Ground Report

 As a Libertarian activist on eminent domain and other property rights issues I was pleasantly suprised when I came across The Lost Village of Central Park by Hope Lourie Killcoyne with illustrations by Mary Lee Majno. This is a children’s book aimed at 8-12 year olds but it could certainly be read by or to younger children while adults would find the story interesting.

Seneca Village was a settlement in nineteenth-century Manhattan in the pre-Civil War days when most of New York was below Fourteenth Street. Like most older major cities, what are today neighborhoods were once different villages. But Seneca Village did not become an urban neighborhood. Its people were dispossessed by eminent domain of their land and their homes, shops, school and churches were razed to make way for Central Park. Despite its name,

Seneca Village was not a Native American settlement but was originally and predominantly inhabited by African-American residents. By the time of its destruction, it had many German and Irish immigrants living there.

The author, Hope Lourie Killcoyne, of whom I could learn nothing, sets up an admittedly fictional situation involving two young girls, Sooncy Taylor and Kayla McBean, who become involved with the Underground Railroad taking fugitive slaves to Canada. This certainly made the Seneca Village tale more exciting. 

Issues that are demonstrated include the importance of having property rights and standing up for freedom. I do not know if it was intentional on the author’s part but I was pleased to see demonstrated the utility of individual gun ownership in defense of freedom versus slavery.

My background in historical studies made me appreciate this passage.

"The townspeople were reliving their success. Already they were dding embellishments that all there would forever swear to. As with all history, this episode, too, would be be written by the victors. What they didn’t know then, though, was that it was to be the last full page of Seneca Village history written by them. The final page, the final chapter would be written by outsiders. In disappearing ink."

Of greater interest to adults perhaps, there is a useful chronology of the birth and death by eminent domainof Seneca Village and a walking tour of where it was located. It lay between what are today West Eighty-Firstand Eighty-Sixth Streets in the center of Central Park.

 The era of Seneca Village and its destruction by eminent domain were long ago. But the issue of property rights defense burns bright today when Susette Kelo loses her property to the City of New London and a private developer with the Supreme Court’s approval. Columbia University, my alma mater, intends to displace the residents and businesses of the Manhattanville section of West Harlem for a new science campus. The City and State of New York, in league with developer Bruce Ratner are dispossessing Brooklynites for the Atlantic Yards sports and real estate development. The list goes on and on, across what should be a land of liberty ad infinitum and ad nauseam.

Books for children that encourage an inquiry into property rights and freedom certainly deserve support.

About the author: Richard Cooper is a international trade executive with a manufacturing firm on Long Island,New York, USA. He is active in the Libertarian Party on eminent domain and other issues. He was chair of the Libertarian Party of New York www.ny.lp.org. He blogs at mythsmasher.blogspot.com).

About the book:

Hope Lourie Killcoyne; illustrated by Mary Lee Majno English Fiction : Elementary and junior high school

Language:

New York : Silver Moon Press, 1999. www.silvermoonpress.com

Publisher:

ISBN:

1893110028 9781893110021

The Lost Village of Central Park by