View of African Burial Ground National Monument, 22 Reade Street building in the background. Credit: CityLand.
Council Member Charles Barron lead the City Council’s rejection of 22 Reade Street sale in support of the site being used for a pending federally-funded African Burial Ground Museum. On November 13, 2012, the City Council unanimously rejected the disposition of city-owned property at 22 Reade Street and approved of the disposition of City-owned property at 49-51 Chambers Street. The City’s Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) proposed the sale of the properties in order to reduce underutilized and inefficient City-owned space, better accommodate City employees, and save the costs of renovation and maintenance on aging buildings. The buildings were offered as an unrestricted sale through a Request for Proposals on April 23, 2012. The RFP also included 346 Broadway, which was approved for disposition in September, 1998.
22 Reade Street currently contains the offices of the Department of City Planning and the City Planning Commission. The building is directly adjacent to both the Ted Weiss Federal Building and the African Burial Ground National Monument. 49-51 Chambers Street – the Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank – contains not-for-profit organizations and various city agencies, including Manhattan Community Board 1. Both properties are located within the African Burial Ground and the Commons Historic District, which is bounded by Broadway, Duane, Lafayette, Centre, and Chambers Streets. The district was designated by the Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1993 after the bodies of over 400 African and African-American slaves were found and excavated during construction of the Ted Weiss Federal Building in 1991.
