The Evicted of Central Park

Would it surprise you to learn that the creation of Central Park required the eviction of an African-American village on the site, as well as a few Irish? Would it surprise you to learn that yet another moment in American history is connected to the nation’s racism? No, I don’t suppose it would. Shouldn’t anyway.

But there’s another side to the story. By the time the decision to create a park was made, there wasn’t enough empty space left in Manhattan. So the city chose a stretch of land where the largest settlement was Seneca Village, population 264, and seized the land under the law of eminent domain, through which the government can take private land for public purposes. Residents protested to the courts many times, against both the order and the level of compensation being offered for their land; eventually, though, all were forced to leave.

Two thirds of the population was black; the rest Irish. There were three churches and a school. And 50 per cent of the heads of households owned the land they lived on, a fact conveniently ignored by the media of the time, who described the population as “squatters” and the settlement as “n***er village”.