• Seneca Village

     
  • Have you ever visited Central Park in New York City?
    Did you know the building of the park buried a thriving community inhabited by free African Americans?
     
    Here's the brief description provided by Wikipedia. Below that are some resources with much more complete stories of Seneca Village.
     
    "Seneca Village was a 19th-century settlement of mostly landowners in the borough of in , within what would become present-day . The settlement was located on about 5 acres (2.0 ha) near the neighborhood, approximately bounded by Central Park West and the paths of 82nd Street, 89th Street and Seventh Avenue, had they been constructed through the park.

    Seneca Village was founded in 1825 by , the first such community in the city. At its peak, the community had 264 residents, three churches, a school, and two cemeteries. The settlement was later also inhabited by and immigrants. Seneca Village existed until 1857, when, through , the villagers and other settlers in the area were ordered to leave and their houses were torn down for the construction of Central Park. The entirety of the village was dispersed except for one congregation that relocated.

    Several vestiges of Seneca Village's existence have been found over the years, including two graves and a burial plot. The settlement was largely forgotten until the publication of and Elizabeth Blackmar's book The Park and the People: A History of Central Park in 1992. The Seneca Village Project was formed in 1998 to raise awareness of the village, and several archeological digs have been conducted. In 2001, a historical plaque was unveiled, commemorating the site where Seneca Village once stood."

    The park had become a vision of the wealthier citizens of NYC as lower Manhattan's population quadrupled and those with the resources to travel saw some of the beautiful, landscaped public spaces of Europe. Some prominent New Yorkers took up the campaign to make the park development happen, including a smear campaign in the papers aimed at degrading the communities and residents of Seneca Village. The protests of the inhabitants of Seneca Village were not successful.
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