New York's newly identified Underground Railroad passage is under threat

A newly identified Underground Railroad passageway once used by enslaved people fleeing to freedom is putting the spotlight on a New York City museum and its struggle against a proposed neighboring development.

- by Terry Tang and Joseph Frederick

A passageway, believed to have been used as part of the Underground Railroad, is hidden in the base of a dresser inside the Merchant's House Museum in New York on Feb. 19, 2026.

(Max Touhey/Merchant's House Museum via AP)

Staff at the Merchant's House Museum — an upper-crust family home built in 1832 in Manhattan's NoHo district — last month revealed that researchers can now explain the passageway's historical purpose because they recently discovered that the home's original owner was an abolitionist. Historians and Black activists hail it as the first "intact" Underground Railroad site found in New York in over 160 years.

The discovery has substantially increased the museum's foot traffic, along with hopes of staving off a possible nine-story mixed-use building next door, as building it could damage the walls and foundation of the adjacent historic site.