Historic Freedmen's Town bricks make triumphant return to Fourth Ward
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- Months after unauthorized construction work damaged historically significant bricks in a Fourth Ward neighborhood, crews began work to re-install them on Friday morning.
Laid by freed slaves, the bricks carry a long history in Houston. In November, construction workers tore up the bricks as part of work to replace aging sewer and power lines, damaging some of them.
"I just jumped up got dressed and ran out and started filming the site and started telling them, 'Look you need to stop because you are in violation of federal as well as state law,'" Gladys House-El, a Freedmen's Town resident, told ABC13 in November.
RELATED: Mayor Turner stops construction to save historic bricks
House-El made the excavator operator stop digging up the street.
The original work was being done on Genesee Street, then spilled over to Andrews Street for drainage improvements, but the crew was not supposed to touch the bricks.
Mayor Sylvester Turner then tweeted that the "work was done without my authorization. This should not have happened."
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