Before Central Park, the landscape along what is now the Park’s perimeter from West 82nd to 89th Street was home to a predominantly African-American community known today as Seneca Village. Established in 1825, the village began when free Black residents from downtown started purchasing land within what would later become Central Park.

By 1855, Seneca Village consisted of approximately 225 residents, roughly two-thirds Black and one-third Irish. It had three churches, a school, and high rates of property ownership, which in some cases made male landowners eligible to vote. When the City acquired the land for Central Park in 1857, its residents were displaced and forgotten. Historians rediscovered its existence in the 1990s, and in recent years, the Conservancy has worked to trace and share its history.

On the 200th anniversary of Seneca Village’s inception, the Central Park Conservancy has launched a multiyear project to inform the permanent commemoration of Seneca Village within the Park, with generous support from the Mellon Foundation and their Monuments Project.