In November of 2025, Design Trust launched a Design Ideas Competition in collaboration with Van Cortlandt Park Alliance to reimagine an Enslaved African Burial Ground in the Bronx. Following a series of events with the community, Reimagining the Enslaved African Burial Ground at Van Cortlandt Park seeks to honor and memorialize the people who lived and worked in VCP, and invites other sites of memory across the city to deeply reflect and invest in ways to ensure the sacred spaces that exist on their lands are not forgotten. 

This series explores other reimagined public spaces across the five boroughs, asking the question of what it means to memorialize a space and how we can pay tribute to the lives of people who contributed to the layout of public space as we know it. 

Lincoln Center, known for the world’s largest performing arts complex, centers art and culture in the heart of the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The land on which Lincoln Center rests once belonged to a neighborhood called San Juan Hill. If you are familiar with the movie West Side Story, the first minute shows the aftermath of the demolition of the neighborhood calling for “slum clearance” and for the area to be replaced by Lincoln Center in the 1950’s. While urban renewal left a stain on New York City’s ethnic enclave neighborhoods, San Juan Hill’s legacy as a vibrant musical and cultural scene is far from lost in the history of Lincoln Center. 

San Juan Hill existed as a safe haven for Black and Brown people in Manhattan. There they developed their own nightlife culture with jazz clubs hosting some famous figures including Thelonious Monk, Benny Carter and Duke Ellington. Lilian Wald, founder of the Henry Street Settlement, partnered with a Black nurse, Elizabeth Tyler, to develop their own settlement house named Stillman House. Due to urban renewal, many Black and Brown people were forced uptown and refused service by many all-white facilities, which led to the creation of their own. 

Shortly thereafter, Robert Moses deemed the neighborhood a slum, using medical terms like “cancer” and “disease-ridden” to incite a heightened sense of fear within the public about the health of the neighborhood. Many residents that lived there at the time described themselves as low income, but say San Juan Hill was “far from a slum.” Moses even claimed to live in San Juan Hill which added "validity" to his statements but records of him living in the neighborhood were nowhere to be found.  This sense of fear and discriminatory urban planning practices led to the demolition of the neighborhood in the late 1950’s and the construction of Lincoln Center. 

Over 60 years after its opening, Lincoln Center has grappled with its origins with a dedication of its David Geffen Hall to San Juan Hill in 2022. Etienne Charles, composer and then-Guggenheim fellow, composed a dedication piece titled “San Juan: A New York Story,” featuring musical inspirations from the jazz and Caribbean influence that existed in San Juan Hill at the time. Lincoln Center also premiered a documentary in 2024 directed by Stanley Nelson titled San Juan Hill: Manhattan’s Lost Neighborhood. Lincoln Center also regularly hosts musical concerts dedicated to the sounds of San Juan Hill, blending jazz and Caribbean influences. 

The legacy of the people, culture and neighborhood is still felt to those who know the history of San Juan Hill, even without the buildings standing physically. Lincoln Center’s mission to memorialize the neighborhood that was once there can be felt in their dedicated programing and desire to give the spotlight to artists who embody the artistic culture of San Juan Hill such as the music or artistic style.  They have also piloted an interactive map that details all of the landmarks in San Juan Hill where they previously stood. 

While Lincoln Center reconsiders its past, the idea of memorialization follows Manhattan to its tip in another forgotten neighborhood. Coming soon we will finish off the series, discussing efforts to memorialize an immigrant neighborhood on the lower West Side of Manhattan and its history.