ReImagine Lefferts
Lefferts Historic House is an 18th-century Flatbush farmhouse and New York City landmark, jointly operated by Prospect Park Alliance and the Historic House Trust. The farmhouse was originally located just blocks from the park (563 Flatbush Avenue near Maple Street) and moved to Prospect Park in 1918.
In 2021, the Alliance launched ReImagine Lefferts, an initiative to re-envision the mission and programming of the museum to focus on exploring the lives, resistance and resilience of the Indigenous people of Lenapehoking, whose unceded ancestral lands the park and house rests upon, and the Africans enslaved by the Lefferts family. By focusing on stories of resistance, resilience, empowerment and joy, while also recognizing the legacies of dispossession, enslavement and oppression, the Alliance seeks to create a safe space for engaging with our collective past as well as contemporary issues affecting our communities today.
As part of ReImagine Lefferts, the Alliance has been conducting new research and developing new partnerships to inform new indoor and outdoor exhibits, hands-on experiences, cultural performances and imaginative programs designed to offer visitors inspirational stories of everyday heroism. To accomplish this work, the Alliance has been working with descendant and neighboring communities, culture bearers, scholars, artists, civic leaders and museum professionals to develop and pilot innovative new ways to engage with this important history for audiences of all ages and backgrounds.
ReImagine Lefferts is funded through a Humanities in Place grant from the Mellon Foundation.
