in later years. As workers were uprooting trees at the corner of 85th Street and Central Park West in 1871, they came upon two coffins, both containing Black people from Seneca Village. A half-century later, a gardener named Gilhooley inadvertently found a graveyard from Seneca Village while turning soil at the same site, subsequently called "Gilhooley's Burial Plot" after him. Rediscovery The settlement was largely forgotten for more than a century after its demolition. It came to the attention of Peter Salwen in the late 1970s, who noted a discrepancy in city maps of the village's impressive architecture that belied its negative reputation, and he included it in his 1989 Upper West Side Story. Public interest in Seneca Village was invigorated after the publication of Roy Rosenzweig and Elizabeth Blackmar's 1992 book The Park and the People: A History of Central Park, which described the community extensively. A 1997 New-York Historical Society exhibition brought together a non-profit initiative that has since supported historical research and archaeological excavations into the 21st century. A call for descendants found the lineage of first land purchaser Andrew Williams, who has been the namesake for successive generations of his family until the present day, as documented by family genealogist Ariel Williams. The historical example of Seneca Village has been cited in the context of racialized community displacement and more recent urban renewal initiatives. Commemoration The Seneca Village Project was formed in 1998 as a collaboration between Cynthia Copeland of the New-York Historical Society, Nan Rothschild of Barnard College, and Diana Wall of City College of New York, and was later organized under the non-profit Institute for the Exploration of Seneca Village History. It is dedicated to raising awareness about Seneca Village's significance as a free, middle-class Black community in 19th-century New York City. The project facilitates educational programs, which engage school children, teachers, and the general public, and bring Seneca Village into public knowledge. In February 2001, former Parks Commissioner Henry Stern, State Senator David Paterson, Borough President C. Virginia Fields, and New York Historical Society Executive Director Betsy Gotbaum unveiled a plaque commemorating the site where Seneca Village once stood. The plaque is located near the modern-day Mariners Playground, near 85th Street and Central Park West. In 2019, the city announced a request for proposals for a statue honoring the Lyons family, property owners in the village: Albro Lyons Sr. (another member of the