How an old demolished mansion in Bed-Stuy sparked community action to preserve the rest of the neighborhood
NEW YORK - A community of concerned Brooklyn residents is rallying to landmark a portion of their neighborhood to protect it from further development after the demolition of a beloved building last year.
The memory of what happened to the 120-year-old mansion at 441 Willoughby Ave. on July 21, 2022, still brings tears to Lauren Cawdry's eyes.
"It was hard, a lot of days after that, it was so violentm and it was also a building that not only is so culturally significant but that was just so beautiful," she said.
READ MORE: Neighbors heartbroken by demolition of 120-year-old mansion in Bed-Stuy
The local business owner and Vice President of the Willoughby Nostrand Marcy Block Association still calls it an open wound.
"It was really the crown jewel of this block," she said tearfully.
Michael Williams grew up a few doors down and attended countless functions there.
"In the '60s, my brother and I, we joined the Cub Scouts there," he told CBS2's Hannah Kliger outside his home. "It brings me to tears sometimes. I walk to the corner, and I see the building that I grew up in and loved so much, that it's no longer there. Now it's an empty lot."
The mysterious mansion is also the place where both Joanna Joyner-Wells and her mother were married, decades apart.
"Just like it came down at the snap of a finger, any of these houses can be torn down. Any of these houses can be sold and we can have holes in the middle of the block," Joyner-Wells explained.
The Jacob Dangler mansion was a community space and masonic lodge. Prior to its demolition, it had undergone a public hearing to consider landmarking last summer. However, because of what was later determined to be a lack of communication between the Landmarks Preservation Commission and Department of Buildings, a developer legally obtained a demolition permit and was able to swiftly tear it down.
The site is still an empty lot. Members of a group that calls itself Justice for 441 Willoughby say the demolition of this building was really the catalyst that made them so anxious to protect the rest of the neighborhood. That's why the residents have filed a request for evaluation in an effort to landmark a two-block radius of the area as a historic district. They claim the brownstones that stand on Willoughby Avenue and Hart Street, between Nostrand and Marcy, are the last two blocks of untouched brownstones in that part of Bed-Stuy.
"They were built around the same time as many of the other landmarked districts in Bed-Stuy, often by some of the same architects. So there is a sense of cohesion within Bed-Stuy that Landmarks has already recognized, and we are hoping they will recognize us too as having the same merit," said Molly Salas, a resident who has continued to pressure the LPC for answers about why the mansion wasn't landmarked in time.
Many neighbors say the area is vulnerable to development.
An LPC spokesperson says an additional study will be planned for consideration. In a statement, LPC said, "Staff will carry out additional detailed building-by-building research and analysis in the context of the larger neighborhood and other designated historic districts."
"We have to be really careful about what it is that we think we are destroying. Because it's not just buildings," said Charyl Pitts Howard, who lives on Hart street, one block over. "We're destroying memories and families."
The lot where the mansion last stood is littered with broken masonry and covered with graffiti, but shared memories and regret have somehow brought this tight-knit community even closer.
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