From Seneca Village to “urban renewal,” the government has claimed Black property—rarely with the “just compensation” promised by the Fifth Amendment.
Elie Mystal
In 1825, John and Elizabeth Whitehead divided their Manhattan farmland into 200 lots and began selling it off. I know it’s hard to imagine Manhattan as ever having farmland, but “the city” remained densely clustered on the southern tip of the island well into the 19th century.1 The first three…
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