Save Abigail Hopper Gibbons Home: 339 W29 St, NYC.

Story about the Hopper Gibons house on News 4 NY.

2011-01-19T11:25:00.000-08:00

Story about the Hopper Gibons house on News 4 NY.
http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local-beat/Underground-Railroad-Site-in-Construction-Dispute-113979854.html

Important article in the New York Times on Jan 5, 2011!

2011-01-08T17:00:00.001-08:00

Important article in the New York Times on Jan 5, 2011!
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/arts/design/06saved.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all

Change to Civil War-Era Building DisputedBy ROBIN POGREBIN
Published: January 5, 2011

A building owner has ignored the city’s demands to dismantle a fifth story that was added to a landmark mid-19th-century row house in Chelsea that may be the only surviving documented Manhattan station on the Underground Railroad.

Abigail Hopper Gibbons, an abolitionist, lived in the house.
The owner, listed by the city as Tony Mamounas, had been ordered by the New York City Buildings Department to remove the addition by last month, but neighbors say that work instead has been proceeding on the property, once home to Abigail Hopper Gibbons and her husband, James, who were prominent New York City abolitionists.

“It’s just come to this desperate situation,” said Fern Luskin, an architectural historian who lives on the block and has taken up the cause of protecting the historic integrity of the building, a Greek Revival house at 339 West 29th Street, between Eighth and Ninth Avenues. “It’s like taking a serrated knife and lopping off our history,” she said of the addition. “It will permanently disfigure the evidence of what happened there.”

The owner is expected to appeal the order.

The Buildings Department initially allowed the addition in March 2005, and the owner later began construction. But officials revoked the permit in July 2009 after hearing complaints about the project, the city said, and after conducting an audit that found that the expansion did not meet state fire-safety codes.

Three months after the permit was revoked the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the building, along with others on the block, as part of the Lamartine Place Historic District, calling No. 339 “one of the very few extant sites to be associated with the pivotal events of those days.”

“Although the houses in the row have experienced alterations over time, this small group of houses continues to exist as the city changes around them,” the commission wrote in its designation report.

Work on the building was ordered stopped in July 2009, although last year the city agreed to let the owner address any emergency safety issues.

In November, after receiving complaints that construction on the building was continuing, the city ordered Mr. Mamounas to remove the additional floor by Dec. 7. A day before that deadline his lawyer, Marvin Mitzner, notified the city that he planned to ask its Board of Standards and Appeals to let him complete the addition, said Tony Sclafani, a Buildings Department spokesman.

A spokesman for the appeals board said it had not yet received such an appeal.

The city has a range of remedies to address illegal additions, including fines, orders to fix a condition and criminal court summonses.

It is somewhat unusual for a building permit to be revoked. But Mr. Sclafani said that when the permit was originally approved in 2005, the city allowed the owner to provide alternative fire-safety measures, like sprinklers and fire escapes, instead of the fireproof stairwell required by state law. In 2008, he said, the appeals board ruled that the city lacked the power to waive the fire-safety requirements, so the permit was revoked upon review by the auditors.

Mr. Sclafani said that while the additional floor had not been removed, inspectors on a recent visit found no evidence that construction to complete the additional story was moving forward.

“If any other work was performed that is not related to the emergency work that we’ve ordered, we will take the appropriate action,” Mr. Sclafani said.

Neighbors, however, said they believed the owners were proceeding with construction. “They’ve completed that illegal fifth story,” said Barbara Testi, who has lived in the building for 30 years. “It’s very frustrating. It shouldn’t even be there.”

Assemblyman Richard N. Gottfried, a Manhattan Democrat, said the case warranted stronger enforcement action by the city.

“The issue is not only the destruction of a landmark and the desecration of a site on the Underground Railroad,” he said. “It’s an owner who is flagrantly violating local zoning and building codes and landmark restrictions. The buildings department really needs to ramp up its enforcement actions against him.”

Calls to Mr. Mamounas’s office seeking comment were not returned. Alvin H. Glick, chairman and a founder of the Mautner-Glick Corporation, said that he was the managing agent for the building, but that he did not know the status of the project.

The Gibbonses, abolitionists before the Civil War, used the house as a meeting place, where they helped escaping slaves en route to Canada. “They were like the Schindler of their day, taking such a chance, harboring slaves that were running for their lives,” said Ms. Luskin, referring to Oskar Schindler, who rescued Jews during the Holocaust.

In a letter cited by the landmarks commission in its designation report, Joseph Choate, a friend of the Gibbonses, wrote that he had dined with them along with William Lloyd Garrison, the abolitionist, and a black man “on his way to freedom.” The Hopper Gibbons house was attacked and burned during the Draft Riots of 1863. Two of the Gibbonses’ daughters escaped the mob by climbing over adjacent roofs to a waiting carriage on Ninth Avenue, descending through the house at 355 West 29th Street, where Abigail Gibbons’s sister and her family lived.

Ms. Luskin, who with Julie Finch is a chairwoman of the Friends of the Hopper Gibbons Underground Railroad Site and Lamartine Place Historic District, said that on an aesthetic level the building’s alterations disrupt the street’s uniform cornice line.

Simeon Bankoff, executive director of the Historic Districts Council, an advocacy group, said the Hopper Gibbons house offered a valuable window into the role of Chelsea in the city’s abolitionist history. “You don’t necessarily think that this radical movement was going on amidst all this gentility,” he said.

The landmarks commission is optimistic the situation will be resolved. “We’re not so concerned if the top floor is removed within the next few weeks or months,” John Weiss, the commission’s deputy counsel, said. “We’re confident that, in the long run, the work that was not approved by the buildings department will be removed and the building will be the better for it.”

More than a year after landmarking, the integrity of the Hopper Gibbons House is once again in peril.

2010-12-29T21:36:00.001-08:00

http://chelseanow.com/articles/2010/12/29/news/doc4d1baba23be5e758629456.txt

Illegal construction continues at landmarked building
Published: Wednesday, December 29, 2010 3:54 PM CSTBY Bonnie Rosenstock
CHELSEA NOW

Despite countless Stop Work Orders issued by the New York City Department of Buildings, construction continues unabated at the Hopper-Gibbons House at 339 West 29th Street. In defiance of D.O.B. Commissioner Robert LiMandri’s order to tear down the illegal fifth-story addition to the landmarked row house by December 7, work has proceeded at an alarming clip.

According to the November 23, 2010 Order to Correct (which set the December 7 deadline), the owner, Nick Mamounas of Tower Construction, “has been ordered to remove all additions, enlargements, structures or elements that are non-compliant with the last amended plans…audited and accepted on March 24, 2010…The only structure that will be permitted on the fourth floor is a stair bulkhead…required by Code, and mandated by D.O.B. for the safety of the remaining tenants in the building, and will be used only for egress purposes.”

On December 12, Fern Luskin and Julie Finch — co-chairs of Friends of Gibbons Underground Railroad Site and Lamartine Place Historic District — emailed LiMandri (and other D.O.B. officials) to alert them of the continuing noncompliance. “Between November 23 and December 7, he [the owner] had completely sheathed the exterior of the fifth story in Tyvek to which he attached permanent aluminum posts and finished the plywood flooring on the interior,” they wrote. They also sent telling photographs of the work. They “implored” Manhattan Borough Commissioner Derek Lee, Deputy Borough Commissioner Bryan Winter and Leah Donaldson (liaison for Intergovernmental & Community Affairs) to join them and fellow preservationists and neighbors on Tuesday, December 14 for a rooftop inspection from a neighboring roof. “Once you see it from this perspective, it will become crystal clear that the owner has disobeyed the Borough Commissioner’s November 23 directive.”

They go on to say that “because the inspectors are ignoring the owner’s failure to comply…they are turning a blind eye to what is even blatantly clear even from the street,” they want the officials to see for themselves. An automated response from Lee stated that he is on Sick Leave, but the other two officials did not reply. Finch noted, however, that Donaldson came once a year ago to see the illegal work going on, “but nothing has changed,” she said.

Luskin’s campaign to preserve the house began almost four years ago. One fine spring day in April 2007 — while she was working on her laptop on her building’s roof — she noticed construction going on two rooftops over. She began sending letters to city officials. As an art and architecture historian (as well as CUNY professor), Luskin began using her skills to research the history of the house in order to strengthen the case for its preservation. While pouring over archives, she discovered that it was the home of Abigail Hopper-Gibbons and her husband, James Sloan Gibbons, noted Quaker abolitionists. During the 1850s and 60s, it was a documented safe house — an important link in the Underground Railroad. Abby’s father, Isaac Hopper, was instrumental in organizing the underground system whereby runaway Southern slaves were able to hide before escaping to Canada. The house was also a meeting place for other prominent abolitionists of the day.

During the 1863 Draft Riots, 30 African-Americans were lynched on the streets of New York — including one man on West 27th Street and Seventh Avenue. The Gibbons’ house was set ablaze and ransacked by an angry mob. Two of the Gibbons’ daughters fled over the rooftops to safety. In October 2009, through the efforts of Luskin and Finch — and the support of local preservationists, neighbors and state and city officials — the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission designated a dozen mid-19th century four-story row houses as Lamartine Place Historic District. The district covers 333-355 West 29th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues.

“The Lamartine Place Historic District was created to commemorate the Draft Riots and their effect on the whole city, not only about white abolitionists escaping the mob,” said Finch, who partnered with Luskin when she learned about the house’s plight at a Friends meeting on E. 15th Street. For Finch, who is a Quaker, the significance of the Hopper-Gibbons building resonates. “They were Quakers fighting for justice. The house is a visual record of the riots and the family’s escape over the roof and the neighboring roof. Mamounas’ penthouse is built on top of that, which is why Fern and I are so stubborn.” However, Finch said that in the hopes of a compromise, they asked if the penthouse could be moved back five feet so the historic path could be kept — but their request was ignored.

The fifth story rises to a height of almost 64 feet. The 1847 building is supposed to measure only 52 feet, which maintains the uniform line of the cornices of the other four-story row houses on the west half of the block. According to the Sliver Law, which limits the height of buildings relative to their width, the maximum height allowed for this building would be 60 feet, which makes it a clear violation according to D.O.B.’s own audit on October 21, 2008.

Yet on December 8 of this year, a D.O.B. inspector reported, “No violation warranted for complaint at time of inspection” and “At time of inspection only remedial work at site as per partial rescind order.” On Friday, December 10, Luskin and Finch reported in that same email referenced above, that an inspector and engineer came again — but only to make sure the building was structurally safe. “They were supposed to have come to verify whether or not the owner had, in fact, torn down the fifth story (as Leah Donaldson had assured me they would on December 8),” they said.

Barbara Testi, one of the two remaining tenants at the Hopper-Gibbons House, corroborated that two inspectors came by “just to check on the structural integrity of the building,” she said. “They looked up at the building and told me that the illegal story was for another department.”

Testi, a rent-stabilized tenant, has lived in the ground-floor back basement apartment for 30 years. She declared that management, Mautner-Glick Corp. (1345 Third Avenue), has done everything to make their lives hell. “It’s been a horror for five years since the construction started.” She said that the people in the other eight apartments were forced out. “Some were subletting, so that was easy. A regular tenant went to court and lost his lease. Some left because they couldn’t take the inconvenience and harassment.” She related that when one of the tenants (a young woman in her 30’s) was taking a shower, some workmen walked into her apartment looking for a bathroom to use. “The workers had keys to the apartments. She moved shortly afterwards.”

The first few years of the construction work, there was no super. “The garbage stank and was full of maggots,” Testi recalled. “My ceilings have collapsed several times and a few weeks ago, they burst through my bedroom. My floors came up because the pipe underneath blew up, and there have been periods of no heat.” A few years ago, the bathroom slab of cement, which is roughly in the center of the building, had completely ruptured. “They said they moved something they shouldn’t have,” she reported. On December 16, when Testi came home from work at 7 p.m., she couldn’t open the front door to her apartment because something shifted and the door no longer fit the frame. “One worker stayed behind and forced it open with a crowbar and readjusted the lock plates. It was sagging about half an inch down.” She added, “They had plans to dig out the basement and make that a livable space, but thankfully, they didn’t do that. I am sure the whole building would have come down.”

Inspectors also came on Monday, December 13. Even though Stop Work Orders are visibly plastered all over the building’s front door and a wooden partition to the left of the building, “One inspector said the complaint was ‘unwarranted,’ ” said Luskin. “You can see the construction from the street. You would have to be blind.” On the same Monday at 6:09pm, an emergency response team assigned to the case, showed up. Luskin does not know if they reported anything, “but nothing [additional] has been put on the wall,” she noted.

On Wednesday, December 15, Simeon Bankoff, executive director of Historic Districts Council, emailed Donaldson inquiring about the status of the illegal penthouse and asked, “Is this a case for the marshals or the police?” A few minutes later, Donaldson replied, “The emergency work is separate from the order to remove the fifth floor…Please be advised that there have been, and will continue to be, many inspections to verify they are not working on completing the fifth floor.”

On December 17, Luskin emailed more photos to LiMandri, Lee and Donaldson, which show the workmen installing a new guardrail on the roof of the fifth story; the beginning of the partitioning of the corridor and apartment wall on the fifth story; installation of a new heating pipe (photo taken on December 12) and the near completion of two of those walls (taken on December 16). “[T]he number of each floor is clearly marked on the interior, so the only possible explanation for the inspectors turning a blind eye to the fifth-story addition is that they are taking bribes,” Luskin wrote.

“We are up against a brick wall,” said a frustrated Finch. “The owner is a scofflaw who cares nothing about history, let alone civil rights. But he’s going along with the system, and if N.Y.U. can rip down most of the Provincetown Playhouse even though they promised preservationists they wouldn’t…it’s the culture of arrogance in the D.O.B. Dysfunction and likely corruption is polite.”

On December 21, Chelsea Now telephoned Donaldson — but she referred the reporter to the press office. Press spokesperson Carly Sullivan reiterated that D.O.B. is only allowing safety work at the site. “The Stop Work Order was lifted for safety work,” she asserted. When Chelsea Now stated that work continues on construction of the fifth floor, Sullivan said she would get back to me after she “touched base with the inspectors” and would get a list of the work that has been allowed. Chelsea Now obtained photos taken on December 18 to email Sullivan that show the illegal almost-completed fifth floor and the two apartments.

The owner has failed three audits, noted Finch. “We have printed out every single piece of paper on the D.O.B. website — permits, certificates of occupancy, applications — and have a record of what was on it. In the process, we discovered really weird lies and errors, like ‘existing building is five stories’ when it’s four, so they have been deceptive the whole time. They took the roof off and tried to pretend it’s a duplex, but it’s really a fifth floor. All the buildings have been four stories for hundreds of years. This self-certification [in which the owners state their building’s elements] is a huge nightmare that doesn’t work.”

In an email statement to Chelsea Now on December 15, Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, said, “The city needs to step up to the plate and finally enforce the law against this owner who shows no sign of any interest in or willingness to obey the rules. D.O.B. and L.P.C. need to put some teeth in their decisions, and the two agencies need to coordinate their efforts and do their job. That this situation has gone on for this long is an embarrassment.”

On December 22, Lisi de Bourbon, L.P.C. spokesperson, stated to Chelsea Now by phone, “At this point, the L.P.C. is not involved in making sure that the owner complies with the order.” However, later that day Emily Rich, the public information officer, responded to Chelsea Now’s email to L.P.C.’s general counsel John Weiss, “Our staff is aware of the issues at this property and have been speaking with our General Counsel. At this point, I do not have any further updates, but were are looking into the issue.”

New York State Assemblymember Richard Gottfried, whose office has been very active in the landmarking and preservation of the building, phoned on December 20 to express his concern. He said that the D.O.B. needs to “move more aggressively” and speed up their enforcement measures. “It’s a serious and persistent bad guy who has repeatedly ignored and violated city orders and regulations. I think very strong criminal and civil legal action is necessary here. It would have to be done by the Buildings Department. I and other elected officials have been talking to the D.O.B. about this — my office within the last couple of days — urging them to speed up their actions. It really is shocking the total lawlessness of the owner and stopping him and undoing the damage he has done is going to require some significantly stronger action from the Buildings Department.”

Lesley Doyel, co-president of Save Chelsea, stressed the urgency of the situation, “not only in terms of the integrity of the building and the row houses that comprise Lamartine Place, but also in terms of historic districts everywhere,” she stated. “If he is allowed to continue in defiance of D.O.B. and Landmarks, it will be bad for every historic district and landmarked building. I have been in close touch with Fern and Julie and many other organizations involved with preservation issues, and a lot of people are very concerned. It sets a dangerous precedence.”

Efforts to reach Mamounas via email and Alvin Glick, chairman/founder of Mautner-Glick Corp., and the architect John Hulme via phone proved fruitless. However, a July 30, 2009 Chelsea Now article quoted Hulme as declaring the proposed work “permanent,” “we are moving forward” and the owner “would attempt to finish construction as soon as possible.”

In addition to their tireless determination to save the historic building, Luskin and Finch — who have garnered awards from the periodical Underground Railroad Free Press and Historic Districts Council — are planning to raise money for a plaque to commemorate those tragic pre-Civil War events. “When the plaque goes up, I hope it will mention the lynchings that took place in the city. Hundreds of thousands of African-Americans fled the city because they were terrified of being killed,” Finch said.

She added, “We doubt that the owner will give permission to place it on the building, so we will probably have to put it on a lamppost.”

For more information, visit saveabolitionisthome339w29stnyc.blogspot.com

Victory!

2010-03-09T10:51:00.000-08:00

Victory is at hand! Both the Landmarks Commission and the NYC City Council have approved the creation of the Lamartine Place Historic District!

DOB allowing Hopper-Gibbons home to be heightened illegally

2009-05-06T11:47:00.000-07:00

Recent celebration over the New York City Landmarks Commission's first hearing for Lamartine Place may have been premature.

The owners of the Hopper-Gibbons house on 29th Street have been granted a new building permit to vertically and horizontally enlarge this 4 story row house and to construct a penthouse (see below). Right now, there is a cement mixer in their front yard.

The Department of Buildings has allowed this to occur despite the fact that the Landmarks Preservation is considering a historic district designation for this portion of the block. Furthermore, the heightening of this house is illegal according to the sliver law, as indicated by the Department of Building's own audit.

We all need to call 311 and to contact the Department of Buildings and the Mayor's office to prevent this from happening.

It may well be time to picket, hold a press conference, or whatever it takes to preserve these buildings.

Various bits of VERY good news!

2008-12-31T09:27:00.001-08:00

We are happy to report that on December 16,2008 the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission calandered the proposed Lamartine Place Historic District for a full hearing, for JANUARY 13!!! We encourage all supporters to turn out for the hearing!

Also, whereas in October we were very worried that work on the penthouse addition to the Hopper-Gibbons house had recommenced, we were able to get a new stop work order due to the help of Assemlymember Richard Gotfried's office.

Furthermore the current owner of the building will not be allowed to build the penthouse addition as he had intended. We received astonishing news re: the Hopper-Gibbons home at no. 339 West 29th (formerly an Underground Railroad Station) from the audit of this site conducted by the Department of Buildings on 10/21. The current owner of the building will not be allowed to build the penthouse addition as he had intended, which would have disrupted the uniform line of the cornices of the row houses on the west half of this block.

According to the DOB, the following objections to this proposed construction were raised in this failed audit: "The proposed penthouse, for an existing building less than 45 feet wide in an R8B zoning district is contrary to Section 23-692 of the Zoning Resolution, and therefore not permitted."!!!

We are elated at this news!

Current owner of the building will not be allowed to build the penthouse addition as he had intended.

2008-12-05T13:31:00.000-08:00

We have just received astonishing news re: the Hopper-Gibbons home at no. 339 West 29th (formerly an Underground Railroad Station) from the audit of this site conducted by the Department of Buildings on 10/21. The current owner of the building will not be allowed to build the penthouse addition as he had intended, which would have disrupted the uniform line of the cornices of the row houses on the west half of this block.

According to the DOB, the following objections to this proposed construction were raised in this failed audit: "The proposed penthouse, for an existing building less than 45 feet wide in an R8B zoning district is contrary to Section 23-692 of the Zoning Resolution, and therefore not permitted."!!!

We are elated at this news!

The Hopper-Gibbons home at no. 339 West 29th Street (which served as an Underground Railroad Station) has never been more gravely imperiled than now.

2008-10-21T14:14:00.000-07:00

Message from Fern Luskin:

The Hopper-Gibbons home at no. 339 West 29th Street (which served as an Underground Railroad Station) has never been more gravely imperiled than now. The day after the Landmarks Preservation Commission and Community Board 4 held a meeting indicating that they were very interested in making 12 buildings on my block part of a historic district, a construction crew resumed work on this home. I just learned that the owner of no. 339 was granted a new building permit on October 9th for exactly the same plan as last year, i.e., to add a 1 1/2 story penthouse to this 4 story rowhouse. According to the Landmarks Preservation Commission, the issuance of this building permit now prevents them from doing anything to help save the building.

However, as I have repeatedly indicated to the Department of Buildings for many months, the steel girders that are now perched on top of the building were built to an illegal height and endanger the fragile bricks below it (erected from 1846-1847). A DOB inspector, in fact, told Julie Finch and me in July that this should never have been allowed in the first place and that the DOB would issue violations and take the owners to court, but this was never done. Instead, on October 2nd, the DOB rescinded the Stop Work Order on this building that had been in place since last October and issued the new building permit the following week, thus ignoring this obvious violation of the law and my warnings of the safety issues this poses. They failed to even give either myself or Assemblyman Gottfried's office any information about the new plan exam that had been approved on September 19th or to reply to my complaint until AFTER allowing the owner to resume building. This was evidently an attempt on their part to render both myself and the elected officials powerless to intervene. Not only has the owner of no. 339 been engaged in illegal practices, endangering the contiguous buildings and innocent passersby, but now the Department of Buildings seems to have been involved in some kind of cover-up by denying the community the information we needed in order to fight this.

Our last hope is to finally prevail by publicizing the zoning violation and, of course, the historical importance of this building, through newspaper articles (Chelsea Now is doing another piece on this as we speak), a press conference and/or a public demonstration, or legal advice. Best of all would be to find a wealthy donor to buy the building! Our first step should be to call 311, complaining about the illegal height of the steel girders (heightening the building to 62 ft. 10 in. rather than the 60 feet allowed).

We need to deluge the Department of Buildings, Mayor Bloombergs' Office and the Office of City Council Speaker Christine Quinn who represents the related district.

The aesthetic unity and small scale of the row houses on 29th Street, fronted by gardens and opposite what is virtually a park, make it a special place within the congested, skyscraper-filled confines of Manhattan, which should not be marred by any alterations. To keep it that way and to reclaim the right to our architectural and historical heritage, we really need to step up to the plate and do something to help ourselves, because the DOB surely isn't.

Fern Luskin

State Historic Preservation Office says Lamartine Place meets the criteria for Historic District

2008-08-28T15:12:00.000-07:00

Great news everyone,

The State Historic Preservation Office has determined that the Lamartine Place Historic District (the 29th St. block) meets the criteria for listing to the State and National Registers I'll keep you posted. Meanwhile, have a terrific Labor Day weekend.

This could potentially mean not just the Hopper-Gibbons House but also the row of which it is a part.

This would create a nice precedent, which does not alas bind the NYC Landmarks Commision to do the same but could be a positive influence on their own decision making re:the house and or the block.

We would like to thank Julie Finch for her dedication and help in preparing the application for historic district eligiblity, Kathleen Howe of the State Historic Preservation Office, Fern Luskin for her pioneering research, Laurence Frommer, and our elected officials and Community Board (Manhattan CB 4), who have supported the effort to make Lamartine Place a historic district.

NYU symposium to commemorate the two-hundredth anniversary of the abolition of the Transatlanctic Slave Trade by the United States of America

2008-08-12T09:21:00.000-07:00

To commemorate the two-hundredth anniversary of the abolition of the Transatlanctic Slave Trade by the United States of America, New York University's Institute of African American Affairs and Africana Studies Program is hosting an international symposium entittled Slave Routes: Resistance, Abolition and creative Progress.

This symposium, supported by UNESCO's Slave Routes Project, will be co-sponsored by NYU's Institute for Public Knowledge, the Organization of Woman Writers of Africa, Inc. and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, with additional support provided by the African Diaspora Slave Routes Organizing Committee. The symposium will be held at New York University and other sites in the New York Metropolitan area October 9-11, 2008.

For more information, please visit: http://africanastudies.as.nyu.edu/object/slaveroutes08

2008-07-31T11:31:00.000-07:00

Although it sounds strange, not all white abolitionists worked with black abolitionists. The Hopper-Gibbons family were a noteable exception. In the cartoon from the time that is above we see Isaac Hopper in Quaker Garb, with noted NYC black abolitionist David Ruggles (David Ruggles--the country's first African American bookseller, founding secretary of New York City's Vigilance Committee, assistant to over 600 fugitive slaves including Frederick Douglass--joined them in 1842.) and to the right is Barney Course who assisted many fugitive slaves escape to freedom.

David Ruggles was known as one of the most "notorious" black abolitionists in the United States. Below is a description of a remarkable incident, which took place right around the time Frederick Douglass arrived in New York City, which reveals the energy and courage demanded of Ruggles as he used his pen and life to fight against slavery. The Darg Case, as it was called, caused a furor in New York’s newspapers in the autumn of 1838. Its proceeding exposed the extreme dangers for Ruggles and other anti-slavery warriors.

We look forward to the upcoming biography of David Ruggles by Colgate Professor, Graham Russell Hodges, the working title of which is A Whole-Souled Man: David Ruggles and the Rise of Radical Black Abolitionism.

from Graham Russell Hodges, Hazards of Anti-Slavery Journalism, 2000
(PLEASE SEE: http://www.davidrugglescenter.org/davidruggles.html)

IMAGE OF COMMEMORATIVE PLAQUE AT 36 LISPENARD ST., MANHATTAN, where David Ruggles sheltered Frederick Douglas when he first arrived in NYC.

New York City residents in the 1830s were deeply divided over the future of America’s peculiar institution. It was naturally abhorred by the city’s 16,000 black residents, many of whom had been only recently emancipated by legislative decree ending slavery in New York state in 1827. Much of the city’s elite also worked against it, though by different means. Some elite urbanites favored the strategy of the American Colonization Society, with its plan of sending free blacks back to Africa. Others, notably the Jay family, preferred black self-help efforts at home and donated money to the New York Manumission Society and its principal agency, the African Free School. Though the school had declined recently, it was the alma mater of the city’s black elite. A more radical wing of the Manumission Society sided with immediatists—anti-slavery activists such as William Lloyd Garrison and the Tappan brothers, founders of Dun and Bradstreet—who wanted slavery ended now, not later.

One of the most active Manumission Society members with this view was Barney Corse, who, for more than 10 years, had helped self-emancipated or fugitive slaves come north and helped local blacks protect their freedom against kidnappers. Joining him was the venerable Isaac T. Hopper, a Quaker abolitionist since the 1780s, and Ruggles. This trio had successfully battled city officials and kidnappers on several occasions. At other times, when they lost, Ruggles used his press to blast this unfair system. Some situations were uncomplicated; others, such as the Darg Case, were complex. The facts, as they came out in the subsequent trial, were as follows: On August 25, 1838, John P. Darg, a Virginia slaveholder, arrived in New York City with his slave Thomas Hughes. The issue of Southerners bringing their human chattel to a free state was under intense negotiation between the governors of New York and Virginia, but Darg apparently felt confident about the status of his servant. But a few days later Hughes came to Hopper’s house, seeking refuge. The Quaker, however, was initially reluctant and asked Hughes to leave his home. The next day, the New York Sun, the most vitriolic of the penny press, published a notice offering a reward for the return of Hughes and the $7,000 or $8,000 he had taken with him. Hopper, Corse and perhaps Ruggles served as go-betweens for Darg and Hughes. The slave no longer had all the money, having given some of it to others who helped him escape and a portion to some local gamblers.

Corse and Ruggles decided that returning the cash was moral but turning over Hughes was not. They convinced Darg to free Hughes provided that he gave back as much money as he took. When the sum turned out to be far less than Darg demanded, the slave master ordered Corse and Ruggles arrested for grand larceny. Corse quickly found bail, but Ruggles was jailed for two days with common criminals, even though he had not actually been charged with anything. After that incident, a caricature of the three, entitled The Disappointed Abolitionists, was published, suggesting that they were really interested in the reward and, rather than trying to free slaves, were setting up an extortion ring to prey on unwary masters.

The case remained newsworthy over the next few months. In October, a group of black citizens honored Ruggles by giving him a cane with a golden knob. Sadly, the struggle was taking its toll on the valiant Ruggles. Now only 28 years old, he was nearly blind and was afflicted with severe bowel disorders. All of his money and time went into the movement, so he often was homeless. Worse afflictions were on the way, and they came from a surprising source.

In 1837, Samuel Eli Cornish, aided by Philip A. Bell, resurrected his black newspaper and renamed it the Colored American. Ruggles quickly became a regular contributor. The editors in turn frequently wrote approvingly of his actions. But in early 1839, a terrible dispute arose that ended Ruggles’ career in New York City. Hearing rumors that a black hotelier named John Russell was hiding captive blacks before they were transported south, Ruggles, without Cornish’s knowledge, inserted an article in the Colored American accusing the innkeeper of helping kidnappers. Russell sued the newspaper, Ruggles and Cornish for libel and won a judgment of $600—which nearly bankrupted the weekly journal. Furious, Cornish attacked Ruggles in print. Although wealthy benefactors soon paid the libel award, Cornish campaigned to have Ruggles driven out of the movement. One method was to demand that Ruggles explain every cash expenditure of the Committee of Vigilance. After a careful accounting, it appeared that the committee’s funds were short $400. Broken in health and deeply hurt by Cornish’s accusations, Ruggles was forced to resign his post as secretary of the committee. Before doing so, he published his last imprint in New York City, A Plea for a Man and a Brother, in which he tried to refute Cornish’s indictments. In truth, the more conservative Cornish and his many allies had tired of Ruggles’ radical methods and sought less confrontational means to fight slavery.

from Graham Russell Hodges, Hazards of Anti-Slavery Journalism, 2000
(PLEASE SEE: http://www.davidrugglescenter.org/davidruggles.html)

We look forward to the upcoming biography of David Ruggles by Colgate Professor, Graham Russell Hodges, the working title of which is A Whole-Souled Man: David Ruggles and the Rise of Radical Black Abolitionism.

339 West 29th Street in gravely imperiled condition !

2008-07-22T11:21:00.000-07:00

There is no more serious case of a gravely imperiled, historically important building in NYC, than the former Hopper-Gibbons home at 339 West 29th St., which is the only documented Underground Railroad Station in Manhattan. We continue to urge all historic preservation agencies and organizations to add this site to their lists of endangered historic buildings.

The building currently has no roof, which is a fire hazard as has been reported to the inspector of the Fire Department (with no result)and has already caused water damage and provided a place for pidgeons to nest! In addition, the scaffolding and/or tarp, besides being an eyesore, is disintegrating and can endanger passersby. Because the owner started to construct one and a half stories without adhering to building and zoning codes and, as a reult, had their building permit revoked, the steel I-beams they erected (as well as the hazardous scaffolding), must be torn down and the original roof of the fifth floor which they destroyed, needs to be reconstructed ASAP.

339 West 29th St/Hopper-Gibbons House is featured in NY Times article about the challenge of preserving homes tied to the Undergound Railroad !

2008-02-25T14:54:00.000-08:00

This past Sunday (Feb 24) the NY Times published an article on the challenges of preserving homes tied to the Underground Railroad, featuring 339 West 29th Street, i.e. the Hopper-Gibbons House. Below is a quote from the article. For the full article please go to:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/nyregion/thecity/24slav.html?ref=thecity

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THE NEW YORK TIMES
February 24, 2008
Chelsea
Retracing the Elusive Footsteps of a Secretive History
By EMILY BRADY

ONE balmy day last April, an art and architecture historian named Fern Luskin hauled her laptop and a collapsible chair up to the roof of the Chelsea town house where she lives to work outside for a while. From the top of her building, on West 29th Street near Eighth Avenue, the view to the south is dominated by the bulky towers of the Penn South apartment complex. To the northeast, the Empire State Building pierces the sky.

But on this particular day, neither the panorama nor her laptop could distract Ms. Luskin from the scene unfolding three doors over, where workmen were attaching long steel beams and poles to a neighboring rooftop. It was the beginning of what she correctly assumed was the construction of a vertical addition to the nearby building — in other words, a penthouse.

Ms. Luskin, a professor of art history at La Guardia Community College, was distressed. Her trained eye relished the uniformity of the row of five town houses that included both her building and the one at No. 339 being readied for construction. The addition, she feared, would be what she described as an “aesthetic disturbance.”

After learning that the town houses were built in 1847, more than 50 years earlier than she had thought, Ms. Luskin decided to delve into the past of No. 339. For two months, she combed through historical archives and databases, and she discovered that No. 339 was apparently Manhattan’s first documented safe house for escaped slaves — a stop on the Underground Railroad.

Uncovering the story became something of an obsession as Ms. Luskin pieced together clues about the lives of Abigail Hopper Gibbons and James Sloan Gibbons, well-known Quaker abolitionists who lived in the building in its early years.

“It got so exciting,” Ms. Luskin said, “I couldn’t stop.”
After finding a period map that linked the Gibbonses to the house, Ms. Luskin discovered a passage in a letter published in a biography of a renowned 19th-century lawyer named Joseph Hodges Choate describing a meal he ate at the house with a young escaped slave who was fleeing to Canada.

Though buildings throughout the city are often thought to have been part of the escape route north, finding documents that provide proof is extremely difficult. “It’s incredibly rare that you can substantiate it,” said Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation. “Locations were secretive by their very nature.”

Despite the documentation Ms. Luskin collected, No. 339 could not originally be considered for designation as a landmark because a building permit had been issued for the construction project. However, construction is at a standstill; according to Kate Lindquist, a spokeswoman for the Department of Buildings, the permit for construction of the penthouse is being revoked, in part because an agency review determined that the architectural plans did not comply with building and zoning codes.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission is currently evaluating No. 339 to see if it is eligible for designation as a landmark, news that will no doubt delight some local residents.

“Being one of the few African-Americans on the block, I have an emotional connection to this history,” said Curtis Jewell, a 55-year-old truck driver for the Postal Service who has lived in Ms. Luskin’s building for 10 years. “You have a lot of cultural history in New York that money seems to want to push out of the way.”

THREAT TO IMPORTANT UNDERGROUND RAILROAD/ABOLITIONIST HOUSE ON WEST 29th Street, in Manhattans' Chelsea District, New York City.

2008-01-05T15:57:00.000-08:00

THREAT TO HISTORIC UNDERGROUND RAILROAD SAFE HOUSE ON WEST 29th STREET,MANHATTAN,New York City.

In Autumn of 2007, serious concern arose about the construction of two or more additional stories and alterations to 339 W. 29th Street. As Fern Luskin wrote to the Landmarks Preservation Commission in June 2007,
"This will result in the disfigurement of an important landmark building of great historical significance. Because of its historical importance, this addition must be stopped. This house, built in 1847, (not in 1900 (as erroneously indicated on Zoning map # 08D, Block 753, Lot 16), was the site of an "Underground Railroad" Station in New York for runaway slaves fleeing to Canada. The Civil War Sites Study Act of 1990 (Public Law 101-628, 16 U.S.C. 1a-5 note; 104 Stat. 4495) and the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Act of 1998 (Public Law 105-203) recognize the need for preserving buildings formerly used as Underground Railroad Stations. The house was once owned by the noted Quaker abolitionists and members of the Anti-Slavery Society, James Sloan Gibbons, and his wife, Abigail Hopper Gibbons.

Other important opponents of slavery who stayed in or visited their residence on 29th Street include Abby’s father, Isaac Tatem Hopper,a
renowned Underground Railroad activist (died in 1852, due to terminal illness); Horace Greeley, who often lodged there,and John Brown (who, while spending the evening there in 1859, confided in Abby his plans for the raid on Harper’s Ferry and the freeing of the slaves that he hoped would result from it). In his quest to end slavery, James Gibbons was one of the first to respond to President Lincoln’s call for 300,000 more troops and his poem, “We Are Coming Father Abra’am,” was the impetus for the phenomenonally popular Civil War song of that name, composed by Stephen Foster."

As Fern Luskin later discovered and wrote to both the Landmarks Preservation Commission and Community Board 4: "There exists an extremely important document indicating, irrefutably, that Abigail Hopper Gibbons and her husband, James Sloan Gibbons, provided refuge for runaway slaves. It was written by their close friend, the renowned lawyer Joseph M. Choate. Choate, who used to visit
the Gibbons home after coming to New York in 1855, states "the house of Mrs. Gibbons was a great resort of abolitionists and extreme antislavery people from all parts of the land, as it was one of the stations of the underground railroad by which fugitive slaves found their way from the
South to Canada. I have dined with that family in company with William Lloyd Garrison, and sitting at the table with us was a jet-black negro who was on his way to freedom...Lucretia Mott the celebrated female preacher of that day was also a frequent guest."
[from Dorothy G. Becker, Abigail Hopper Gibbons (New York, 1989), pp. 6-7, citing Edward Sandford Martin, The Life of Joseph Hodges Choate: As Gathered Chiefly from his Letters (New York, 1920), 2 Vols. Vol.I, pp. 96,99."

As Underground Railroad Stations are supposed to be preserved by law, 339 West 29th St. (the Hopper-Gibbons' home) must be given landmark status. Similarly, as there are not a great many examples of 1840's architecture left in Manhattan, the Landmarks Preservation Commission should give this rare surviving example theroef, the landmark status it deserves, thus preserving the architectural integrity of this building.

Because of the Gibbons’ opposition to slavery and their close friendship with Horace Greeley, a mob specifically targeted their house for destruction during the Draft Riots of 1863. James Gibbons, his daughters, and the famous lawyer, Joseph Hodges Choate, escaped the mob only by walking over the roofs of the neighboring houses (which were of virtually uniform height) and were saved by a Mr. Herrman who let them into the Hebrew Orphan Asylum at the end of the block. The looting and partial torching of the Gibbons’ residence was described in the correspondence of Mr. Gibbons, himself, as well as that of his daughters, their friends (including Choate and the renowned botanist John Torrey), and in court records.

The Gibbonses’ residence, like the other row houses on West 29th Street (between 8th and 9th Avenues), was built by the Rev. Dr. Cyrus Mason, evidently in partnership with the entrepreneur, William Torrey, John Torrey’s brother. The block was called Lamartine-Place from the time it was built until 1898 and was, as Christopher Gray suggests in his “Streetscapes” column in the New York Times (1998), probably named after Alphonse de Lamartine, the French poet and politician. The Gibbons family resided at No. 19 Lamartine-Place.

This lovely tree-lined avenue of row houses fronted by gardens, was also the site of other noteworthy occupants besides James and Abigail Gibbons. The Hebrew Orphan Asylum, the first Jewish orphanage in New York City, was located at No. 1 Lamartine-Place (now 303 West 29th St.), from 1860-63. The Petitpas Boarding House and restaurant, once at no. 8 Lamartine-Place (now 317 West 29th St), was a bohemian magnet, due to the presence of the artist John Butler Yeats (William’s father). John Sloan (who, along with other Ashcan School artists, used to congregate there), painted Yeats at this locale in his 1910 picture, Yeats at Petitpas’.

Other illustrious lodgers at this establishment included Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose nephew was married to one of the Gibbonses’ daughters and who, like that family was opposed to slavery. The popular soprano, Emma Gillingham Bostwick, who performed in the 1850s, may also have resided on this block, as the name, “Mrs. Bostwick” was written beneath the address, “2 Lamartine-place, West Twenty-ninth-Street,” on a piece of paper found in 1862 that had been salvaged from a shipwreck.

Finally, Lamartine Hall, on the northwest corner of West 29th St. and 8th Avenue, was the endpoint of the Orangemen’s parade and the Hibernians’ riot, in 1871. The planned addition of upper stories to 339 West 29th Street will mar the current roof line and cornice shared by all of the historic town houses on this portion of the block and will forever obscure the Gibbons’ escape route over these roofs during the Draft Riots.

Already, the steel girders for the additional stories are in place, a third floor has been laid down at the rear of the house (which was formerly only two stories high,), and the antique cornice (and bricks) on the façade have been removed, to be replaced by a vulgar, modern imitation.

It is important that we preserve, and not destroy, the architectural and historic legacy of Chelsea, in general, and of West 29th Street, in particular. Toward this end, we must protect this important building by conferring on it the landmark status that it deserves, specifically that of Underground Railroad Station."Map shows routes of the "Underground Railroad".

ABOUT: ABIGAIL HOPPER GIBBONS

OVERVIEW:

Abigail Hopper Gibbons (7 December 1801 – 16 January 1893) was an abolitionist, activist, and a nurse during the American Civil War.

Gibbons grew up in a Quaker family, and her father spent much of his time and money aiding runaway slaves.

Abigail was to share her father's beliefs and spent much of her life working for social reform. Over the course of her life, Gibbons pushed for prison reform, welfare, civil rights, and care for soldiers returning from the Civil War. In an odd twist of events, Gibbon's father,Isaac Hopper,

and her husband, James Gibbons, were disowned by their New York City Quaker Meeting, because they were directly confrontational, including in print, with specific members of the congregation, whose business activities were profiting from slave labor in the southern states.

Abigail Gibbons then protested with her feet and left the society although she had been a leading member in it, and never returned. However the family still maintained the silent, mystical Quaker form of worship in their home.

Although a controversial figure, she was highly successful in her many efforts.

Isaac T. Hopper, father and mentor of Abigail Hopper Gibbons.

MORE IN DEPTH:
Abigail Hopper Gibbons was born in Philadelphia in 1801, the third of ten children. Abigail taught school for several years in Philadelphia and New York. In 1833, she married fellow Quaker, James Sloan Gibbons, who was also an ardent abolitionist. In 1836, Abigail and James moved to New York City, where they had six children. Two of their sons died in infancy, and a third died suddenly after an accident in which he was involved while attending Harvard University.

PRISON REFORM:

"Abby"and her father founded the Women's Prison Association of New York City in 1845. She lobbied for improvements in the city's prisons, advocated the hiring of police matrons, and urged the establishment of separate prisons for women. She frequently visited the various prisons in and about New York. For twelve years, she was also president of a German industrial school for street children.In 1853, the Women's Prison Association separated from its parent, the Prison Association, and Abby obtained a New York State charter for her group. Under her leadership, the WPA undertook an aggressive program of legislative lobbying. She protested jail overcrowding and demanded that women prisoners be searched only by female matrons.At that time, most of the WPA’s clients were Irish immigrants struggling with alcohol dependency, made worse by the extreme poverty in which they lived. Abby and her staff worked tirelessly to provide these women with a place to stay, a supportive community, and practical skills training. They created programs for these women, who had previously only known poverty and trouble in their lives.
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NURSING CIVIL WAR WOUNDED & ESTABLISHMENT OF SANITARY COMMISION:
With the coming of the war, Abby knew that nurses would be needed to care for the wounded. She was immediately ready to give her all for the Union.The United States Sanitary Commission was established in 1861.The purpose of the commission was to recruit nurses and to provide adequate medical care to the Union soldiers-wounded. When the Commission set up a training base at David’s Island Hospital in New York, Abby was among the trainees.She traveled to Washington D.C., to help at the Washington Office Hospital, helping the wounded and distributing supplies. She also helped to establish two field hospitals in Virginia.At Point Lookout, Maryland, the government took over a hotel and 100 guest cottages and converted them into a hospital complex with accommodations for 1500 soldiers. It was named Hammond General Hospital. Abigail vied with Dorothea Dix, the Union Superintendent of Nurses, for control of the hospital, and Abby was finally appointed its head matron. She left the hospital in 1863, when it was converted into Point Lookout Confederate Prison.
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DRAFT RIOTS TARGET GIBBONS HOME AT 339 W29th STREET:

After the Battle of Gettysburg, Abby and daughter Sarah were at the front lines nursing wounded Union soldiers and helping escaped slaves to survive and avoid recapture.
Upon comencement of the first-ever military draft, Draft Riots engulfed New York City. At the Gibbons home at 19 Lamartine Place (now 339 W. 29th St.) were Abby’s husband, James Sloan Gibbons, and their two younger daughters, Julia and Lucy. The Gibbons home became one of the many targets of the angry mob.
Below are a few glimpses of what happened to their home on July 14,1863 from a letter (dated July 17) from daughter Lucy to her Aunt Anna:

"As for Bridget, the [Irish servant] girl, it was impossible to alarm her. Her sole consideration was getting through with the washing.... .... In fact, at about 5 o’clock,...I proposed taking a bath [after she and Julia had moved some clothing, personal papers, and portraits to their aunt and uncle’s home next door]. Fifteen minutes later, the mob appeared. .... Our neighbors behaved nobly. Judge Robinson entered with the mob and saved what he could--a portrait of Willie [their brother, who had died in a freak accident while a student at Harvard, a few years earlier], a drawer full of letters,...Mr. Horn stood in the parlor and threatened the mob with a pistol. He drove off the women (!!!) who were trying to set fire to the house with torches, but was finally obliged to retreat through the back window. Mr. Grey rescued a sheet full of wet clothes which were being carried off; and his wife had them re-washed and ironed. A lilttle boy from somewhere, only about twelve years old, helped like a little soldier, bringing buckets of water to put out the fire. .... Our butcher [probably an Irishman] went into the midst of the mob, and declared he would not have that house touched, for which he was badly beaten, but will recover. Father was at the Fifth Avenue Hotel making a last appeal for military to protect the premises..... Mr. [Joseph] Choate...[accompanied us] over the roofs to the end of the block, (by this time the mob was violent) out of a house there [owned by a Jewish man], procured a carriage which waited in 8th Ave., put us all into it, and brought us [to his family’s home on W. 21st St.].

The above item is Excerpted from “The Life of Abby Hopper Gibbons as Told Chiefly Through Her Correspondence,” By Sarah Gibbons Emerson (1896)

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CHARITABLE WORK AFTER THE CIVIL WAR:
Following the war, Abby was involved in several New York charities, including the "Labor and Aid Society," which helped returning veterans find work.She aided in founding the Isaac Hopper Home, named for her father, which helped former women prisoners to return to society. Today, the Women's Prison Association still provides programs through which women can acquire the life skills necessary to lead a productive life and to make good choices for themselves and their families. It is the nation’s oldest advocacy organization working exclusively with women prisoners. Over the past 160 years, the WPA has adapted to the changing needs of its clients and offered them alternatives to their previous lives of crime.

ONE OF THE MOST REMARKABLE WOMEN OF THE 19th CENTURY

In January 1893, Abigail Hopper Gibbons died at the age of 92. She was eulogized in her obituary as "one of the most remarkable women of the century." She was not only one of the founders of the WPA, she was also the founder of the New York Diet Kitchen for infants and the sick and the poor, and president of the New York Committee for the Prevention and Regulation of Vice. A friend once said of the Hoppers and Gibbonses "they had a natural love for sinners.
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MORE ABOUT THE HISTORIC HOPPER-GIBBONS HOUSE

The Gibbons home in Manhattan, still stands at what is now 339 West 29Th Street, and was part of an elegant row of houses built as a piece in 1847,much of which survives,despite an apparant lack of any landmark protection. The row was once known as Lamaratine Place and was likely named for Alphonse De Lamartine, a French romantic poet and patron of Anti Slavery and liberal causes.)The house is alleged to have been a stop on the Underground Railroad, and this would not be suprising given the family devotion to the Anti Slavery cause.

AN IMPORTANT HOUSE IN A NOTEWORTHY DISTRICT:
The House is most worthy of individual landmark designation, and the larger context in which the house is situated, a two block oasis of 1847 rowhouses is worthy of preservation as a historic district. Specificaly, this refers to the north side of West 29th street from Eighth to Ninth Avenue (at one time known as "Lamartine Place") and both north and south sides of a similar block of West 30Th Street from Eighth to Ninth Avenue.These two blocks were developed in 1847 by Cyrus Mason,in partnership with William Torrey. Mason and Torrey were involved in the construction of Clement Clarke Moore's 1845 row house development, London Terrace, on the site of the present apartment complex of that name, 23d to 24Th Street between Ninth and 10Th Avenue. Both the29th Street block and the 30th street block show Moore's influence, with several row houses still preserving in varied degrees the the front "yard: setback characteristic of Moores' blocks to the south near the Episcopal seminary.

These two miraculously surviving blocks are both a lovely 19Th Century Oasis and a sorely needed respite, wedged as they are, between Penn Souths huge "tower in park" complex and the "super-blocks" of the Farley Post Office and Madison Square Garden/PennStation.(not mention many mega projects to come!) This alone is worth preserving as large scale development pressures are encroaching from all sides these days. Perhaps it is not too late for the Chelsea community to create of these two blocks, a mini Historic District..this would be ideal (no doubt replete with "non contributing buildings" and the rowhouses in various states of alteration or not). ...Barring this, at least these historic "Lamartine Blocks" need a firm lowering of the attendant FAR from R8b to R6b which is more akin to certain West Village townhouse sidestreets.

Save The Abgail Hopper Gibbons Home:339 West 29th Street,Chelsea,Manhattan,NYC.

2007-12-01T09:26:00.000-08:00

This Blog enthusiastically supports the individual landmarking of 339 West 29 Street,at northern edge of Manhattan's Chelsea district.This 1840's townhouse was once the home of the prominent nineteenth century family of abolitionists/social reformers:that include Abigail Hopper Gibbons and her husband, James Sloan Gibbons as well as Mrs. Gibbons' father and mentor, Isaac T. Hopper. In Fall of 2007 a serious alarm was raised when a new owner of 339 West 29th Street, commenced remodeling with the intention of adding a penthouse, altering the uniform cornice and threatening the historic integrity of the building. Dilgent research, has shown that there is compelling evidence that the building was not only,home to the legendary Abolitionist family but was also specifically targeted during the Draft Riots of 1863 and can further be established through a contemporary eyewitness accounts as being a station on the Underground Railroad.

There exists an extremely important document indicating,irrefutably,that Abigail Hopper Gibbons and her husband, James Sloan Gibbons, provided refuge for runaway slaves.It was written by their close friend, the renowned lawyer Joseph M. Choate. Choate,who used to visit the Gibbons home after coming to New York in 1855,states:

"the house of Mrs. Gibbons was a great resort of abolitionists and extreme antislavery people from all parts of the land, as it was one of the stations of the underground railroad by which fugitive slaves found their way from the
South to Canada. I have dined with that family in company with William Lloyd Garrison, and sitting at the table with us was a jet-black negro who was on his way to freedom...Lucretia Mott the celebrated female preacher of that day was also a frequent guest."

[from Dorothy G. Becker, Abigail Hopper Gibbons (New York, 1989), pp. 6-7, citing Edward Sandford Martin, The Life of Joseph Hodges Choate: As Gathered Chiefly from his Letters (New York, 1920), 2 Vols. Vol.I, pp. 96,99.

As Underground Railroad Stations are supposed to be preserved by law, 339 West 29th St. (the Hopper-Gibbons' home) must be given landmark status. Similarly, as there are not a great many examples of 1840's architecture left in Manhattan, the Landmarks Preservation Commission should give this rare surviving example theroef, the landmark status it deserves, thus preserving the architectural integrity of this building.

Upon comencement of the first-ever military draft, Draft Riots engulfed New York City. At the Gibbons home at 19 Lamartine Place (now 339 W. 29th St.) were Abby’s husband, James Sloan Gibbons, and their two younger daughters, Julia and Lucy.
The Gibbons home became one of the many targets of the angry mob,who chanted "Gibbons,Greeley".

Below are a few glimpses of what happened to their home on July 14,1863 from a letter (dated July 17) from daughter Lucy to her Aunt Anna:

"As for Bridget, the [Irish servant] girl, it was impossible to alarm her. Her sole consideration was getting through with the washing.... .... In fact, at about 5 o’clock,...I proposed taking a bath [after she and Julia had moved some clothing, personal papers, and portraits to their aunt and uncle’s home next door]. Fifteen minutes later, the mob appeared. .... Our neighbors behaved nobly. Judge Robinson entered with the mob and saved what he could--a portrait of Willie [their brother, who had died in a freak accident while a student at Harvard, a few years earlier], a drawer full of letters,...Mr. Horn stood in the parlor and threatened the mob with a pistol. He drove off the women (!!!) who were trying to set fire to the house with torches, but was finally obliged to retreat through the back window. Mr. Grey rescued a sheet full of wet clothes which were being carried off; and his wife had them re-washed and ironed. A lilttle boy from somewhere, only about twelve years old, helped like a little soldier, bringing buckets of water to put out the fire. .... Our butcher [probably an Irishman] went into the midst of the mob, and declared he would not have that house touched, for which he was badly beaten, but will recover. Father was at the Fifth Avenue Hotel making a last appeal for military to protect the premises..... Mr. [Joseph] Choate...[accompanied us] over the roofs to the end of the block, (by this time the mob was violent) out of a house there [owned by a Jewish man], procured a carriage which waited in 8th Ave., put us all into it, and brought us [to his family’s home on W. 21st St.].

The above item is Excerpted from “The Life of Abby Hopper Gibbons as Told Chiefly Through Her Correspondence,” By Sarah Gibbons Emerson (1896)

The building is part of a handsome row, once known as "Lamartine Place" and the block as a whole has much noteworthy history.However,neither the Gibbons House, nor the related block has any historic landmark protection, and if this is not remedied soon all could be lost. Currently, New York City has no museum commemorating its abolitionist history, and tepid recognition for sites associated with the Underground Railroad. Clearly this must change........