Seneca (or Senegal) Village was built in a rural area outside the city proper beyond a palisade or wall.

Seneca (or Senegal) Village was built in a rural area outside the city proper beyond a palisade or wall.

Two-thirds of the homeowners and residents were black middle-class people. The land was purchased by the African Methodist Church which sold plots to blacks.

The movements of its free and enslaved residents, even when and where they could bury their dead, was highly regulated in an attempt to preclude insurrections.

This community existed in an area gutted by immanent domain when the city took the land for a nominal fee to create Central Park.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKLPUjmt5ao

iKLPUjmt5ao