Weeksville Heritage Center
Brooklyn, NY
Weeksville Heritage Center is one of the few preserved African-American historic sites in New York City. The small wood-frame Hunterfly Road houses, dating from 1840s to 1880s are all that remain of the 19th-century African-American community of Weeksville, originally settled by free blacks. The historic complex serving as a living museum of African-American culture and history is a New York City landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. After a devastating fire damaged 1706 Bergen Street, Li · Saltzman served as the Architect for the house’s reconstruction and adaptive use as an exhibit gallery. Using physical evidence remaining from the fire and archival photographs, Li · Saltzman developed documents to re-create the building envelope over the original foundation. The facades feature wood clapboards, multi-pane wood windows, shutters, bracketed eaves, and entry porches, painted in vibrant colors based on historic paint analysis, capped by a wood shingle roof. In the heart of Bedford Stuyvesant, Weeksville provides an extraordinary historic and cultural resource.
Designation: National Register of Historic Places, NYC Individual Landmark
