Seneca Village- The Moving, Devastating and Erased History of Central Park

 

    The story of Seneca Village is lost gem in the erased history of America. A village of Black, multi-racial/multicultural people living in New York and making a good living for themselves have been completely destroyed and forgotten to make way for NYC’s infamous Central Park.  It’s absolutely devastating to think about the impact of its removal— the generational wealth lost for the descendants of Seneca village, forcing successful POC to remove and start over as low-income households, and an injustice of a white-washed history that refuses to acknowledge the removal or do anything about it.

    There are a couple steps that must be taken to make amends to this situation (although we could never truly fully be able to do so, since a true amend would be to give the original people of Seneca village their houses and their community back). We need to make sure that the story of Seneca Village is told— there was a temporary set-up in Central Park with information cards to honor Seneca Village in the original location of the village within the park— and that set-up should be made permanent. The story of Seneca Village needs to be taught in history books, in ethnic studies courses throughout high schools (along with the issue of gentrification in general). Another step that we could take is to offer financial compensation to those displaced households to make up for the generational wealth that was lost over time, the same wealth that could’ve helped to pay for countless college educations. And finally, to address current gentrification, a good solution would be to implement housing contracts. Some neighborhood planners implement a housing contract, making sure that a good percentage of the houses in the neighborhood are made for and occupied by low-income households. Since there’s been research done to demonstrate that children growing up in low-income households but surrounded by higher-income households are proven to grow up more successfully (going to college and making higher income themselves) than children growing up in low-income households but also surrounded by low-income households, these housing contracts can help offer better futures to the descendants of low-income households.