New York City has always reinvented itself, but some of that reinvention came at the cost of entire communities. Beneath Central Park, Lincoln Center, the World Trade Center, modern apartment complexes, and familiar street grids are traces of neighborhoods that once had their own homes, businesses, churches, schools, clubs, newspapers, and identities.
Some were demolished through eminent domain or urban renewal. Others were absorbed into larger neighborhoods as streets were extended, populations moved, or the city’s economy changed around them. These 10 lost New York neighborhoods and communities once appeared on maps, in newspapers, and in the everyday vocabulary of generations of New Yorkers before their names largely disappeared.
1. Seneca Village
Location: Inside what is now Central Park, near West 82nd to West 89th Streets
Active Era: 1825–1857…