Nerdy Thursdays | Land of the Blacks
BGX Nerdy Thursdays
*Merchant House Museum Garden @ Manual Plaza
35 East Fourth Street (between Lafayette and Bowery)
6pm - 8pm
*This will be our first Nerdy Thursdays at this location.
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6pm to 7pm | Mingle & Music with DJ Ino
7pm to 7:30pm | Conversation with Kamau Ware and Ena McPherson
7:30pm to 8pm | Close out, music by DJ
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Who is Ena McPherson?
Ena K. McPherson is a long-time resident of Bedford-Stuyvesant who aspires to use best horticultural practices to teach, beautify, build, and strengthen diverse communities. She is a community gardener, activist, and advocate. She has gained her gardening background from her affiliation with the Brooklyn Urban Gardener, as a master composter at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and as a 2010 Fellow with NYC Partnership for Parks. She advocates for gardens as a member of Brooklyn Community Board 3's Parks, Arts & Culture Committee, and as a former board member of the Brooklyn Queens Land Trust Operations Committee.
Ena has been the Lead Gardener and Operations Coordinator at T & T Vernon Community Garden since 2003. She led revitalization efforts at Vernon & Throop Community Garden from 2006 to 2011. She founded Tranquility Farm in 2011 and serves as the lead gardener. In 2013 she founded Feeding Tree Garden and is presently the lead gardener.
What is the Merchant's House Museum?
The Merchant’s House Museum preserves and interprets New York City’s only family home to survive intact — inside and out — from the 19th century. Built in 1832 by a fervent abolitionist, Joseph Brewster, who designed the house with a hidden passageway, it is Manhattan’s only documented site of the Underground Railroad open to the public. In 1835, it became home to a prosperous merchant family, the Tredwells, and their Irish servants for nearly a century. Their home remains complete with their original furnishings, personal belongings, and even their clothing.
Through public education programs and exhibitions, restoration of its landmark building, and conservation of its irreplaceable collections, the Museum tells two compelling stories of 19th-century New York City: the early years of the abolition movement and the Underground Railroad, and the domestic life of a wealthy merchant family in a city rising as the commercial emporium of America.
Is named in honor of Manuel Gerrit de Reus, Big Manuel, Clyn Manuel, Manuel Sanders, and Manuel Trumpeter. The five Black men were among 28 recipients of land grants in the area earned by people of African descent between 1643 and 1663. Many of them were among the first enslaved Africans brought here by the Dutch West India Company. The mainly farm community is considered by some to be the first Black settlement in what is now New York City.
Manuel Groot, or Big Manuel, was granted eight acres of land located near present-day West 4th Street and Washington Square East towards Bleecker Street and Broadway. Clyn (Little) Manuel held a ten-acre parcel that encompassed a large portion of what is now Mercer Playground. Four acres on the west side of the Bowery near Bleecker and Bond Streets were owned by Manuel Sanders and 18 acres of land near what is now Fifth Avenue and Washington Square North were granted to Manuel Trumpeter.
This name was suggested by Black Gotham Experience, an organization dedicated to highlighting the impact of the African Diaspora in the making of New York. Manuel Plaza is the first permanent public recognition of the Land of the Blacks in Manhattan.
*The experience may be live-streamed to and/or recorded.*
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NERDY THURSDAYS is the Black Gotham Experience take on the Harlem Renaissance salon. A familiar place to meet new ideas. Come and enjoy complimentary drinks, a thematic soundtrack by the featured DJ, check out our library, and make sense of the day. The BGX Spring theme is: Land of the Blacks; Summer is: Black Vision Day; and Fall is: As Above So Below.
THINK / TALK / MIX / MINGLE
#InsideBlackGotham #BGXNerdyThursdays