12. 857 Riverside Drive, Washington Heights
Around the time activists tried to secure landmark status for 227 Duffield in Brooklyn, another endangered home that played a role in the New York Underground Railroad was at risk. Located at 857 Riverside Drive, the two-story home has been threatened with demolition, and the Landmarks Preservation Committee rejected the request to grant the home landmark status. The home is the only structure above 29th Street that many consider a significant location for the Underground Railroad. According to a recent report, the house was owned from 1852 to 1854 by Dennis Harris, an abolitionist minister who may have had close ties to the Underground Railroad.
It remains conjecture that the home served as a safe house for fugitives, though it is strongly documented that Harris was outspoken against slavery, inviting Underground Railroad leader Sydney Howard Gay to speak at his Wesleyan Methodist church downtown. Harris also operated a sugar refinery in TriBeCa, described at the time by an Underground Railroad operator as “a sort of Grand Central Station of the Underground Railroad.” Harris eventually rebuilt his refinery near his Washington Heights home after the previous location burned down, and he also bought a steamboat perhaps with the intention of establishing a new Underground Railroad stop. The home has lost much of its architectural integrity after losing its wraparound porch and octagonal cupola, making it challenging to landmark on historic architectural merit.
13. Home of Abigail Hopper-Gibbons and James Sloan-Gibbons: 339 West 29th Street, Chelsea
This Greek Revival townhouse is one of Manhattan’s more northern Underground Railroad junctions, as well as one of the only documented stops on the Underground Railroad in Manhattan. Located at 339 West 29th Street, the home was constructed alongside a row of Greek Revival townhouses, attracting philanthropists and abolitionists Abby Hopper Gibbons and James Sloan Gibbons. The Gibbons family were abolitionists years prior to the Civil War and opened their home to others sympathetic to the cause. It is reported that William Lloyd Garrison dined there with an escaping slave.
During the Draft Riots of 1863, the house was attacked and burned, an unfortunate reality in which many homes of Black residents were firebombed, including a Black orphanage. Two of the Gibbons daughters managed to escape through the roof onto adjacent properties and finally into a carriage on 9th Avenue. This makes the home one of the last surviving sites of the Draft Riots. In 2011, the home became contentious when the building owner began to add an additional fifth floor. The home received landmark designation in 2017 and was denied the application to legalize the fifth-story addition.
14. Broadway Tabernacle Church: 340-344 Broadway, SoHo
This church, now known as the Broadway United Church of Christ, was erected in 1836 and has been a central gathering point for many social movements, including abolition, women’s suffrage, temperance, and civil rights. Now located on West 71st Street, the church was originally organized by abolitionist Lewis Tappan for Charles Finney, a leader of the Second Great Awakening. Leaders of the church raised a defense fund for those captured aboard the Amistad, eventually leading to the formation of the American Missionary Association that established schools and churches for freed slaves.
Frederick Douglass spoke at the church, as did William Lloyd Garrison and Sojourner Truth. During a particularly violent incident, Truth helped break up a hostile mob during a women’s suffrage meeting at the church. The church raised funds to purchase slaves’ freedom and published The Independent, an anti-slavery newspaper. Though the church did not serve as a stop on the New York Underground Railroad, it played an important role in raising awareness and funds for those looking to escape slavery and find safety in the North.