Did you know before Central Park was built a rural community of African Americans owned property & built homes there?  They were displaced to build the park & it took well over a century for New Yorkers to rediscover Seneca Village. This episode features Dr. Nan Rothschild, a historical archaeologist and Professor Emerita at Columbia University who worked on the team that excavated Seneca Village, a predominantly African American community that was displaced to build Central Park in the nineteenth century. We discuss why Seneca Village is a historically significant site and what i ..read more

Archaeologists aren’t just interested in digging up relics of the past. This episode features Dr. Kelly Britt, an assistant professor of urban archaeology at Brooklyn College who focuses on community-based historical archaeology of urban spaces. We discuss Dr. Britt's experience excavating a site at City Hall and her knowledge about the African Burial Ground. We also discuss the importance of community-based archaeology, particularly as it pertains to ways archaeologists can assist urban communities in the aftermath of "natural" disasters. Other topics include "green gentrification" and the ne ..read more

This episode features a conversation with Dr. Thomas Campanella, the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation Historian-in-Residence and a Cornell history professor who researches city planning and the urban built environment. We have an off-the-beaten path conversation about NYC parks history, including: the roots of American anti-urbanism; Brownstone Brooklyn’s glacial history; graveyards as the predecessors of public parks; the Indigenous history of Marine Park; European design influence on NYC public spaces; Robert Moses and Frederick Law Olmsted; Dr. Campanella’s park recommenda ..read more

This episode features a conversation with Dr. Marika Plater, an environmental historian and visiting assistant professor at Dickinson College. We discuss what nineteenth century low-income New Yorkers did for fun outside, including taking trips to public parks in their neighborhoods; riding ferries and streetcars to beer gardens and pleasure grounds; and taking steamboats that traveled to waterfront excursion groves. Dr. Plater explains the "3 P's of Parks," which included partying, peddling, and protesting. These 3 P's often caused tensions between New Yorkers of various classes, gender ..read more

This episode features a conversation with Lena Tibebe, the founder of Ride to DC, which is a NYC-based organization that aims to diversify cycling. Last year, Ride to DC began hosting an annual group bike ride from NYC to DC--hence, the “Ride to DC”--as a way to recognize the existence and significance of Black Lives. During the inaugural 2020 ride, 127 cyclists joined the week-long, 306-mile journey. We discuss the origin and inspiration behind Ride to DC with Lena, as well as providing more context about her own personal relationship with cycling in New York City. Lena is also an ESL teacher ..read more

This episode features Dr. Evan Friss, a U.S. urban historian who teaches at James Madison University. He researches the intersections between bicycles, people, and cities. In this episode we discuss the long history of cycling in New York City, including its liberating potential (from a tool for mass protests to an escape for suburban kids), as well as the way access to bikes has often been impaired by race, class, and gender. We contemplate the many forms of cycling in NYC, from Citibike, to food delivery cyclists, to competitive athletes training in Central Park. We also speak about when and ..read more

This episode features a conversation with Dr. Darrel Wanzer-Serrano, a professor of communication at Texas A&M University and the author of The New York Young Lords and the Struggle for Liberation. Dr. Wanzer-Serrano teaches college courses in rhetoric, cultural studies, critical theories of race/ethnicity, de/coloniality, and Latinx studies; and he has a research focus on the same topics. We discuss the Garbage Offensive, a protest that the Young Lords organized in New York City in 1969 to protest the environmental racism their community of East Harlem/El Barrio faced: the New York City ..read more

This episode features a conversation with Dr. Catherine McNeur, an environmental historian at Portland State University and the author of Taming Manhattan: Environmental Battles in the Antebellum City. We discuss how during the early nineteenth century, working class New Yorkers living in Manhattan raised livestock and even practiced a form of recycling by reusing urban waste. Battles over urbanizing and beautifying New York City ensued, involving tension over curated public outdoor spaces like Central Park; fights over sanitation and animals in the streets; and how to manage recurring epidem ..read more

Everyday Environmentalism is a podcast that tells past and present stories about "urban nature" in New York City. We interview current activists in tandem with environmental historians to produce a long history of the ways ordinary New Yorkers have experienced the urban outdoors and created more sustainable relationships with their environment. Our podcast interrogates questions like: Who do we consider an environmentalist? Can urban spaces be sites of environmental activism? Is it true that the environmental movement has historically been mostly white and wealthy? Who are the animal inhabi ..read more

In this episode we sit down with Everyday Environmentalism’s own Maddy Aubey! Maddy is a PhD archaeology student at UCLA who tells us about her undergraduate thesis: “Visions Underfoot: Seneca Village and the Poetics of Remembrance.” It’s an interdisciplinary project that combines archaeology, history, and poetry. Maddy used physical objects found by archaeologists at the Seneca Village dig site as a way to creatively ponder the interior lives of the individuals who called it home. This is Part II of our series of episodes on Seneca Village. If you want a more traditional history about the fac ..read more