Prospect Park Gets $275k Grant For 'ReImagine Lefferts'

PROSPECT LEFFERTS GARDENS, BROOKLYN — A major foundation has awarded the non-profit stewards of Prospect Park with a major grant to advance an initiative meant to explore deeper questions of dispossession in early Brooklyn and will host a community conversation next month to share new research.

The Mellon Foundation will give $275,000 for the Prospect Park Alliance's ReImagine Lefferts initiative, the group announced last week, part of a larger move to re-envision programming around the Lefferts Historic House.

ReImagine Lefferts is a PPA initiative to focus on telling the stories of Brooklyn's Indigenous people, the Lenapehoking, whose un-ceded ancestral lands the house rests upon, according to the group, as well as the Africans who were enslaved by the Lefferts family.

"This project is an important step of many to help to heal deep-seeded wounds from our nation’s past, and help anchor the narratives of those who have traditionally been silenced," said Morgan Monaco, president of the Prospect Park Alliance.

According to the initiative's website, the ReImagine Lefferts initiative will seek to forge a thoughtful dialogue about the legacy of slavery and exploitation of marginalized communities, in addition to scholarly research on the people who lived and worked on the Lefferts' land.

"The goal is to create programs and exhibits that bring together people of all ages and backgrounds around challenging issues of history and identity," reads the ReImagine Lefferts website.

On Feb. 11, the PPA will host a community conversation about ReImagine Lefferts at the Prospect Park Boathouse from 1-4 p.m., where new research will be shared about the history of the indigenous and enslaved peoples at the Lefferts Farm.

Currently undergoing a $2.5 million renovation, the 18th-century Flatbush farmhouse owned by Lefferts family was originally located at 563 Flatbush Ave. and was moved in 1917 to its current Prospect Park home near the Park's Zoo.

The museum features period rooms, multiple indoor and outdoor exhibits, historical artifacts and working farm plots.