East New York honors its African burial ground as work begins on the new New Lots Library

Instead of shovels and hard hats, East New York marked the start of construction on its new library with a blessing for the dead. Brooklyn Public Library, builder Gilbane Building and the East New York African Burial Ground Collective held a ground acknowledgment ceremony on Thursday, Oct. 29, at the New Lots Library site to honor the free and enslaved Africans buried there, the library said in a press release.

Guests washed their hands before entering, left flowers at an ancestral altar, listened to drumming, prayers and songs, and signed ceremonial blocks made from the same mass timber that will be used to build the library, according to the library and Brooklyn Paper.

The history under the library

Beginning in the 17th century, Dutch farming families in the area exploited the labor of enslaved Africans. A burial ground near today's New Lots Avenue served both Black and white residents, but when a new cemetery opened beside the New Lots Reformed Church in the 1840s, many Dutch families moved their relatives' remains across the street and left the graves of Black residents behind, the library said. The old cemetery was neglected and its history largely forgotten.

Community researchers rediscovered it in 2010, Brooklyn Paper reported. Catherine Mbali Green-Johnson, a member of the burial ground collective, told CBS New York that the group found old maps of the burial plots after years of what she had thought was a rumor. In 2013 the block bounded by New Lots Avenue, Livonia Avenue, Barbey Street and Schenck Avenue was designated African Burial Ground Square. Remains found during archaeological surveys in 2016 were reinterred in 2019, and the playground on the block was renamed Sankofa Park, Brooklyn Paper reported.

What the new library will have

• A 25,000-square-foot, four-floor building designed by Model of Architecture Serving Society (MASS) and Marble Fairbanks, with separate spaces for children, teens and adults.
• A central "palaver," a gathering place for dialogue and truth-telling in many African communities, built in mass timber and visible from the reading rooms and meeting spaces.
• A dedicated space for the New Lots Adult Learning Center, which offers high school equivalency prep, literacy and citizenship classes, plus a music room, exhibition space and outdoor reading areas.

The old branch, built in 1955, has been demolished, and the new one is due in 2028, according to Brooklyn Paper and CBS New York. The project is expected to cost more than $40 million.

The money

Borough President Antonio Reynoso, Council Deputy Leader Chris Banks and state Sen. Roxanne Persaud announced new grants totaling more than $4.5 million, the library said; Brooklyn Paper reported $2 million each from Reynoso and Banks and $500,000 from Persaud. The New York State Council on the Arts is also providing $5 million in capital funding. "We have a responsibility to preserve the legacy of those laid to rest on these grounds," Persaud said in the release.