In Prospect Park sits an 18th-Century Dutch Revival house. Not only was it home to one of the most prominent Dutch families in New York State, but it was also home to the Africans / Black people whom the Lefferts enslaved and whose labor the Lefferts exploited and thus accumulated wealth. The Prospect Park Alliance, who manages the building on behalf of the owner, the City of New York, began a Mellon Foundation-funded initiative, ReImagine Lefferts, in 2021, to explore how to incorporate into the interpretation of the site the story about the enslaved Africans who the Lefferts enslaved at the house from approximately 1689 - 1827 (138 years).

A goal of the ReImagine Initiative is to understand the lived experiences of the enslaved Africans in the house, in particular, the North Kitchen Wing, formerly the South Kitchen Wing. When the house was a few blocks south at the corner of present-day Flatbush and Maple Avenues, it was rotated 180 degrees. This was true until 1917, when the City acquired the house from the Lefferts and contracted to move it to the Prospect Park Alliance, which would steward the historic site.

Organized with a research framework, studio kW’s plan for Lefferts includes digital storytelling of the built environment and an audit of the site’s existing interpretation of enslavement.