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You could call it retro-chic. "I have a brand-new apartment in a very old home," said Roy Fox, caretaker of the King Manor Museum in the heart of Jamaica. "It's the best of both worlds."
The historical credentials of the meticulously preserved farmhouse, which dates to the early 1800s, are impeccable, and so are Fox' efforts to share what he knows about the legacy of Rufus King, an anti-slavery activist whose efforts so riled big slaveholders that they "gnawed their lips and clenched their fists," according to John Quincy Adams.
Fox, 58, is as uncommon as his abode. A DJ and talk-radio host, he bounced across the country for 30 years, leaving the business in the mid-1980s after the arrival of shock jocks and their contrived controversy.
In 1989, his wife, Mary, landed a job with the Prospect Park Alliance in Brooklyn and Fox went searching for a place to live. "I was talking with my wife's boss," he says, "and she told me, `If you wouldn't object to a free apartment, I can save you some time.' To which I responded, `If you're looking for my attention, you got it in spades. What does that mean?' "
It turns out that the King estate, located at...