New Yorkers Honor a Thriving Black Village Displaced by Central Park.

On Juneteenth, a commemoration tells the story of Seneca Village, which was pushed out when the park was created in the 1850s.

Before the Civil War, a predominantly Black community flourished in Seneca Village, on the land that is now Central Park.

On Sunday, as part of a commemoration of Juneteenth, a federal holiday that recognizes the end of slavery in the United States, Black storytellers, dancers and musicians performed in the park to tell the story of life in that village. It is one of the earliest examples of what life after slavery looked like for some Black people in New York State.

“It’s really important for everyone to know that this land wasn’t just Central Park always. It was actually owned by our own people at one point,” said Andrew Thomas Williams V, 30, a descendant of Andrew Williams, a shoe shiner who at 25 became one of the first Black people to buy land in what would become Seneca Village.

Census records and maps show that around 1,600 people lived on the land that would become Central Park, said Marie Warsh, a historian at the Central Park Conservancy, which organized the event. Around 225 of those people lived in Seneca Village, a thriving African American community.'>>>

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/19/nyregion/juneteenth-seneca-village.html