'It's an opportunity to take a breath that I didn't have before': Voices from Abolitionist Place

storytelling

WNYC's Community Partnerships Desk regularly teams up with the nonprofit Street Lab to highlight stories from neighborhoods across New York City. Street Lab recently set up shop at Abolitionist Place Park in Downtown Brooklyn, hosted by the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership. The newly opened green space commemorates Brooklyn's abolitionist history. Here's some of what we heard when we joined them.

The transcript of the voices we collected have been lightly edited for clarity.

Curtis Flemister: "I'm born and bred in Brooklyn. I'm now at Abolitionist Park with my eight-year-old daughter, Mehkia Flemister. Actually, very good to be able to hang out with her. I'm usually so busy, and today is like just me and her day. She's the youngest in the house, although two sisters, older, have already moved out. So, it's just three boys, which is my three sons, my wife, and myself, and her. As far as the immediate future, I'm going to bring my three sons back because we just found out that this park actually has some historical significance. Being able to sit and enjoy the park and then vicariously learn the history of the park is very beneficial to me. Parks themed like this in our community, where not only you have time to play, but you get time to actually communicate with somebody; you can actually find out there's more significance."

Suzanne Ogunsanya: "I live in the Flatbush area of Brooklyn. I'm mom to two elementary school kids, ages seven and ten. This is now our new Wednesday ritual. After school, we come to the Abolitionist Park, and they get to hang out with their friends in a way that they hadn't been able to do before the park opened up. It's like a really crucial part of their just socializing with their friends in an unstructured manner. It's like this really important public space where you can come and sit. I was here this morning after I dropped my kids off—just a moment to just collect myself before I start the day. For me personally, my hustle starts from 6:30 am when I wake up until I dropped my kids off at 8:20 am, and before this park, I would just go to the supermarket or hop on the train and get on with my day. We're on top of each other in the supermarket, in the trains, everywhere. So, here it's nice where you can kind of create a little bit of space from everyone. It's an opportunity to take a breath that I didn't have before."

Lindsay Vranizan: "I am from Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. I'm here today because we just registered my son at a new public school. We just want to go to our zone school. We're like number 62 on the wait list for our zone school. It's kind of frustrating. We accepted an offer over here. We didn't really know what to expect. And then we came to check it out today, and it's just been really heartening to see that we got something that's better than just good enough, you know? And we're super excited. My son's going to be in pre-K. There is still 3k in this city, and I know that's like sort of a vulnerable program right now. So we're feeling pretty grateful that we got at least one kid through. I have an 18-month-old daughter; god willing, 3k still exists in the city. It just feels like everything does in this city where, like, maybe that program will be there in six months, and maybe it won't. Things change and turn over so quickly. I hope that my two kids can go to the same school for grade school. That would be really wonderful to have one pick-up and one drop-off."

Mariana Derimay: "I am enjoying this wonderful weather and just remembering that it's going to be 20 years that I'm in New York City. So, I was born in Mexico. My mom is Mexican, and my dad is French, so we moved around between Mexico, France, and the U. S. a lot. New York City has a little bit for everybody. You just have to go out and look for it. Sometimes, it's a little difficult, but you just have to persevere because it is really important to love where you live so that you can be happy and you can be one with your community. I can't really imagine myself being anywhere else. Every time I fly out to visit family, and then I land, and I take a taxi. There are two spots in particular where you see the city in the background and all the buildings, and I get that feeling of like 'I'm home.'"