The Most Important Threatened Historic Places -- Updates

Freeman houses, Bridgeport (1992, 2007).  Two of Bridgeport’s earliest African American heritage sites are the focus of a new community-based preservation effort. The Mary and Eliza Freeman houses, built by two sisters on adjacent parcels in 1848, are the most visible remnants of “Ethiope” or “Little Liberia,” the neighborhood that was the center of African American life in Bridgeport in the 19^th century.  The proposed restoration of the buildings may finally be moving forward.

            Action for Bridgeport Community Development, Inc., a local nonprofit organization, has safeguarded the two simple wood-frame dwellings for more than a decade. With support from the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation and the National Trust for Historic Preservation,  ABCD recently presented a “visioning workshop” and design charrette at Walters Memorial AME Zion Church across from the Freeman houses. More than fifty members of the community were invited to participate in the workshop in order to develop strategies for restoration and reuse of the long-vacant Freeman houses.

            The workshop was guided by Elizabeth Brabec and Peter Kumble, directors of the graduate program in Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. As objective facilitators, Brabec and Kumble were able to capture the ideas and strategies put forth by the workshop participants. Immediately apparent was the widespread consensus that the Freeman houses were important components of Bridgeport history that should be preserved on the original site.

            Suggestions from the workshop participants included restoring the buildings for residential use (their original function), using them as a locus for community services (as the Freeman sisters often did) or establishing a museum dedicated to the lives and achievements of Bridgeport’s African American residents. “These are wonderful ideas” said Maisa Tisdale, director of the workshop for ABCD, Inc. “The community clearly recognizes the potential for restoration of the Freeman houses to serve as a catalyst for compatible new development in the neighborhood.”

            The viewpoints and ideas expressed at the workshop will be compiled in a summary report that will outline the case for restoration of the Freeman houses. ABCD hopes that widespread distribution and discussion of the workshop report will help identify key partnerships that will make the project a success.