A bipartisan bloc of New York City Council members is urging Mayor Zohran Mamdani to consider seizing privately owned property to protect a historic Manhattan site linked to the Underground Railroad, The Post has learned.
In a letter sent Tuesday, Councilman Harvey Epstein of Manhattan, joined by 31 other council members, called on Mamdani to work with the Council to use the city’s eminent domain authority to stop a proposal for a 100-foot commercial building next to the Merchant’s House Museum in NoHo. The appeal follows the February discovery of a secret passageway at the site that was believed to have been used to help enslaved people escape to freedom.
Preservation experts warn that construction of the proposed development could cause irreversible harm to the neighboring three-and-a-half-story property, which is city-owned, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and recognized as the earliest known site of Underground Railroad activity in New York City.
“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,” the lawmakers wrote. The signatories included Council Speaker and Manhattan Democrat Julie Menin as well as Queens Republican Joann Ariola.
The council members say the acquired property could be transformed into New York City’s first “Underground Railroad Memorial Learning Center.”
Both the city and state have previously used eminent domain — the government’s power to take private property for public use — to advance major infrastructure and development projects, including highways, Central Park, Hudson Yards, and Atlantic Yards, the Brooklyn project that included 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.
