Enslaved Africans with dreams of being free found safety in the heart of NYC.
To the naked eye, the 4-story brick row house on East Fourth Street is just another of the 19th-century buildings on a block adorned with dark shutters and time-worn character.
But, to the brave men and women who escaped bondage in the South during the 1800s, that seemingly unremarkable structure served as a “safe house” for runaways of the Underground Railroad.
A secret passageway, hidden beneath the weighty bottom drawer of a dresser that was built into the west wall of the house, is the 2-by-2-foot threshold through which former captives achieved emancipation…