The Landmarks Preservation Commission took the first step Tuesday toward designating 50 West 13th Street, a historic West Village rowhouse and theater that was home to a prominent 19th-century abolitionist businessman and African-American suffragettes, as a historic landmark.
Photo: Max Parrott
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The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission took the first step Tuesday to designate as a historic landmark a historic West Village tenement and theater that was home to a prominent 19th-century abolitionist businessman and African-American suffragette.
The commission voted to schedule a public hearing and historic landmark designation for the home at 50 West 13th St. for June 18. The move delighted local advocates with Village Preservation, who have been fighting for the building’s historic landmark designation for about four years.
“The City has finally taken the first steps toward protecting this historic site, which is deeply connected to our city and country’s oft-forgotten black history, the history of the civil rights movement, the women’s suffrage movement, and of course our theater and cultural history,” said Andrew Berman, executive director of Village Preservation.
The group said nearly all buildings on its calendar are eventually approved for landmark designation, meaning the 180-year-old building is likely on track for permanent preservation. A public hearing and vote on the landmark designation is expected to take place within a year.
Historic preservationists began advocating for the building to be designated a historic landmark after the 2020 death of its previous owner, Edith O’Hara, who founded the 13th Street Repertory Company, an “off-off-Broadway” theater, in the building in 1972.
In researching the building, preservationists discovered that it has ties to New York’s Civil War and Reconstruction-era civil rights movements.
By examining the building’s records, Village Preservation researchers discovered that Sarah Smith Tompkins Garnett, a black women’s suffrage leader and pioneering educator, lived in the building for at least eight years, from 1866 to 1874. During this time, the building was owned by prominent 19th-century black businessman and abolitionist Jacob Day, who lived and ran his business in the home at a time when Greenwich Village was the center of African-American life in New York City and had the largest black population.
Garnett founded the Brooklyn women’s suffrage organization, the Equal Suffrage League, in the late 1880s and served as suffrage director for the National Association of Colored Women.
In addition to being a wealthy businessman and a leading member of the Abyssinian Baptist Church, the second oldest black church in New York, Day was also a prominent supporter of abolition and voting rights for black New Yorkers.
“Abolitionism was a dangerous activity for black people, but despite the dangers, Day was a member of the National Abolition Society and a contemporary of other prominent abolitionists of the time,” said Teresa Noonan, a preservationist with the Landmarks Commission.
Historians have linked Day to leaders of the Underground Railroad and suggested secret passageways beneath the house may have been used by abolitionist networks, though there are no historical records on the subject.
The building’s architectural importance lies in its Greek Revival style. Built between 1846 and 1847, the three-story building retains its ornate ornamentation, including metal cornices, carved arches, and floor windows in the elongated reception room.
Before it became a mainstay in the Off-Off-Broadway theatrical world in the 1970s, it was a theater. In the late 1960s, the African-American Folkloric Theatre Company used the theater until 1971 to perform works by black poets and folklorists for a primarily black audience, making it a pillar of black theatrical history.
After Edith O’Hara’s death, the agreement to preserve the building was terminated and the building, which now sits vacant, has deteriorated: graffiti has appeared on the facade, the paint is peeling and it is in poor condition.
The Landmarks Commission hopes that the official designation will allow it to work with building owners to improve their buildings’ conditions.
