The Economic Development Corporation (EDC) just announced their new community outreach for “Abolitionist Place,” a public park by the same name on the street where 227 Abolitionist Place is located. This park will essentially be a community benefit for new residents of the luxury towers, hotels, and big corporations that have moved into Downtown Brooklyn. It's something beloved by the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership. But the EDC wants more: They want to co opt the language of anti-gentrification activists. They want to use the word "Abolitionism," a symbol of hip new capitalism.

The Economic Development Corporation has no shame. It uses the words of the anti-gentrification movement as decorations on their corporate spaces. The newest outrage is that the artist, who is commissioned by the EDC to design a public art installation inspired by the area’s abolitionist history, attempts to use the word “abolitionism” for the sake of a grotesque abuse of displacement and government power. 

Abolitionist Place got its name because of the 19th century radical activists that lived there, including Harriet and Thomas Truesdell. Afterward, the area was full of low income housing and minority owned business. All of this was destroyed using the government’s power to confiscate property for the sake of “economic development.” 

The EDC confiscated and destroyed 223 and 225 Abolitionist Place, which used to have underground passageways connected to 227 Abolitionist Place, an Underground Railroad location. The EDC tried to demolish 227 Abolitionist Place and erase its importance too. This is a continuation of the same fight. The same people who tried to deny Underground Railroad linkage to Abolitionist Place are now trying to distort “Abolitionism” and reduce it to a doormat for new residents. Instead of honoring this history, the EDC puts a dog run on top of the former tunnels. Now they ask you trivial questions like “What colors, images, textures, etc. do you associate with the history of abolition in Brooklyn?” 

The EDC’s artist writes “the work of abolishing slavery was not solely about ending chattel slavery in the United States, but about abolishing the conditions which legitimized and propped up chattel slavery.” New York City was the financial capital of the Southern Slave system. Our local banks not only “propped up” slavery, but their financial legacy is the basis of New York City’s financial system. The most aggressive and unaccountable icon of that system has to be the Economic Development Corporation. 

Luckily, the EDC asked for the public’s ideas about abolitionism, so let’s give it to them. Please fill out their google form. Please sign up for their “Abolition Study Group.” If they want a dialogue about “trajectory of this public art project in relation to Brooklyn’s abolitionist history,” then let’s give it to them. 

Sign up for these events at the links below to voice your concern of the EDC’s distortion of “Abolitionism.”

The EDC and their proxies are going to try to introduce us to the project at these meetings–please sign up:

Monday, January 24, 2022 (6-7pm EST): Project Introduction | Register Here 

Monday, February 7, 2022 (5-6pm EST): Project Introduction | Register Here 

To sign up for the EDC sponsored Abolition Study Groups:

Sunday, January 30 (5-7pm EST): Attend an abolition study group session | Sign Up 

Sunday, February 20 (5-7pm EST): Attend an abolition study group session | Sign Up