The Legal Aid Society called on the New York City Department of Finance (DOF) to save the historic Victorian mansion at 87 MacDonough Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant, which has served as the operational headquarters for the Brooklyn Chapter of the United Order of the Tents, the oldest Black women’s benevolent society in the United States, as reported by Curbed.

The United Order of Tents is a women’s benevolent society that was formed in 1848 to provide aid to those escaping slavery via the Underground Railroad. The organization was officially chartered in 1868 by Anetta M. Lane and Harriet R. Taylor, two formerly enslaved women, in Norfolk, Virginia. Since 1945, the organization’s Brooklyn Chapter has owned and operated its Bedford-Stuyvesant headquarters, which is now at risk of shuttering unless the DOF accepts their application for exemption from real property tax.

The organization is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit and has been recognized by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service as tax exempt. Despite the federal tax exemption, the DOF has denied the United Order of the Tents’ exemption from real property tax because the agency erroneously believes the building at 87 MacDonough Street to be vacant, even after Legal Aid attorneys established otherwise.

For 77 years, the United Order of Tents’ Brooklyn headquarters has served as a central hub from which they have provided support to local communities by tending to the sick, feeding the poor, caring for the elderly, and burying the deceased. Over the last two years, the building has fallen into some disrepair as a result of mandatory stay-at-home and social distancing orders during the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced members of the organization to meet virtually to avoid the spread of the Coronavirus, hampering their ability to care for the mansion’s needs.

The Brooklyn Chapter plans to seek grants for historic preservation that would enable rehabilitation of the premises, but cannot do so if property taxes are being levied against a not-for-profit entity.