https://gothamist.com/arts-entertain...9e8e2-91331958
When historical preservationists got word last November that a developer planned to tear down a Washington Heights house once owned by a 19th century abolitionist — a rare surviving structure with possible ties to the Underground Railroad — they asked the city to save it. But the Landmarks Preservation Commission swiftly turned them down.
The agency cited two main reasons: The stripped-down, permabrick-sided house scarcely resembled the elegant Italianate original — a plain fact that no one disputes, although Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer says she and others can find the money to restore it to its former homespun glory. The second reason given was that the house’s use as a stop on the Underground Railroad was merely “speculative.”
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