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Case Digest Fall
2003 New York: Construction of Foley
Square U.S. Courthouse and Federal Building, New York
CLOSED CASE
New York: Construction of Foley Square U.S. Courthouse and Federal Building, New York
Agency: General Services Administration
| As
reported in the Summer 2003
Case Digest, the General Services Administration (GSA)
discovered a colonial-era African burial ground during construction
of a Federal building in New York City in the early 1990s.
Subsequently, GSA amended an existing agreement on the construction project to provide for the excavation, analysis, reinterment, memorialization, and interpretation of the portion of the African Burial Ground affected by the construction. |
The reinterment ceremony spanned September 30 to October 4, 2003, as a train symbolically transported four coffins and associated artifacts from Howard University in Washington, DC, to the final resting place on Broadway Avenue in New York City.
Libations are offered on a coffin as GSA Administrator Stephen Perry and Schomburg Center Director Howard Dodson look on during a ceremony for the deceased from the African Burial Ground, Washington, DC (staff photo)
In September 2003, GSA executed a Memorandum of Understanding, through which the National Park Service will assist GSA in selecting the exterior memorial and developing the interpretive center for the African Burial Ground.
(Left to right) African Burial Ground reinterment ceremony participants Juanita Thomas, Rev. Daugherty, Ollie McClean, and Eloise Dix, Washington, DC (staff photo)
For background information on this case, visit the Summer 2003 Case Digest.
Stephen Perry, GSA Administrator and ACHP Council member at the African Burial Ground reinterment ceremony, Washington, DC (staff photo)
Staff contacts: Charlene Vaughn and Laura Dean
Posted October 30, 2003
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