Van Cortlandt Park Alliance is partnering with the Design Trust for Public Space to reimagine an Enslaved African Burial Ground site in the Bronx as a memorial space that fosters long-term healing and restoration.
African burial grounds, cemeteries, and sites of memory are important public spaces that go beyond confronting the city’s role in traumatic histories. Active engagement with memorials and the process of remembrance has the potential to radically empower communities and repair the collective history, environment, and culture that ties us to these places.
Van Cortlandt Park is home to an Enslaved African Burial Ground that was officially acknowledged and named by NYC Parks on Juneteenth in 2021, due to the efforts of Van Cortlandt Park Alliance and the Enslaved People Project. Located along the eastern edge of the Kingsbridge Burial Ground, this area has been identified as a likely burial site of enslaved Africans who lived, worked, and died on the Van Cortlandt family plantation. They were responsible for its functions and economic gains for over a hundred years. According to records, there were several Indigenous people who were enslaved as well.
While NYC Parks recognized the Enslaved African Burial Ground with signage and fencing, the space remains largely unmarked. With generous funding from the Mellon Foundation, the Design Trust has partnered with Van Cortlandt Park Alliance to begin working with the local community to gauge what type of memorial should be created to pay tribute to the enslaved African people who built much of Van Cortlandt Park’s southwestern quadrant.
Through community engagement, a series of meaningful activations and events, and a design competition to reimagine the space, the Enslaved African Burial Ground will be a destination in Van Cortlandt Park that honors the memories of those who shaped the space, as well as provide a place for deep reflection, meaningful education, collective healing, and vibrant cultural opportunities for all. This project's process invites a citywide conversation on memory and interconnection for African Burial Ground sites across New York.
This project is supported by the Mellon Foundation.
A festival season of celebratory, inclusive, and diverse events that draw the public into Van Cortlandt Park and into greater awareness about the Enslaved African Burial Ground will be held from May through September 2025, showcasing a range of cultural, culinary, historical, and social programming for the community. Stay tuned for a full calendar here.
Our partnership program with the CUNY Macaulay Honors College will host a spring workshop that engages the next generation of urban planners and city leaders in important conversations around memorial at VCP and beyond.
A Design Ideas Competition, tailored to the unique needs of Van Cortlandt Park will be announced in Fall 2025 to generate important conceptual designs for the future of the site, build excitement, and catapult the project into its next phases, eventually creating a new memorial site for generations to come.