A Colonial African Cemetery Rediscovered Beneath Lower Manhattan
A black granite memorial and diaspora court mark the colonial burial ground for thousands of Africans uncovered here in 1991.
🪦 Beneath the pavement
In 1991, crews digging a federal office tower on Broadway hit wooden coffins, and work stopped. The ground held a colonial cemetery where free and enslaved Africans were laid to rest through the 1600s and 1700s, long paved over and forgotten. Today a low black granite chamber rises from a sunken court, its walls carved with Adinkra symbols and the names of ancestors reinterred on the site. A free visitor center nearby traces the excavation and the lives it revealed. The plaza stays hushed even with traffic close at hand, a rare pause in the Civic Center grid.
