NYC's Hidden History at Risk: Council Fights to Save Underground Railroad Site

A bipartisan majority of NYC Council members is demanding Mayor Zohran Mamdani seize privately owned property in order to save a piece of Manhattan history tied to the Underground Railroad, The Post has learned.

Councilman Harvey Epstein (D-Manhattan) fired off a letter Tuesday to Mamdani signed by 31 other members urging the mayor to work with the Council to use the city’s eminent domain powers to block a proposal to build a 100-foot-high commercial building next door to the Merchant’s House Museum in NoHo, where a secret passageway used to smuggle slaves to freedom was discovered in February.

Experts say construction of the planned building will cause irreparable damage to the adjacent city-owned, three-and-a-half-story site—which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is the earliest known location of Underground Railroad activity in NYC.

“The city should, as it has done in the past, take the steps necessary to continue preservation of this historic property, especially given its recent discovery as an African American Heritage Site,” said the pols, which also included Speaker and Manhattan Dem Julie Menin and Queens Republican Joann Ariola.

The seized property would become NYC’s first “Underground Railroad Memorial Learning Center,” the pols propose.

NYC and the state have used eminent domain —the government’s right to seize private property for what is considers a public benefit —to drive large-scale infrastructure and economic development like highways, Central Park, Hudson Yards and the Atlantic Yards project that included Brooklyn’s Barclays Center.

Mamdani is already facing heavy criticism from real estate groups and conservative lawmakers for his Marxist “Fix the City” plan, which proposes seizing derelict buildings from negligent landlords and transferring ownership to favored “community land trusts” or tenants.

Ariola defended the Council’s plan to use eminent domain.

“This is American history being preserved,” the Republican pol told The Post. “Ordinarily, I would be adamantly against the city interfering with private development, but this is one of the rare occasions when I think such action is warranted.”

The Mayor’s Office did not return messages.

The Underground Railroad passageway — built in 1832 beneath a built-in dresser of drawers — is the only one in NYC that is accessible to the public, and the second to still exist in the city, aside from the Hopper-Gibbons House on West 29th Street.

Kalodop II Park Corp. wants to demolish a one-story garage it owns at 27 East 4th St. now being used to store food carts. It would be replaced with a nine-story office building that includes ground-floor space likely to be used for a restaurant or art gallery.

Since the lot is located within the NoHo Historic District Extension, which consists of 56 buildings that date back to as far as the 1820s, the Landmarks Preservation Commission must still approve the proposal.

During an LPC public hearing on March 17, Epstein, who represents the neighborhood, cited the potential collapse of the Merchant’s House due to the construction, and the threat to future discoveries around the Underground Railroad site as reasons why Kalodop’s application should be denied.

Kalodop did not return a request for comment.