Former Manhattan Slave Burial Site Is Memorialized

What looks like a regular parking lot in Inwood, actually has a complicated history attached to it.

It sits on what used to be a slave burial ground. Slavery was abolished in New York in 1827, but the site wasn’t discovered until 1903 during a series of amateur archeological digs.

Since then, the site, which occupied what is now the intersection of 212th street and 10th avenue, has been largely forgotten. Now through the work of the Dykman Farmhouse Museum and elected officials like state Senator Marisol Alcantara, it’s being memorialized.

Meredith Horsford, Executive Director of the Museum, hopes that the event will help to shed some more light on this often overlooked piece of history.

"We really loved to be able to raise funds to do additional research about these important people because they were the ones who really helped make this place run and operate and be prosperous," Horsford said.

She said part of the goal of the memorial is to raise funds for the museum to continue researching the history of enslaved people in New York.