New York City's Seneca Village

 Central Park is a world famous park created in 1858 to provide recreational activities and provide a nature-filled escape from the overwhelming urban life of New York City. However, the most filmed location and the most visited urban park in the world was created with the disregard of an entire history of people. Prior to the creation of Central Park, the area of the park was Seneca Village, the home of around 225 individuals. The people of Seneca Village were predominantly African American, with a third being Irish immigrants. The people of Seneca Village were happy; they were able to make a good living in an area away from the dangerous segregated city. At the time, in the early 19th century, discrimination haunted over the city, making living in the city a dangerous place. 

The communities and long lasting history within Seneca Village were destroyed through eminent domain. The city acquired the property from the citizens of the village in order to build Central Park while compensating each individual for the land. This removal of the people of the Seneca Village prevented generational wealth for the land owning minorities and relocated the villagers into a worse quality of life, all at the expense and disregard of white owning people of power. The acquisition of the land that is now modern day Central Park had long lasting effects on the minorities that once called Seneca Village their home, and the history of these individuals was also lost in this transition.

The best possible ways to make amends for the people of Seneca Village would be to help inform people of the history of the Seneca Village. Whether it is monuments within the Central Park that tell the origins and history of the village or chapters within New York history textbooks in school, the history of the people of Seneca Village must be preserved. New York City should take responsibility for the ignorant displacement of Seneca Village, and the first way of making partial amends would be to tell the story of the Seneca Village.

The second possible way to make amends for the people of the Seneca Village would be to compensate the families of the displaced. The current value of property in Central Park is a generational amount, millions of millions, that was stripped from a group of minorities through eminent domain. It is only right to provide a great quality of life to those who were wrongfully displaced because if they were not forced off the land, their families would be set for years upon years.