A man stands in front of the neighborhood on West 98th and 99th that was bulldozed to make way for Park West Village. Image from Jim Epstein’s “The Tragedy of Urban Renewal”.

Three mostly black Upper West Side communities have been bulldozed over the years, to make way for other major projects, from Central Park, to Lincoln Center to Park West Village.

Starting in the 1820’s, people began buying land in a neighborhood called Seneca Village, located from 81st to 89th street between 7th and 8th avenues. But in 1853, the state legislature voted to use eminent domain to take control of the neighborhood and bulldoze it to make way for Central Park.

Beginning in 1825 parcels of land were sold to individuals and to members of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church possibly the largest church of black people in the New York City. Within a few years the community developed into a stable settlement of over 250 working-class people, with African Americans owning more than half the households in the village – an unusually high percentage of property ownership for any New York community. The presence of an abundant natural spring near 82nd Street would have provided the fresh drinking water necessary for the maintenance and stability of a large community. Two African Methodist churches, the African Union Methodist and the AME Zion (today, known as Mother AME Zion) were constructed in the village near 85th Street. Their congregations were composed entirely of African Americans. Colored School No. 3, one of the few black schools in New York City, had been established in the 1840s and was housed in the basement of the African Union Methodist Church. All Angels’ Church, an affiliate of St. Michael’s on Broadway at 99th Street, was built in 1849. It had a racially integrated congregation of African Americans from Seneca Village and Irish and German parishioners living in the village and within a mile of the church.

Today the Central Park Conservancy offers periodic tours of Seneca Village for $15 (they had briefly offered free tours a few years ago).

Another mini-neighborhood was the area now occupied by Park West Village Village. The Times wrote about it here.

From about 1905 until the 1950s, West 98th and 99th Streets constituted a vibrant, predominantly African-American community that was something of a miniature Harlem, with its own Renaissance.

Philip A. Payton Jr., a real estate entrepreneur who wanted to end housing segregation, owned or managed most of the buildings on those blocks. The singer Billie Holiday lived there for a time, as did Arthur A. Schomburg, the historian and writer whose collection of art, manuscripts and photographs became the foundation for the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Other residents included the author Rosa Guy and the actor Robert Earl Jones, the father of James Earl Jones. The actress Butterfly McQueen lived there for a time, and later in Park West Village.

Robert Moses had the neighborhood razed in the 1950’s and Park West Village was built in the 1960’s. Jim Epstein produced a documentary about the area, which you can view below.

An area known as San Juan Hill from West 60th to 66th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue was also once a bustling neighborhood, now known for the site of gang fights in the musical “West Side Story.” But Untapped Cities notes the area had a rich cultural history.

San Juan Hill was home to much more than violence, however. A densely packed district–more than 5,000 people occupied each block of low-rise tenements–it was also home to some of New York’s jivest jazz joints, including The Jungle’s Casino. This is the club where, in 1913, the pianist James P. Johnson wrote a tune to accompany the “wild and comical dance” of off-duty dock workers. The result was the Charleston, perhaps the biggest dance-craze of the 20th Century. Decades later, San Juan Hill was home to Thelonious Monk. Residents remember him as an eccentric man who walked around beneath their windows singing to himself–no doubt composing some of jazz’s most memorable melodies.

Fordham, the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic were looking for new sites, and got the ear of Robert Moses. In the 50’s the city had it designated as a slum. In 1958, almost 17,000 residents were forced to leave. Construction began on Lincoln Center in 1959. The video below explains more:

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