Prospect Park Alliance awarded $1.5M for new outdoor exhibits for Lefferts Historic House Museum

Prospect Park Alliance, the non-profit that sustains the park in partnership with the city, has received a $1.5 million Humanities in Place grant from the Mellon Foundation to create new outdoor exhibits for Lefferts Historic House Museum as part of the Alliance’s ReImagine Lefferts initiative.

“This initiative seeks to re-envision the mission and programming at the museum to recognize its role as a site of dispossession and enslavement, and explore the stories of the Indigenous people of Lenapehoking whose unceded ancestral lands the house rests upon and the Africans who were enslaved by the Lefferts family,” said Prospect Park Alliance on Thursday, which  provides “critical” staff and resources that keep the park green and vibrant for the diverse communities that call Brooklyn home.

This grant follows a $275,000 Mellon grant awarded to the Alliance in 2023, which enabled the Alliance to develop the ReImagine Lefferts Interpretive Plan, created in 2024 by Ralph Appelbaum Associates (RAA), designers of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

“This plan will advance our work to recognize the site’s history, connect with descendant communities and help anchor the narratives of those who have traditionally been silenced,” the alliance said.

“ReImagine Lefferts is a critical initiative for Prospect Park Alliance, and we are greatly appreciative of the Mellon Foundation for providing the funding to make this vision possible,” said Prospect Park Alliance President Morgan Monaco.

“As the Alliance’s first Black leader, I am honored to be ushering in a new era of recognition and celebration of the stories and histories that have been ignored for centuries,” he added. “This initiative is an important step of many to help heal deep-seated wounds from our nation’s past.

“By bringing this interpretive plan to life, we seek to make the museum a place for healing, as well as a forum for thoughtful dialogue and learning for our community, and are grateful for our partners at the Mellon Foundation for their recognition of this essential work and its impact,” Monaco continued.

The Alliance said the interpretive plan is centered on a series of outdoor exhibits that engage park visitors.

Upon entrance to the grounds, it said there will be large-scale panels curated by representatives from nations across the Lenape Diaspora and a Dikenga Cosmogram that honors the ancient wisdom Africans brought with them to the Americas.

The plan also features outdoor exhibits about the Lenape creation story, a Freedom-Seeker wall, and spaces for live events and programs that do not shy away from the history of dispossession and enslavement, but emphasize and celebrate the inspirational resilience of descendant communities today and the ways their cultures endure.

As a first step in the new interpretation, the Alliance also launched its first artist-in-residence, Adama Delphine Fawundu’s large-scale site-specific installation, Ancestral Whispers in Spring 2024.

“We are grateful to the Mellon Foundation for their recognition of the Alliance’s ReImagine Lefferts initiative,” Dylan Yeats, Ph. D, Prospect Park Alliance’s director of museum operations and programs. “With descendent community guidance, we created an amazing new plan to more fully commemorate Brooklyn’s Indigenous and African histories in the landscape.

“To now take the next step to bring it to life is transformative,” he added. “One of the most important things we learned throughout the process is the necessity of ongoing partnerships with individuals and organizations already stewarding this living history, and it really is the brilliance, creativity and vision of our community partners that make this initiative a success.

“We look forward to making this plan a reality thanks to this generous funding,” Dr. Yeats continued.

The Alliance said the design of the new museum interpretation will begin in the coming months, looking forward to welcoming the community to the house for a workshop or series of workshops that will inform the design.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is the nation’s largest supporter of the arts and humanities.

Since 1969, the Foundation said it has been guided by its core belief that the humanities and arts are “essential to human understanding.”

The Foundation believes that the arts and humanities are “where we express our complex humanity, and that everyone deserves the beauty, transcendence, and freedom that can be found there.

“Through our grants, we seek to build just communities enriched by meaning and empowered by critical thinking, where ideas and imagination can thrive,” it said.

Visit prospectpark.org/lefferts for more information.