{{Infobox person | name = Joy Chatel | image = File:Joy_Chatel_2007.jpg | caption = Chatel in 2007 | other_names = Mamma Joy Chatel | birth_date = July 28, 1947 | birth_place = | death_date = {{Death date and age|2014|1|8|1947|6|28}} | occupation = Activist and community organizer }} '''Joy Chatel''' (June 28, 1947 – January 8, 2014), also known as '''Mama Joy''', was a cosmetologist, community organizer and activist based in Brooklyn, New York.<ref name="Obituary" /> She fought battles against the Bloomberg administration and millionaire developers to keep the history of anti-slavery organizing from being erased from the Fulton Mall area.<ref name=":0">{{cite web|title=Mama Joy|url=http://furee.org/mamajoy|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141123041321/http://furee.org/mamajoy|url-status=dead|archive-date=23 November 2014|website=FUREE|accessdate=6 April 2016}}</ref>
Chatel was also a board member of FUREE (Families United for Racial and Economic Equality).<ref name=":0" /> She was able to mobilize people in the community including local politicians and organizations, helping them all recognize the importance of the abolitionist movement in the Downtown Brooklyn area. In 2007, Chatel and the community successfully fought a plan by the city to seize her home at 227 Duffield Street through eminent domain, which would have been used to build a park and underground parking garage.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Browstoner|first1=Brownstoner|title=BREAKING: 227 Duffield Saved From Eminent Domain Death|url=https://www.brownstoner.com/development/breaking227-duf/|website=Brownstoner|date=30 November 2007 |accessdate=13 April 2016}}</ref>
Chatel died January 8, 2014, from complications with her health at the New York Methodist Hospital in Brooklyn.<ref name=":0" />
==History==
In 2004, the city of New York passed a major up zoning in the downtown Fulton Mall area of Brooklyn, NY. The plan included 1.8 acres for a new green space in the style of Bryant Park, which the city named ''Willoughby Square.'' This space was to be developed partly to attract private investors.<ref name=":1">{{cite web|last1=Brooklyn|first1=Paper|title=Joy on Duffield: Deal saves Underground Railroad Home|url=https://www.brooklynpaper.com/assets/pdf/30_48bp.pdf|website=The Brooklyn Paper|accessdate=18 April 2016}}</ref> “In order to create the park, the city said it would have to condemn Chatel's property, and up to six other homes on Duffield Street and neighboring Gold Street. Preservationists criticized the city for ignoring evidence that the houses were once a stop on the Underground Railroad, the network that helped guide slaves to freedom.”<ref name=":1" />
Chatel's home once belonged to Thomas and Harriet Lee Truesdell, prominent abolitionists in the mid-19th century.<ref>{{cite web|last1=CHAN|first1=SEWELL|title=A Juneteenth Riddle: Was Duffield Street a Stop on the Underground Railroad?|url=http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/a-juneteenth-riddle-was-duffield-street-a-stop-on-the-underground-railroad/?_r=0|website=The New York Times|date=19 June 2007 |accessdate=13 April 2016}}</ref> Downtown Brooklyn, most notably Plymouth Church on Hicks Street, was at the center of the abolitionist movement in New York City. Chatel and many others believed that her home, as well as 231 Duffield and 436 Gold Street, were stops on the Underground Railroad because the structures were connected by tunnels.<ref name="Obituary">{{cite web|title="Mama Joy" Chatel passes away|url=http://www.brooklyndowntownstar.com/view/full_story/24400723/article--Mama-Joy--Chatel-passes-away?instance=lead_story_left_column|website=Brooklyn Down Town Star|publisher=Brooklyn Downtown Star|access-date=6 April 2016 |url-status=dead | archive-date=April 27, 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160427062707/http://www.brooklyndowntownstar.com/view/full_story/24400723/article--Mama-Joy--Chatel-passes-away?instance=lead_story_left_column}}</ref>
New York City commissioned a study to determine the homes' “historic merit.” The city paid a consulting firm $500,000 for the report. The report, issued in April 2004, declared that the homes were "not part of the Underground Railroad...though the report was repudiated by two thirds of its peer reviewers.”<ref name=":1" /> Critics began to cite abuses of eminent domain.<ref name=":1" /> There was evidence of a large tunnel underneath Duffield Street.<ref name=":2">{{cite news|last1=STRAUSBAUGH|first1=JOHN|title=On the Trail of Brooklyn's Underground Railroad|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/12/arts/12expl.html?_r=0|work=The New York Times|date=12 October 2007 |accessdate=18 April 2016}}</ref> Even though the remnants of a tunnel system are the most persuasive pieces of evidence,<ref>{{cite web|last1=Reader|first1=Brooklyn|title=Owners of a Former Underground Railroad in Brooklyn Fight to Turn Site into Heritage Museum|url=http://www.bkreader.com/2016/01/owners-of-a-former-underground-railroad-brooklyn-fight-to-turn-site-into-heritage-museum/|website=The Brooklyn Reader|accessdate=13 April 2016|archive-date=26 April 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160426234122/http://www.bkreader.com/2016/01/owners-of-a-former-underground-railroad-brooklyn-fight-to-turn-site-into-heritage-museum/|url-status=dead}}</ref> the consultants in charge of the investigation "made no attempt to excavate that mysterious tunnel.”<ref name=":2" /> One archeologist, Cheryl LaRoche, said at the time that “there is overwhelming evidence…of Abolitionist activity” at Chatel's house.<ref name=":1" />
==Duffield Street== thumb|Chatel's house on 227 Duffield Street, now a New York City landmark Chatel and her neighbor at 223 Duffield Street, Lewis Greenstein, had fought the cities park plan since its announcement in 2004.<ref name=":2" /> They both believed their homes were stops on the Underground Railroad.<ref name=":2" /> Chatel and Greenstein started organizing together in the spring of 2004 after they learned that their properties were at risk of being seized by the city under eminent domain.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Rebhorn|first1=Emma|title=The Case Of The Duffield Street Homes|url=https://www.brooklynrail.org/2007/9/local/the-case-of-the-duffield-street-homes|website=BrooklynRail|date=4 September 2007 |publisher=The Brooklyn Rail|accessdate=13 April 2016}}</ref> There was evidence of a large tunnel underneath Duffield Street.<ref name=":2"/> No Subway ever ran below Duffield Street despite the evidence of the large tunnel underneath the homes.<ref name=":2" /> The owners of the two buildings believed the tunnels may have served as a secret passage from Duffield Street to the nearby Bridge Street African Wesleyan Methodist Episcopal Church.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Miller|first1=Jared|title=NEW YORK CITY WOULD REALLY RATHER NOT TALK ABOUT ITS SLAVERY-LOVING PAST|url=https://www.newsweek.com/2015/04/24/new-york-city-would-really-rather-not-talk-about-its-slavery-loving-past-321714.html|website=Newsweek|date=15 April 2015 |accessdate=13 April 2016}}</ref> In the sub-basement of Mr. Greenstein's home there was a capped well and an exit shaft to the surface.<ref name=":2" /> Various members of the community including local politicians believed that evidence of the Underground Railroad lay beneath many of the homes on Duffield Street.<ref>{{cite web|last1=SCHNEIDER|first1=ANN|title=Supporters of Underground Railroad Museum Look to Get Project Back on Track|url=https://www.indypendent.org/2016/03/25/supporters-underground-railroad-museum-look-get-project-back-track-1|website=THE INDYPENDENT|accessdate=13 April 2016}}</ref>
In September 2007 the city co-named Duffield Street “Abolitionist Place” and promised two million dollars to commemorate Abolitionist activity on the street.<ref name=":1" /> This was an "acknowledgment that [Brooklyn] was a hub of the Underground Railroad: the network of sympathizers and safe house throughout the North that helped as many as 100,000 slaves flee the South before the Civil War.”<ref name=":2" />
In November 2007 Chatel defeated New York State's attempt to use eminent domain to tear down her home at 227 Duffield Street in Brooklyn, NY.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Schuerman|first1=Matthew|title=Underground Railroad Home Saved|url=http://observer.com/2007/11/underground-railroad-home-saved/|website=Observer|date=30 November 2007 |accessdate=13 April 2016}}</ref> Chatel then formed a group called 227 Abolitionist Place.<ref name="Obituary" /> Given the historical context Chatel believed that her home would serve as an ideal location for a museum and heritage center.<ref>{{cite web|last1=FURMAN|first1=ROBERT|title=History on Duffield Street|url=http://www.nysun.com/opinion/history-on-duffield-street/56955/|website=NYSUN|publisher=New York Sun|accessdate=13 April 2016}}</ref> This group aims to have Chatels home turned into a museum.<ref name="Obituary" /> Before her death, Chatel had said she would like to see her house put to good use, stating "there’s no black museum in Brooklyn to celebrate the Underground Railroad... This is the house to do it in. It’s important that the children and all of the people can see what people had to go through to be free.” <ref name=":2" />
In 2021, Chatel's home at 227 Duffield Street was given landmark status by the Landmarks Preservation Commission as the Harriet and Thomas Truesdell House.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2021-02-03|title=Abolitionist home in Downtown Brooklyn is granted landmark status|url=https://www.bkmag.com/2021/02/02/abolitionist-home-in-downtown-brooklyn-is-granted-landmark-status/|access-date=2021-02-13|website=Brooklyn Magazine}}</ref>
==FUREE== Joy Chatel joined the Families United for Racial and Economic Equality in 2004, becoming a leader in FUREE's Accountable Development Campaign and was elected to the board in May 2009.<ref name=":0" /> Her special interest in unfair zoning and responsible development was not just about keeping her home but also maintaining the social and cultural fabric of Downtown Brooklyn.<ref name=":0" /> The 2004 Downtown Brooklyn rezoning plan resulted in a boom of luxury-dominated development and the massive displacement of low income and working-class people of color as well as small, independently owned businesses.<ref name=":0" />
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== *[http://www.nycservice.org/organizations/901 NYC FUREE INFO] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160509143324/http://www.nycservice.org/organizations/901 |date=2016-05-09 }}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chatel, Joy}} Category:2014 deaths Category:People from Brooklyn Category:African-American activists Category:Activists from New York City Category:Underground Railroad in New York (state) Category:1947 births Category:African-American history in New York City Category:20th-century African-American people Category:21st-century African-American people Category:African-American women activists Category:American women activists