Historic Weeksville Houses Restored, Reopened

The four historic Hunterfly Road Houses, all that remain of Brooklyn’s oldest community of free African Americans, reopened yesterday after undergoing a $3 million make-over. The Hunterfly Road Houses were once part of a much larger pre-Civil War community built on land purchased in 1838 by James Weeks, an African-American longshoreman. The community had its own school, newspaper, social and athletic groups, an orphanage, a home for the elderly, plus many churches. Professionals, as well as civil servants and craftsmen lived in houses built between 1840 and 1883. By the 1950s, except for the home facing Bergen St., the Hunterfly Road houses were largely forgotten. Then in 1968, an engineer and a historian flew over the area and rediscovered the houses, which launched a preservation effort. The houses were designated a city landmark in 1970 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. Under the supervision of Weeksville Society’s executive director emeritus, Joan Maynard, the houses underwent several renovations. But the work just completed is the most extensive ever done. According to Pamela Green, executive director of the Weeksville Society, the houses have been restored to reflect various periods of community life – the mid-19th, early and mid-20th century.
Open House at Weeksville [NY Daily News]
Brooklyn Heritage Tour [African Genealogical Society]