Adult Religious Education: Seneca Village

Herbert Seignoret, is the Director of Academic Advising at the Colin Powell School, the City College of New York. He has worked for over twenty years in the academic setting of CCNY working as a program coordinator for teacher education programs, from them, he observed the importance of good pedagogical approaches to teaching and learning.

Seignoret is also helping to preserve the history of New York City’s first settlement of African-American property owners. An alumnus of the Colin Powell School’s Anthropology Department and the CUNY Graduate Center, Seignoret is the Associate Director of the Institute for the Exploration of Seneca Village History. The goal of this project is to conduct research on the site of Seneca Village and to educate the public about its significance to New York City’s history. Seneca Village was first settled in the 1820s by African American residents as well as Irish and German settlers. Census records show that by the 1850s, more than 260 people resided in the community before the city took over the site through eminent domain to build Central Park. Seignoret’s work has been influential in the quest to raise awareness about this important piece of African American history.