Black Heritage Month 2026: Black Towns Lost But Never Forgotten Part 10 of 13
Before Central Park, Seneca Village was a thriving Black-led sanctuary. The City used eminent domain to erase their homes and votes.
#SenecaVillage #BlackLandMatters #EminentDomain #BHM2026
We’ve always tried to have our own #SenecaVillage #NewYork #BlackAmericanHistory2026 #100YearsOfCelebratingBlackAmericanExcellence
youtube.com/shorts/qCJpl...
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CENTRAL PARK, NY WAS ONCE SENECA VILLAGE, OCCUPIED BY FREED BLACK MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN.
THEN ALONG CAME EVIL, a BULLDOZER, WATER, DIRT to demolish and bury it in 1857.
#newyork #centralpark #blackhistory #bh365 #blacksky #blackeducators #senecavillage
www.centralparkmovie.com
Talk about it. 🙏🏽 Either they went in with [or without] hoods and tore it asunder or simply put a freeway through the heart of it. #BlackBottom. #ParadiseValley. #MillCreekValley. #Ocoee. #SenecaVillage.
Ever wonder what Central Park was like before it was a park? This video is excellent. #nyc #history #senecaVillage #nycHistory #centralPark #aquaduct
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cirLDsebPzQ
A 3D reconstruction map of Seneca Village overlaid on a historic street grid of Manhattan, with labeled streets including 82nd Street, 86th Street, and 8th Avenue/Central Park West. The rendering depicts fields, gardens, houses, and roads that made up the 19th-century community. At the top of the image, large black text reads: “Envisioning Seneca Village — Through the tools of archives, archaeology, and virtual reality.”
A digital reconstruction of a 19th-century rural community landscape, depicting Seneca Village. In the foreground, a small stream winds through grassy terrain with wildflowers and wooden fences. A large two-story white house with columns and lit windows stands prominently to the right, with smoke rising from its chimney. Nearby are smaller houses, gardens, and fenced areas with animals, set against a backdrop of dramatic clouds and trees, including willows. The scene evokes a peaceful, lived-in environment. It is a working landscape and the color palette is serene, with yellows, greens, beiges, white-painted homes and a sky with what looks like coal smoke on one side and large cumulus white clouds on other, looming above the horizon.
Envisioning Seneca Village blends historical research w/ #digitalmapping + rendering to present an interactive 3D model of what #SenecaVillage might have looked like in 1855, two yrs before its destruction to build Central Park. Co-Authors: Gergely Baics, Meredith Linn, Leah Meisterlin & Myles Zhang
Seneca Village was a thriving, primarily African American community in Manhattan that existed from 1825 to 1857, before being destroyed to make way for Central Park.
📷 Lower Manhattan
#nyc #photography #senecavillage
Flooding wasn’t the only method, either. A thriving Black community called #SenecaVillage (NY) was destroyed to make way for #CentralPark. Around 1,600 residents were displaced, and though the landowners were financially compensated, many argue that their land was undervalued.
I never knew this.
#SenecaVillage
#CentralPark
The story of #SenecaVillage never ceases to amaze me. A whole middle class, black neighborhood removed to create NYC’s #CentralPark. youtu.be/HdsWYOZ8iqM
there is no way money can erase them lines of blood running thru ya veins.
historically there is no BM who succeeded going red pill. sorry. show me one. ya can't they'd be dead if they did better than their colonizer. #BlackWallStreet #SenecaVillage #RosewoodFlorida #LakeLanier #Oscarville
Because of racial practices, it's not known what happened to the former residents of #SenecaVillage as they couldn't readily find work in the city. Some believe they went to NJ or other outlying areas to begin their lives over again.
#SenecaVillage had homes, churches, schools, businesses and it seems that the various groups living there got along socially. Once NYC decided to create Central Park, the residents were forced to give up their homes due to eminent domain.
The first time I read about #SenecaVillage, the people living there were described as squatters. But later on, I found more accurate information that stated that they purchased the land from a sheep owner and owned it outright in a time when the majority couldn't afford to do so.
In honor of #BlackHistoryMonth, I'm posting a link to a site about NYC's former #SenecaVillage. It existed in a section of what is now Central Park & housed mostly African-American landowners, along with German & Irish residents as well.
maroons.black/seneca-villa...
Before #CentralPark was ‘created’, #SenecaVillage existed, far away from the overcrowded, affluent downtown Manhattan. #Gentrification then, now, and always. #NewYork www.instagram.com/reel/C_qLm7C...
A belated obit to an inspiring fellow, “Cal” Jones. #senecavillage #harlem
www.nytimes.com/2023/12/11/n...
Great to see my colleague @historicities share such insightful thoughts on the history of #SenecaVillage, urban history, #Blackgeogs, #Blackhistory, #NYChistory, and how gentrification and loss can be de-normalized by rdg history anew. cc @BlackGeogs
.@historicities thinks #SenecaVillage feels v familiar bc current no is seeking to historicize the past in order to make sense of the present moment > which is frustrating bc history must show differences to help us upend norming of urban devel instead of repeating/legitimating
#ElizabethBlackmar asking @historicities about how #SenecaVillage has traveled to become part of #publichistory, and how to place people who have been displaced from the narrative of history? (Wow, comparing historic and geographic displacement floors me.)
