Researchers
Probing for Evidence of Lost Settlement in Central
Park to Hold Open House Friday,
July 27
NEW
YORK, N.Y. - Researchers from Barnard and other
institutions probing for evidence of an early
African-American and Irish-American settlement
in Central Park will hold an open house from 10-noon
and 2-4 p.m. Friday, July 27, at the site a block
east of Central Park West and 85th Street.
From
1825 to 1857, Seneca Village was one of the first
significant communities of African-American property
owners in New York City, and included several
hundred residents living in simple houses, three
churches and a school. About two-thirds of those
who lived there were of African descent, while
the remainder were Europeans, mostly Irish who
had emigrated to escape the potato famine.
The
houses in the Village were bought and torn down
by the City of New York under eminent domain laws
as part of the building of The Central Park, as
it was then known. At the time, newspapers described
the houses as "shanties," but they were, in fact,
homes built in one of the few places African-Americans
were permitted to buy land. Since the right to
vote was only permitted to property owners, the
landowners may have bought the land in order to
vote.
The
team is in its second summer of work at the site.
It is headed by Cynthia Copeland, intermediate
and high school programs coordinator for the New-York
Historical Society, Nan Rothschild, Ann Whitney
Olin professor of anthropology at Barnard College,
and Diana Wall, professor of anthropology at The
City College of New York; and includes Roelof
Versteeg, a geophysicist from Lamont-Doherty Earth
Institute, Herbert Seignoret of City College,
and undergraduates from a group of local colleges
including Barnard.
With funding from the National Science Foundation
to City College, as well as grants from Columbia
University's Institute for Social and Economic
Theory and Research and The City University of
New York, the teams are using historical documents
along with ground-penetrating radar and a device
to measure the electrical resistance of the soil
to look for underground anomalies that, in accord
with land records, could be man-made structures.
Contact: Lucas Held, Office of Public Affairs,
212-854-2037
*Home
page photo from Before Central Park: The Life
and Death of Seneca Village, an exhibition
at The New-York Historical Society, Carol May
and Tim Watkins, designers.
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