By Ellis Monroe for Mood Magazine NYC
Editor’s Note
In this deeply researched and soul-centered piece, Mood Magazine contributor Ellis Monroe takes us through the erased—but never forgotten—streets of Seneca Village. With Harlem as our homebase, we remember what was taken, why it was taken, and what still lives beneath the soil. This story is not just history—it’s inheritance. And we honor it with care, clarity, and conviction.
Before the park, there was a village.
Before the jogging paths, before the concerts, before the horse-drawn carriages carting tourists past the trees—there was us.
Seneca Village was a thriving Black community in the heart of what is now Central Park. From 1825 to 1857, this stretch of land between 82nd and 89th Streets, near what we now call the Great Lawn, was home to hundreds of Black New Yorkers—many of them landowners, teachers, ministers, and working-class families.
And yet, if you walk through Central Park today, you might never know it.
A Vision of Freedom
In the 1820s, just two years after slavery was abolished in New York State, landowners Andrew Williams, Epiphany Davis, and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church purchased parcels of land in what would become Seneca Village.
This wasn’t just survival. This was strategy. This was a vision for Black prosperity, built at a time when owning land meant power—and in many cases, the right to vote.
By the 1850s, the community had expanded to over 250 residents—predominantly Black, with a growing number of Irish and German immigrants. Seneca Village had churches, schools, gardens, and homes. It was more than a village. It was a blueprint for Black resilience and self-sufficiency.
Erased by Design
But the land was coveted. Not because it was a slum (as newspapers of the day falsely claimed), but because the city had plans. Big plans. Green plans. Romanticized visions of European-style parks for the elite to escape the city chaos. But for that vision to be realized, Seneca Village—and dozens of other settlements—had to be cleared.
In 1857, under the guise of “eminent domain,” the city forced the residents out. They destroyed homes, razed churches, and paved over legacies. What was once a community was now an open field. Then, a construction site. And finally, a park.
Seneca Village was gone. On paper, at least.
But We Remember
For more than a century, Seneca Village faded into near-oblivion. Schoolbooks didn’t teach it. Tour maps didn’t mention it. New Yorkers jogged past its burial ground, ate lunch near its church foundations, and never knew what had been taken.
But memory is a stubborn thing.
Thanks to historians, activists, and archeologists, the truth of Seneca Village has begun to rise from the soil. In 2011, a team unearthed artifacts—cups, shoes, foundations, iron tools. Proof. Evidence that Black people didn’t just exist here. We built here. We thrived here.
And now, the city remembers. There’s a plaque. A marker. A name re-etched into public memory.
But we know the truth: a plaque is not justice.
A signpost is not restoration.
Why This Matters Now
In a time when we are reclaiming our stories, building new futures, and demanding truth from the places we live—Seneca Village speaks louder than ever.
It reminds us that erasure is not a relic of the past.
It reminds us that displacement is still happening.
It reminds us that Black joy, Black land ownership, and Black legacy have always been treated as threats.
And yet… we’re still here. Singing. Building. Teaching. Planting gardens in concrete. Holding ceremonies in borrowed spaces. Telling the stories they tried to silence.
A Mood NYC Meditation
The next time you stroll north of 96th Street—our Harlem threshold—remember that Black communities built all over this city. That long before the brownstones, before the boulevards and bike lanes, we were here. And not just surviving. Thriving.
When you walk through Central Park, especially near West 85th Street where the remains of Seneca Village lie quietly underfoot, carry Harlem with you. Carry its spirit, its defiance, its brilliance. Because Seneca Village isn’t just about what was lost—it’s about what still lives in us.
They took the land.
But not the legacy.
Not the memory.
Not the soul.
Seneca Village is not gone.
It’s waiting for you to remember it.
