Central Park's Black Village is Demolished (1857) w/ Bobby Wooten

This Day in Esoteric Political History

Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia

History

4.6 • 982 Ratings

🗓️ 26 October 2021

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It’s October 26th. In October of 1857, the residents of Seneca Village, a community mostly comprised of formerly enslaved African-Americans, were forcibly removed in order to make room for the construction of Manhattan’s Central Park.

Jody, NIki, and Kellie are joined by musician Bobby Wooten to discuss the forgotten history of Seneca Village, the use of eminent domain, and how to go beyond signs and placards in terms of repairing the damage done to the residents.

Bobby is the bassist in David Byrne’s broadway show “American Utopia” and also produced a history series on Instagram called “America Learn Your History.”

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Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Julie Shapiro, Executive Producer at Radiotopia

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from radiotopia.
0:07.0	My name is Jody Avergan.
0:10.0	Today's topic is a suggestion.
0:12.0	We love getting listener suggestions and this
0:14.1	suggestion comes from let me check my notes here. Oh it comes from Lizzo. Wow that's
0:17.6	amazing a topic suggestion from the superstar Lizzo I think our work here is
0:21.5	done last episode we had John Lennon this episode
0:23.7	we have Lizzo so we are on a real role here no look this suggestion is not
0:28.6	directly from Lizzo but it is inspired by her because here is the context we recently got an email from
0:34.2	listener Xander who said that at a recent concert in Central Park Lizzo took a moment
0:39.5	between songs to talk about some I don't't know, esoteric political history. She said, quote,
0:45.0	I have to shout out the land we're standing on, which is Seneca Village.
0:50.0	Before it was Central Park, this was Seneca Village. And if you don't know what that is, it was Central Park. This was Seneca Village and if you don't know what that is,
0:54.5	it was an affluent African American community that lived here and they were evicted and bulldozed
1:00.1	so that they could build this park. So Zander heard that thought about us, thank you Zander.
1:06.0	The Seneca village that she was referring to existed in the 1850s
1:11.0	and in 1857 is when it was bulldozed eviction started in October of
1:16.8	1857 that is our hook and Liza went on to say that it is important to talk
1:21.4	about not just current pressing issues but also the history of this country.
1:25.6	So Lizzo, we're here, let's talk about it.
1:28.8	And here to do that as always are, Nicole Hammer of Columbia and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley. Hello there.
1:34.3	Hello Jody. Hey there. And our special guest for this episode is Musician Bobby Wooten.
	...

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