Hiram Thomas: An Early Pioneer in Fort Greene

Over 100 years ago Hiram S. Thomas, a wealthy black businessman, caused a furor in Fort Greene simply buying a home.

In 1894 the successful restaurateur bought a home on Fort Greene Place between Hanson Place and Lafayette Avenue and endured the racially charged outrage of his new aristocratic neighbors.

“The matter became…the only subject of discussion through the street,” reported the Daily Eagle on Oct. 1, 1894. “Every householder was indignant and in the first heat of excitement many harsh things were said.”

Were it not for his neighbors' racism, Thomas would not have been that out of place next-door to the other wealthy residents on Fort Greene Place.

Thomas owned the Lake House restaurant in tony Saratoga Lake, which was, as a thorough report in Brownstoner noted, a prime vacation town in the Adirondacks for well-heeled New Yorkers. There, Thomas hobnobbed with the upper crust of society — it wasn’t until he decided to live among them on Fort Greene Place that they showed their true colors, saying that his presence would diminish the value of their properties.

“What a pretty story it is to get abroad over the country that a black man cannot move into a respectable neighborhood with stirring a rebellion,” wrote a dissenting resident on the block, S.B. Halliday, in the Eagle. “I sincerely hope Mr. Thomas will not sell or exchange his house and will occupy it himself.”

But the outspoken residents ended up getting their way, according to building records uncovered by local Carl Hancock Rux in 2005.

Two months after the “Flurry in Fort Greene Place,” Thomas sold the three-story property, apparently never having moved in.