Researchers Digitally Reconstruct Lost NYC Free Black Village

A group of researchers has developed a visual representation of Seneca Village, a historic community established in 1825 by free Black New Yorkers on the site of what is now Central Park. The researchers, Gergely Baics, Meredith Linn, Leah Meisterlin, and Myles Zhang, outline their project in Urban Omnibus.

The community, a flourishing home to over 50 families, was forcefully displaced in 1857 through eminent domain to make way for the new park. “What is now known as Seneca Village (though we do not know if residents themselves used this name) was demolished. Buildings were razed, and the landscape was reshaped. Lives were uprooted as residents sought new footings across the city, the state, and farther afield. The village’s tangible remains were buried, and the community was largely forgotten for more than 150 years.”

Because no known images of the community survived, many modern reimaginings included misconceptions about the village. Now, Envisioning Seneca Village brings together a vast repository of knowledge about the village to create “an interactive, 3D model that layers, depicts, and narrates much of what we currently know about Seneca Village’s built and social environment.”

The model layers details from “diverse and fragmented sources, along with informed speculation” to make the model come to life with the stories of the people who once lived in Seneca Village.