Tuesday, October 9, 2007

RaceWire: FUREE Beats Eminent Domain in Brooklyn

RaceWire reports on the City's stumble in its attempt to use eminent domain in Downtown Brooklyn:
Families United for Racial and Economic Equality (FUREE) announced yesterday that they won a recent battle against New York City when they received news that they would not be employing eminent
domain
to throw 40 families on the streets.

This block that the City wants to convert into a “underground parking garage and plaza,” is not only the home to low-income immigrant families who, if evicted, will be homeless, but this block includes homes that are, “widely believed to have been safe houses on the Underground Railroad and hotbeds of Abolitionist activity.”

The eminent domain withdrawal does not mean the fight is over for FUREE and these families, but we count this as a victory that the City will not be able to take away the homes of hard working families, who have lived in the neighborhood for twenty years, in the name of development.