New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) voted Oct. 22 to landmark the Jacob Day House, the three-story Greenwich Village building at 50 West 13th Street that was once owned by abolitionist Jacob Day.
The building, commonly known as the Jacob Day House, has been in disrepair for years. The historic conservation group Village Preservation began lobbying to save 50 West 13th Street in 2020, following the death of Edith O’Hara who had held a minority stake as a co-owner of the building. The nonprofit worked with the independent historian Eric K. Washington to document the sites’ ties to Black history. But the LPC had reportedly remained reluctant to landmark the building –– if based solely on its architectural assets. With the structure rapidly deteriorating, Village Preservation insisted that landmark designation would be the only way to prevent the building’s destruction.
Jacob Day lived in the building from 1858 to 1884. A successful private food caterer, Day was one of New York City’s wealthiest 19th-century African Americans. Day was a member of the Abyssinian Baptist Church (at the time, located on Waverly Place) and served as its treasurer, and also supported the local Freedman’s Bank, located in a section of Greenwich Village then known as Little Africa. Once he purchased the West 13th Street property, Day’s family lived upstairs while he and his sons ran his catering business from the downstairs level. “By the time of his passing in 1884,” Village Preservation notes state, Day “had properties in Brooklyn on Prospect Place, Jamaica, Queens; Fishkill, New York; and at 50 West 13th Street.”
Day, a Black community activist and abolitionist before the Civil War, not only built his wealth through real estate, but also fought against post-war efforts to repatriate Blacks back to Africa and advocated for eliminating property ownership requirements for voting. Census records and city directories show Day rented out his apartments at 50 West 13th Street to like-minded progressive African Americans. Before marrying Henry Highland Garnet in 1875, the educator and suffragist Sarah Smith Tompkins rented a unit in Day’s house from 1866 to 1874. This was as she served as the city’s first Black female public school principal: she taught and led the (Former) “Colored” School No. 4 at 128 West 17th Street, which was designated a landmark by LPC just last year.
“We are thrilled that after a four-year effort, this endangered and fragile historic site, so rich in Black history, women’s suffrage history, and theater history, is finally landmarked,” Andrew Berman, Village Preservation’s executive director said in a statement: “Watching conditions at the building deteriorate for years, and the owner purposely strip historic 19th-century architectural features while the city refused to act, has been painful. We’re hopeful that landmark designation will stem the tide of deterioration at the building, and 50 West 13th Street will ultimately be restored to the condition it deserves. The house’s designation provides long-overdue recognition to Jacob Day’s inspiring work in the 19th century to abolish slavery and achieve equality for Black New Yorkers, Sarah Smith Garnet’s work in the 19th century to fight racism and advance women’s suffrage, and to 13th Street Repertory owner Edith O’Hara’s work in the 20th century to provide a platform for creative expression that eschewed the mainstream and transformed theater.”
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Publish date : 2024-10-23 17:44:00
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