Years-Long Effort Saves Bed-Stuy Organization's Historic Home

BED-STUY, NY — After a years-long effort, advocates saved the historic headquarters of a long-standing Black woman-run aid society in Bed-Stuy, the Legal Aid Society announced Wednesday.

The United Order of Tents will stay in its Bed-Stuy mansion on MacDonough Street near Tompkins Avenue, which has wracked up enough debt and damage to threaten the organization's operations, the society said.

Now, with a key tax break and access to historic preservation grants, the organization can start to repair the mansion built in 1863, which has a leaky roof, faulty wiring, incomplete construction and no radiators, according to a GoFundMe organized by the order.

All together, the organization faces need some $350,000 to make the repairs to the building, which sits in the Stuyvesant Heights Historic District, according to its GoFundMe. Organizers had raised $234,906 by Thursday.

"In recent years, its historic Eastern headquarters in Bed-Stuy has come under threat due to bad contractors, financial hardship, and opportunistic property developers," organizers said on the GoFundMe. "Unfortunately, today we are struggling to save our home and rebuild our organization... We hope to continue to be a beacon of hope in the Bed-Stuy community."

Part of the organizations' troubles came down to bureaucratic issues and pandemic-related complications, advocates said.

The Legal Aid Society in 2022 asked city leaders to make the property tax exemption awarded a year later, which they say the organization was wrongfully denied.

Since 2011, a confusing tax mess strapped the organization with significant property tax debt they could not pay and still continue operating safely.

"We couldn’t turn our backs on an organization led by Black women dedicated to empowering other Black women — especially over an issue that boiled down to little more than bureaucratic morass," said City Council Finance Chair Justin Brannan.

Saving the organization's headquarters is a major win for all of Bed-Stuy, advocates said. The organization was initially founded to help enslaved people through the Underground Railroad, and has since provided crucial social services to Brooklyn.

"I could not stand by and allow the City of New York to essentially evict an organization with such deep historical and cultural significance going back to the Underground Railroad," Brannan said.