Church preacher Henry Ward Beecher, highlighting all their stories to illuminate the multiple ways people and institutions engaged with the anti-slavery movement before the Civil War and the continued fight for freedom afterward.
“‘More Than a Brook’ brings Brooklyn's rich abolitionist history to broad audiences and offers a glimpse into who we are as a borough and a people,” said Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso. “Oral history is the perfect tradition and vehicle to reckon with the past and honor the ongoing fight for a more equitable future based in racial and social justice."
The audio tour can be accessed on a smartphone, tablet, or other device through the Landmark Preservation Commission’s (LPC) website.
Additional resources can be found on LPC’s website, including LPC’s interactive story maps, “New York City and the Path to Freedom,” which explores New York City’s abolitionist history across all five boroughs through designated landmarks that embody it and “Preserving Significant Places of Black History,” which highlights and explores buildings, sites, and historic districts significant to Black history throughout New York City.
The interactive audio tour was commissioned by LPC and created by Kamau Studios and Black Gotham Experience.
