In Central Park, about a mile from land that was once home to Seneca Village, a mostly black community forced out by the park’s creation in the 1850s, the city is planning a privately funded monument to a revered black family from that time.
The new addition to New York’s landscape, honoring the Lyons family, is part of the de Blasio administration’s push to diversify the city’s public art and recognize overlooked figures from its history.
— The New York Times
The privately funded plaque, paid for by the Ford, JPB, and Andrew W. Mellon Foundations and the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund, will become the second monument to Seneca Village in the park, following a public plaque erected in recent years. At its height, the village stretched from 82nd to 89th streets and was home to roughly 350 individuals, two-thirds of whom were Black.
The settlement is considered the first significant community in New York City made up of African American property owners; Seneca Village was demolished in 1857 to make way for what is now Central Park.
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