Seneca Village

Seneca Village was a unique community located from 81st to 89th Streets between Seventh and Eighth Avenues in what is now a section of Central Park, and it is important to the history of New York City because it may possibly have been Manhattan's first prominent community of African American property owners. Beginning in 1825, parcels of land were sold to individuals and to members of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, one of the largest and most prosperous congregations of African Americans in nineteenth-century America. The community grew to more than 250 people, with African Americans owning more than half the households in the village, an unusually high percentage of property ownership for any New York community. A natural spring near 82nd Street would have provided fresh drinking water for the maintenance and stability of a large community. Religion played an enormous part in Seneca Village. Two African Methodist churches, the African Union Methodist and the AME Zion, today known as Mother AME Zion, were constructed near 85th Street, and their congregations were composed entirely of African Americans. Colored School No. 3, one of the few black schools in New York City, had been established in the 1840s and was housed in the basement of the African Union Methodist Church. All Angels' Church, an affiliate of St. Michael's on Broadway at 99th Street, was built in 1849 and had a racially integrated congregation of African Americans from Seneca Village and Irish and German parishioners living in the village and within a mile of the church. By the 1850s, Seneca Village had also gained many Irish and German immigrant families, and there were also three or four large cemeteries affiliated with churches. In 1853, the state legislature authorized the use of eminent domain, and the public acquisition of private land to create a major public park in New York began in 1856, encompassing land from 59th to 106th Streets between Fifth and Eighth Avenues; in 1863, additional parkland was annexed to include the area between 106th and 110th Streets. Owners living within the proposed park's boundaries were compensated for their property, though many protests were filed in New York State Supreme Court over settlement amounts. Recent research indicates that the residents and institutions of Seneca Village did not reestablish their community elsewhere, and approximately 1600 people who owned, lived, and or worked on the 843-acre tract had to move when the park was created.

New York, New York · United States