TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - Residents in Tallahassee's Frenchtown neighborhood are speaking out after a historic home was bulldozed to make room for a student housing project.
The Marie Bisbee House has stood on the 500 block of West Carolina Street since the Great Depression.
Residents say it served as a soda shop in the neighborhood and also as the first location of the Strong & Jones Funeral Home.
One of the neighbors had plans to pay for the building to be moved to another location, but it was still torn down, frustrating many.
"This was completely and totally avoidable. We had already lined up the resources to have the house relocated," said Delaitre Hollinger, the first vice president of the Tallahassee branch of the NAACP. "It's encroachment and gentrification at its best, and I just really feel that, all in all, it's an attack on the history of Africans in America."
We've reached out to housing project developer Landmark Properties for comment and are still awaiting a response.
