weeksville historical center: why don't more people know about this hidden beauty in the heart of brooklyn?

As I was walking down Bergen Street in Bedford Stuyvesant I was looking for Buffalo Avenue. Well, I found the cross streets, but I could not find Weeksville Heritage Center. So, I stopped a man and asked him if he knew where it was. He was not sure, but oddly enough, we were standing right in front of the site. We laughed and I made my way through the gate onto the historic Hunterfly Road and entered this hidden oasis. This road is not paved nor is it on the grid. It is a hidden gem in the heart of Brooklyn and when you walk into the old Hunterfly Road Houses it is like stepping into history.
As a group we chose the Weeksville Historical Society because it is an opportunity to share a different kind of history with our students; a history that digs deeper than the skimming textbook effect which only addresses slavery and Reconstruction. Weeksville delves deeper into the social history of free blacks from the early 19th century. Our guide told us that at one point in the 1870s Weeksville’s population consisted of 500 people and the community stretched five to six blocks in each direction. The progressive neighborhood was heavily wooded and, therefore, secluded.
The first house that we entered was that of a middle class family from the 1860s. The floors were carpeted, there was furniture from Sears Roebuck & Co, with separate bedrooms and a room in the back, not a kitchen, but it was where most of the preparation of food and goods took place. Coming to a historic site like this would be a great way for students to visually grasp a different kind of history---one that was free from shackles, whips, and plantations. A living, thriving, and hard working community that developed along with the rest of New York City and the nation. This development is evident as we made our way into the other types of houses. Adjacent to the latter house described was a house that displayed the way a working class family lived---a bit more modest, but nonetheless charming. Next, we traveled to the house that represented a family’s home from the turn of the 20th century. Here, in the parlor was a beautiful piano and atop the piano were photographs from this time period that gave a face to the home. These little details were fascinating to learn from. Artifacts throughout the home are great prompts for questions. So, why are so many teachers unaware of Weeksville’s presence in Brooklyn?
The last house I found most interesting. It was built in the early 20th century. It has beautiful molding and decorated glass cupboards. It is spacious and based on the literature and musical instruments that was lying around the living room it was clear that the family was very focused on learning and music. In a magazine holder next to an armchair was WEB Dubois’ The Crisis and an issue of Life Magazine from 1939. It was modernized and fully equipped with electricity and a telephone. Our guide has informed us that the father had four jobs to keep up the household. This house was the last house standing on Hunterfly Road. It was sold to Weeksville Historical Society in 1968.
To sum up our trip, I will leave the most exciting information for last. As our guide was talking about different primary documents (i.e. census records, artifacts, photographs, journals) they use to gather information about Weeksville and the families that lived there, I asked, “As teachers, do we have access to any of these records to share with our students?” She informed me that the WHS has begun construction on the new research facility and community center on site at Weeksville Heritage Center. It will be a green building where teachers and students can come to research. The WHS is in the process of digitizing all of the documents, so the delicate and precious materials can be democratized. The green building, which has been 40 years in the making (gathering funds, designs, finding documents and materials) will be completed in an expected 22 months.
Weeksville is the perfect opportunity to share the social history of African Americans that is close to home for our students. It is a microcosm of New York City: walking through the houses from different time periods you find that Weeksville started off rural and became urban. Weeksville was almost demolished in the mid-20th century by the NYC’s Urban Renewal Project. Luckily, Professor James Hurley, spotted Weeksville overhead by plane with a student who just so happened to have a pilot license. The Hunterfly Road Houses were officially declared New York City landmarks in 1970 and in 1971 and in 1972 they were placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

all over brooklyn, all day, everyday.

revolutionary road, george tooker, and homogeneity.

although revolutionary road has been out for quite some time, i just watched it today.

one thing that i found particularly interesting was a few scenes in the first half of the movie. the character played by dicaprio, frank, traveled from connecticut to new york to work. as he was leaving the train one day, with every other business man in a suit and cap, i thought of george tooker's painting the subway, which coincidentally was painted in the decade the movie was set to take place. i took a few screen shots and i will compare these shots to a couple of tooker's paintings. also included is an excerpt from a paper i wrote on this subject two years ago.









Government Bureau, 1956
George Tooker (American, born 1920)
Egg tempera on wood; 19 5/8 x 29 5/8 in. (49.8 x 75.2 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
George A. Hearn Fund, 1956 (56.79)



George Tooker The Subway 1950. Egg tempera on gesso panel, 18 X 36 in. Whitney Museum of Art, NYC.

The cityscape [of New York] contained “rich, high-keyed raw material.” Within New York were its people, who ranged from “plutocrat to pushcart vendor, jubilant or desperate, triumphantly of the crowd or isolated in it.” The Subway is one of many city views, one in which invites the viewer; as described by an article written on 29 April 1956 in the New York Times; into New York’s underground stations, with its endless tunnels, prison-like walls and cage-like bars that are symbolically transformed by Tooker into a nightmare setting for the individual lost in “the lonely crowd.”


The emphasis placed on “the lonely crowd” by the newspaper relates the painting to sociologist David Riesman’s book The Lonely Crowd, which conveys a negative attitude similar to Tooker’s painting. Published in 1950, the same year dated to the painting, Reisman’s sociology “provided a moody contrast to the cold war’s flag-waving, arguing that the return of material prosperity led not to social peace but inner desolation.” In other words it was a sad attempt to stave off cultural despair. Furthermore, Reisman argued that the deepest problem in American life was a “quiet nihilism and depressed apathy.” Tooker gives form to this apathy in his painting in its figures, which are based on an archetype known as “the anonymous Tooker protagonist.” The Subway is a visual example of Reisman’s sociological rhetoric: “Cultural mores were enforced through people’s sensitivity to the wants and demands of those around them. There were no obvious leaders; everyone was constantly looking at everyone else. He believed that modern Americans were prisoners without bars, frantically glancing from side to side.” Tooker applied this sociological discourse to aesthetics, only taking it one step further. By using the subway as a realistic setting in New York, Tooker trapped this “lonely crowd” behind this caged and contained space, thus imprisoning these archetypal figures, which, according to Reisman, modern society thought incapable of independent action.