Founded in 1825, Seneca Village was once home to nearly 200 residents.
Some villagers were German and Irish American.
But most of them were Black
By 1855, nearly half of them owned their own homes. They had a school, churches, gardens and voting rights because they owned land.
But in 1857, Seneca Village was torn down when the city decided it wanted to create a park.
Villagers were essentially forced to leave.
Today, researchers are trying to figure out where they went and locate their descendants.
A lot of the original landscape can still be seen in the park today.
It stretches from 82nd Street to 89th Street and Central Park West.
“We know that they used some of the stone that you see out there now to build their houses,” Marie Warsh, a historian with the Central Park Conservancy, told NBC New York.
Signs erected by the Central Park Conservancy help to commemorate and tell the story of the village and its vibrant community.
“You can really start to imagine what it may have looked like,” said Warsh.
Talks to figure out a permanent way to commemorate Seneca Village, which is not a historical landmark, are ongoing.
Those interested in learning more about the history of Seneca Village can visit the MET’s “Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room” exhibition or www.centralparknyc.org.
This type of thing has been happening to poor people for centuries. I would like to believe that comparable land was found for them elsewhere but they were likely just run out. At least the land was used for Central Park and not a bunch of mansions. That park is essential to NYC and has millions of visitors a year.
A number of years ago, a little unknown tech guy by the name of Paul Allen decided to purchase a bunch of run down storage places and warehouses in the south lake union area of Seattle. This minor character on the tech landscape went to Seattle and said I’m going to build you a park to rival Central Park and we’ll put businesses and living places around it. Seattle said “that’s not your purse! I don’t know you!” and they kicked him in the balls. So, said small businessman left and said fuck it, I’ll just develop a shit show. And this is how MAGA (Meta, Amazon, google, Apple) took over south lake union in Seattle and turned it into a commuting nightmare of epic proportions.
Fucking Seattle! Here, take this free work of art. No! But it’s free and the people will love it. We said Fuck NO!