Seneca Village
Central Park: memorial of the Common Council of the City of New York / Map Division
Note Free Episcopal African Church and school house.
Books and Clippings
Villages & Sections - Seneca Village : clippings.
Clipping and miscellaneous material about Seneca Village, the 19th century African-American settlement destroyed to make way for Central Park in New York City.
The Park and the People by
This "exemplary social history" (Kirkus Reviews) is the first full-scale account of Central Park ever published. Elizabeth Blackmar and Roy Rosenzweig tell the story of Central Park's people--the merchants and landowners who launched the project; the immigrant and African-American residents who were displaced by the park; the politicians, gentlemen, and artists who disputed its design and operation; the German gardeners, Irish laborers, and Yankee engineers who built it; and the generations of New Yorkers for whom Central Park was their only backyard. In tracing the park's history, Blackmar and Rosenzweig give us the history of New York, and bring to life larger issues about the meaning of the word "public" in a democratic society.
We Shall Independent Be by
With twenty chapters from leading scholars in African American history, urban studies, architecture, women's studies, American studies, and city planning, "We Shall Independent Be " illuminates African Americans' efforts to claim space in American society despite often hostile resistance. As these essays attest, Black self-determination was central to the methods African Americans employed in their quest to establish a sense of permanence and place in the United States. Contributors define space to include physical, social, and intellectual sites throughout the Northern and Southern regions of the United States, ranging from urban milieus to the suburbs and even to swamps and forests. They explore under-represented locations such as burial grounds, courtrooms, schools, and churches. Moreover, contributors demonstrate how Black consciousness and ideology challenged key concepts of American democracy - such as freedom, justice, citizenship, and equality - establishing African American space in social and intellectual areas. Ultimately, "We Shall Independent Be " recovers the voices of African American men and women from the antebellum United States through the present and chronicles their quest to assert their right to a place in American society. By identifying, examining, and telling the stories of contested sites, this volume demonstrates the power of African American self-definition and agency in the process of staking a physical and ideological claim to public space
Slavery in New York by
The recent discovery of the African Burial Ground in lower Manhattan reminded Americans that slavery in the United States was not merely a phenomenon of the antebelium South. In fact, for most of its history - fully two centuries - New York was a slave city. For a good proportion of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it was the largest slave city on the continent. Edited by Ira Berlin, the Bancroft Prize-winning author of Many Thousands Gone, and Leslie Harris, this ground-breaking work brings together twelve new contributions by leading historians of slavery.
Introduction
“Seneca Village began…in 1825 [when] John Whitehead, who owned a good portion of the land between present-day 85th and 88th Streets near Seventh Ave...divided his estate and began to sell small parcels...Black New Yorkers purchased the land [to] create a community and [to] regain the political standing which had recently been taken from them. The 1821 New York State Constitution had limited black men’s suffrage to those who owned two hundred dollars in real estate. Land ownership became the key to black electoral power, and thus a farm or garden in Seneca Village offered the opportunity for both community-building and enfranchisement. Over the next [three decades] black men and their families constructed homes and barns, and began cultivating the land. African institutions -- churches, schools, and associations -- followed.
In 1855, Mayor Wood invoked the power of eminent domain and the Village officially became city property, the land cleared for a great new park in the center of Manhattan Island...For two years, the residents of Seneca Village ignored Wood’s edicts and battled the police sent to evict them...In August 1857, another order was issued, and the remaining black landowners were forcibly and violently scattered throughout the city.”
Slavery in New York / Ira Berlin and Leslie Harris
Maps
Topographical map of New York City, county and vicinity / J.H. Harrison (1853)
Digital Collections Image
Note - building footprint with title “Episct. Church”, aka the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, and building footprints near the corner of 8th Ave and 85th St.
Digital Collections Images plate 62 & plate 64
Note - plates showing church and homes on lots between 83th and 87th St.
Digital Collections Image
Note - block outlines with building footprints along 8th Ave adjacent to rectangular reservoir
Map showing all the estates lying between 7th Avenue & North River, and between 80th. St & 99th St. / J.B. Holmes (1876)
(No catalog record, to view ask a Map Div. librarian)
Digital image via NYC Municipal Archives
Note - “Conveyance of James Fairlie & Maria, his wife, to John Whitehead, February 2d, 1824 Recorded February 6th, 1824” parcels F & G, Whitehead would eventually sell several small lots to African American buyers in 1825
Map of New York City, north of 50th Street / Matthew Dripps (1851) sheet #5
(No catalog record, to view ask a Map Div. librarian )
Digital image via David Rumsey Map Collection