Episode 7 Transcript- Dark History of Central Park Part 2: The Truth of the "Park Dwellers"

[Amanda] Hey there everyone, I’m Amanda, and you’re tuning in to another episode of New York’s Dark Side. 

[Intro Music}

[Amanda] Guys, I’m back! I’m going to start right out with an apology, this episode took me far longer than I expected to put together! I’ve also been a bit under the weather, I feel like that was coming a across a bit in my last recording, but my voice is just really starting to come back to normal. So, welcome to part two of our coverage of New York’s Central Park and the dark history behind its creation. If you haven’t listened to the first part of this series, I highly recommend you pause here and go listen to part one, because it builds the background to what we are going to discuss today. This series on Central Park has been so eye opening to research and put together. I thought at first the coverage of Central Park would be two parts, but I think I’m honestly going to have to expand it a bit and make it into a trilogy, we’re not even going to get to the building of and opening of the park yet because I want to spend today discussing the people who lived on the land that would become Central Park. This is what sparked my interest in covering Central Park to begin with. I had been cruising around YouTube looking for dark history and found a video covering Seneca Village, a settlement on the property that would eventually become Central Park. You’ll hear me referring to the residents quite a bit as “park dwellers”, this was a term used by the book that I got a lot of this information from. The book is called “The Park and the People: A History of Central Park” by Roy Rosenzweig and Elizabeth Blackmar. If you are interested in doing a deep dive on the history of Central Park, I cannot recommend this book enough. It’s got a ton of information, far more than I could ever hope to fit into this podcast. They did a great job researching Central Park. The park dwellers lost the most with the creation of Central Park, and it’s just truly heart breaking to hear their story and to consider what could have been if they had just been allowed to continue to grow and thrive in the communities that they built. This is a story of discrimination, racism, and as we saw in the first part of this coverage, elitism. 

[Amanda] We spent a lot of time in the first episode talking about the power players who brought forth the idea for the park and pushed to get the legislation passed. They were wealthy landowners who wanted a park for various reasons, but a big part in it was to improve their land values, have a place for them to promenade their wealth, and to get away from what they deemed as “unworthy”, a lot of the places that they used to promenade had become crowded with lower class citizens. The wealthy had been pushing for a different site to become the park- they were enamored with a portion of private land known as Jones Wood, but another group of people pushed for a more central location, and the bid for Central Park passed- allotting 778 acres of land initially, but this would be further expanded to 843 acres in 1863. Part of the reason that the Jones Wood bill failed to take that plot of land as central park was because it was private property. However, the land designated to become the future home of Central Park was also mostly private property housing approximately 1600 people. Most of these people were immigrants and persons of color. 

[Amanda] The park dwellers, unfortunately, had not been involved in the decision to use the land that they were living and for a fair number of them, they were landowners. The area where the park would be built was in Uptown Manhattan in an area deemed “unsuitable for dwelling”. Just a quick recap on this, in 1852 the Special Committee on Parks had proposed a site between 5th and 8th Avenue and that extended from 59th to 106thstreet. The stated this site was chosen because the irregular topography had uneven and rocky surfaces which would help reduce the per acre purchase price. Uptown Manhattan was less affluent than downtown, unfortunately this would play a role in the decisions that were made. If you recall from episode one, the decision for Central Park was made by a few wealthy gentlemen under the guise of the park being “for everyone”. In Uptown Manhattan, there were several orphan asylums, hospitals, old age homes, and lunatic asylums. This made up about 15% of the population of Uptown Manhattan, approximately 9000 residents. I mention this because unfortunately, the wealthy in New York City had a habit of trying to push what they felt to be “distasteful” away from them, and we’ve touched on that before in other episodes. I’m referring to the poor that the wealthy deemed “unsavable” being packed up and sent to penitentiaries and poor houses, as well as all the garbage from the city being packed up and sent to Staten Island’s Fresh Kills landfill. The 1800’s were wild…. I like to think we’ve grown some from that but in my honest opinion we still have a long way to go. Anyway, that’s a rabbit hole I won’t go down today. Moving on… The landowner’s uptown tended to be more middle class with a sprinkling of some wealthy landowners in there. Uptown landowners saw the park as an opportunity to “screen out” residents that were poor as well as keep them from building their associated trades and businesses in the area. This was an early form of zoning and exactly what the wealthy landowners were hoping to do with the Jones Park bill, this would increase their land values. If the park was approved, this would also be a means to remove the existing poor population to renew the area. So, people on the west side of upper Manhattan advocated for a park where the largest concentration of poor uptown residents were. 

[Amanda] When you look at how the park dwellers were described in historical and contemporary accounts, they are largely either un- or misrepresented. They are sometimes described as a debased population of savages. In the public reports and in transcripts of legislative discussions, there are only indirect hints that the park dwellers existed at all on the land proposed for the park. It’s insulting and degrading. They’re also sparingly discussed in the media. The book, The Park and The People discusses one such account that was released on March 5, 1856, that was published in the “The Times”, where the park dwellers were described as “principally Irish families” living in “rickety… little one-story shanties… inhabited by four or five persons, not including the pig and the goats”. A second account discussed in the book was an article in ‘The Evening Post’ where the author wrote that newly established Central Park police would have arduous duties since the park was the “scene of plunder and depredations” “the headquarters of vagabonds and scoundrels of every description” and the location of “gambling dens, the lowest type of drinking houses, and houses of every species of rascality”. I must laugh at that a bit…. Every species of rascality…. It’s just a very 1800’s. It makes me giggle a little more just because the definition of a rascal according to the Oxford dictionary is “a mischievous or cheeky person, especially a child or man and this term is typically used in an affectionate way… but they’re describing the park dwellers in this manner… They’re painting them in a negative light to help buffer their case to get them out of there for their own gain. Another charge that was thrown towards the park dwellers which was largely untrue was that the park dwellers had stolen the land that they lived upon, and they were living on it as squatters. As you’re going to see here very soon, this is not at accurate. 

[Amanda] So, what is an accurate depiction of the people who dwelled on the site of the future Central Park? I’m so glad you asked.  There were approximately 1,600 people living on the land proposed as the future Central Park, more than 90% of them were foreign born. Most of them were Irish, German, or persons of color. More than two thirds of the adult population worked as laborers, gardeners, domestics and in other unskilled or service jobs. The rest tended to work in other skilled trades such as tailors, carpenters, and masons. Some, approximately one in ten, were fortunate enough to run a small business such as a grocery or butcher shop. Between 82nd and 88th street and Seventh and Eighth avenue was the largest and most densely settled of the park settlements, which known as Seneca Village. A farmer and his wife, John and Elizabeth Whitehead, decided to parcel off their farmland and begin to sell. In 1825, a 25-year-old African American man who worked as a bootblack bought three lots of the land for a total of $125, which would be $3,811.06. On the same day, another African American laborer who was also a trustee of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Zion Church (the wealthiest and largest church of persons of color in New York City, potentially even the United States in the 1820s) also came to purchase land from the Whiteheads and would buy 12 lots for $578 which would equate to $17,622.34 in 2023. The AME Zion Church would also come and buy six lots from the Whiteheads, and over the next three years, more church leaders would also come and buy lots from the Whiteheads. Free people of color began to develop a community here. Another settlement near here was on York Hill, an elevation between 6th and 7th Avenues and 79th and 86thstreet that was almost precisely in the middle of the future Central Park. A lot of this land was owned by New York State and was where the building of the first reservoir was in the late 1830’s and early 1840’s, which would disrupt the community of York Hill. In 1838 New York acquired the seven-acre York Hill tract as a receiving basin for the new Croton water system. Some families that were displaced for this probably moved directly west and joined those who had begun to settle the Whitehead tract, where ten more houses were added between 1835-1839. This is the area that would become known as Seneca Village. By the 1840’s Seneca Village was home to more than 100 people, doubling its population. The composition would also begin to change and by 1855, the population would grow to at least 264 people, approximately 30% of them were Irish Americans. 

[Amanda] Among the earliest Irish residents of the area was its most famous native. In 1842 Sara Plunkitt, wife of Irish immigrant laborer Pat Plunkitt, gave birth to twin sons, one of whom grew up to be the celebrated West Side Tammany boss George Washington Plunkitt….  Plunkitt… is an interesting character. In 1846 the Croker family—including three-year-old Richard—fled famine-ridden Ireland and took up residence, according to one biographer, “in a dilapidated dwelling in what is now the western portion of Central Park.” Young Richard’s father plied his trade as an itinerant veterinarian among the horses, cows, and pigs of the park dwellers. Richard Crocker would also grow up to be a Tammany Hall Boss, but his reputation was one of corruption and ruthlessness. And, let’s be honest, I’m now seven episodes in… and I usually find myself going down a rabbit hole somewhere in the episode. Today’s rabbit hole includes George Washington Plunkitt and Richard Crocker. 

[Amanda] Let’s start with George Washington Plunkitt, who started from humble beginnings, his first job was as a cart driver. He then took a job as a butcher’s boy and eventually started a business as a butcher himself. Plunkitt decided he wanted to be in politics and started his own political campaign by being very boots on the ground. He would meet with people and persuade them to vote for him. Plunkitt felt that it was having a college education or being able to speak eloquently that made someone a good politician. To be a politician, he felt that you had to have what he called “marketable goods”. And those marketable goods, he said, were people willing to vote for him. He describes going to his cousin Tommy and asking for his vote first, then some of his friends, and once he had some people who said they would vote for him, he started the George Washington Plunkett Association. He said that at that point district leaders started to view him as having some power. When he decided that he was ready to try to take a seat as an Assemblyman, he ended up with three different districts offering him a nomination because his Association had grown so much by that point. In 1870, Plunkett held the position of Assemblyman, Alderman, Police Magistrate, and County Supervisor, drawing three salaries at once. Plunkett was kind of a character. He didn’t hold an actual office. He sat at the County Court-house bootblack stand and that’s where he would see his constituents and conduct his business transactions. He became very wealthy from his politics, practicing what he called “honest graft”. Plunkett’s view of “honest graft” was being aware of what the constituents needed, and basically taking advantage of that for his own gain as well so that everyone benefited but he reaped profit from it. What does that mean? He would purchase land and goods for projects that would benefit his stakeholders, and then resell them at an inflated price to complete the project. He made his business in real estate, contracting, transportation, and everything else he could do to make money. This is generally referred to as machine politics today. He felt dishonest graft would be buying the land and then using influence to build projects on it. Some of the projects that he benefited from include- some of the outlying parks of New York City, the Harlem River Speedway, the Washington Bridge, the 155th Street Viaduct, the grading of Eighth Avenue north of Fifty Seventh Street, additions on to the Museum of Natural History, the West Side Court, and more. In my research for this episode, I did find a book called Plunkitt of Tammany Hall- A series of very plain talks on very practical politics delivered by ex-senator George Washington Plunkitt, the Tammany Philosopher, from his rostrum the New York County courthouse bootblack stand. I’m going to link that in the show notes, it’s an interesting read from a man with an interesting philosophy. 

[Amanda] Richard Crocker on the other hand seemed to have a very different path and philosophy around politics than Plunkitt. Crocker became an apprentice machinist in the Harlem Railroad after dropping out of school around age 12 or 13. Shortly after that he became a member of the Fourth Avenue Tunnel Gang, a street gang attacking teamsters and workers around the Harlem line’s freight depot, and he would eventually become the leader of the gang. He would go on to become an engineer at one of the Volunteer Fire Departments in 1863. One day at a boxing match where Crocker knocked out all of Dick Lynch’s teeth, he was noticed by James O’Brien, an associate at Tammany Hall. This is when Crocker became a member of Tammany Hall and became involved in politics. Throughout the remainder of the 1860’s Crocker was known as being a repeat voter, he would cast multiple votes at the polls. He served as an alderman from 1868 to 1870, then as Coroner of New York County from 1873 to 1876. In 1874, on election day, he got into a fight with John McKenna, a lieutenant of James O’Brien, who was head of a rival political group. McKenna died in the fight with Crocker, and Crocker was charged with murder. John Kelly, known rather ironically as “Honest John” was the Tammany Hall boss at the time, attended Crocker’s trial and the jury ended up being undecided on Crocker’s guilt so he was freed. Interesting side note on “Honest John”, if you are a Dropkick Murphy’s fan, the song “Boys on the Dock’s” was written in his memory as he was very popular among the Irish and Catholic immigrants as he was a staunch defender of their interests through his political actions. When John Kelly retired, he passed control to Richard Crocker. As head of Tammany Hall, Crocker would receive money from bribes from the owners of brothels, saloons, and illegal gambling dens. He also became a partner in a real estate company with another man named Peter Meyer, where he made a substantial amount of money from sales under the control of the city through city judges. Crocker would attempt to use his influence to take advantage of other situations that would directly benefit him through the shares that he held in companies. In 1899, Crocker tried to have compressed air pipes attached to the elevated railways of the Manhattan Elevated Railroad Company which was refused by the owner of the company. Crocker had shares in the New York Auto Truck Company, which would have benefitted from the arrangement, increasing Crocker’s wealth. Due to the refusal, Crocker used his influence in Tammany Hall to create new city laws which created two requirements for the company- for them to have drip pans under structures in Manhattan at ever street crossing and that the trains run every five minutes and if they didn’t there was a $100 fee for every violation. Crocker also held a lot of shares in the American Ice Company, and in 1900 the “Ice Trust” Scandal occurred. The American Ice Company attempted to double the price of ice in the city, which would have had catastrophic impact on the city’s poor. There was no refrigeration, and they depended on ice to keep their items- milk, medicine, meat cold and if the price doubled, the poor would no longer be able to afford ice. American Ice had a monopoly on the product in the city. This move was reversed and ruined the political career of Robert Anderson Van Wyck, the mayor of New York City at the time. Crocker’s political career also ended shortly after this, and he moved back to Ireland in 1905, where he would remain until his death. 

[Amanda] Okay, coming out of the rabbit hole… I know that tangent had practically nothing to do with the topic of this episode other than they both lived for a time on the land that would become Central Park, but I wanted to include their stories because they both started from a place that was viewed so negatively and would go on to become wealthy and successful… though I definitely question the means of both individuals. One thing that really bothered me was the level of contempt for the residents of the area that would become Central Park, and this level of contempt was aimed not just at the persons of color but also equally at the white population because they were cohabitating the same area. John Punnett Peters, a missionary to the Seneca Village residents from St. Michael’s church was vocal about the commingling of the white and black population and fears regarding them forming marriages and intimate relations with each other or for them to alagamate creating a united organization. John Punnett Peters would describe the park as a “wilderness” in the 1840’s stating that “this waste” contained “many families of colored people with whom consorted and, in many cases, amalgamated, debased and outcast whites. Many of the inhabitants of this village had no regular occupation, finding it easy to replenish their stock of fuel with driftwood from the river and supply their tables from the same source, with fish”. Now, we’ve come to know that this was not true at all and before I go on, I just need to throw one more side note in. John Punnett Peters had a son also named John Punnett Peters who would become a chemist and would coauthor a textbook in 1932 titled Quantitative Clinical Chemistry with Donald Van Slyke, which would establish the discipline of clinical chemistry. Sorry, I can’t help myself when I find these random things, I need to just throw them out there. 

[Amanda] Okay, back to Seneca Village. The residents were not at all a transient population of wretched people. ¾ of the residents of the residents who had purchased land from the Whitehead’s as well as those who had moved from York Hill and were paying taxes in the 1840’s, either or their decedents were still living in the area in 1855. Virtually every family consisting of persons of color living in Seneca Village in 1850 were still there in 1855. This is significant when you compare it to residents of Boston, where 40% of their population had moved when looking at those same five years, many other city’s had high rates of population mobility and in this period persons of color had significantly less residential stability than others. The homes in Seneca Village were commonly described as “shanties”, small, one-story dwellings of unprofessional construction. While many of the homes were crowded, their homes often actually were of much better conditions than the thousands of impoverished immigrant and persons of color living in Downtown New York City in cellars, tenement buildings, and other circumstances. The other common belief about these residents being unemployed was also incorrect. Virtually all the residents were employed in service trades and laborers, earning perhaps a dollar a day, which would equate to $34.87 in 2023. The women and children would help supplement the earnings of the household by working as domestics and laundresses. The women would also sew and help try to scavenge for items such as food, clothing, fuel, and other items that they could use at home or trade for other items that were needed. 

[Amanda] One of the most important things about Seneca Village, was the uniqueness in this period of the landownership for the residents of color. Throughout the city, there were very few land owners of color due to multiple barriers including limited financial resources, there was a law in New York State that prohibited black inheritance of property until 1809, there were informal bars that prevented land being sold to persons of color, and the cost of property in downtown Manhattan was higher than many could afford. In the 1850 census, there were only 71 property owners of color. By 1860, that had only increased to 85. The fact that the Whiteheads had sold land to persons of color, and it was cheap enough for them to purchased was a unique opportunity. More than half of the households in Seneca Village were persons of color, where they had a rate of property ownership five times greater than other New Yorkers as a whole. I truly wonder what amazing opportunities these residents would have had if they had been allowed to remain where they were and continue to build upon what they started. Because they had the stability and property ownership, they were able to start building their own community institutions. Seneca Village had three churches- two were African American Methodist Churches- AME Zion, African Union, and All Angel’s which was a racially mixed Episcopal church which was an affiliate of St. Michael’s. African Union church contained Colored School No. 3 which was set up in the 1840’s and was one of only a few schools for persons of color in the city. St. Michael’s at Broadway and 99thstreet started All Angel’s as a mission to help the poor residents of the park, there was a white policeman living in Seneca Village named William Evers where the mission offered Sunday school and then services out of. In 1848, Thomas Peters, the reverend of St. Michael’s expanded on the missionary work and arranged for a church to be built on West 84th Street by raising subscriptions from wealthy white parishioners of St. Michaels and from other philanthropic New Yorkers such as Robert Minturn. Remember him from the first episode? The parishioners for this church were a mixture of persons of color, as well as Irish and German settlers from within a mile radius of the church. Having property ownership, also gave some of the residents the opportunity to vote, something that was difficult for persons of color in New York due to the requirements- they had to have a $250 freehold estate and three years of state residency in order to be able to vote. In 1845, out of the 13,000 residents of New York of color, only 91 of them had the franchise to vote and that number would only increase slightly so it was still under 100 ten years later in 1855. 10 of those eligible to vote were residents of Seneca Village. 

[Amanda] Outside of Seneca Village but still within the boundaries of the park were other park dweller communities consisting of immigrant populations. One was on the Southeast corner, consisting of 14 households mostly consisting of Irish immigrants. This settlement had been dubbed “Pigtown” by the Journal of Commerce. A larger settlement a little further north, between 68th and 72nd streets and between 7th and 8th avenues was about two thirds Irish immigrants. The immigrant populations unfortunately were not quite as fortunate as Seneca Village residents in being able to build up the same sorts of institutions but would join other established institutions within the local communities. They were however able to grow food and keep livestock such as hogs and goats like they had in Ireland to help supplement their wages. German immigrants also lived alongside the Irish in these areas but maintained their own settlements. They tended to depend more on the park land for their needs than the Irish or the residents of Seneca Village. Some of the German gardeners were able to prosper modestly from their skills. One such person, was a music teacher born in Germany named Juniper Zeuss K. Hesser. He began gardening on a patch of seven lots near 7th avenue and 100thstreet in approximately 1852, which he named Jupiterville. In 1855, he had built the property up to where he had a two-story home with a cellar, a well, a sewer, fenced in gardens, a barn, chicken coop, and a goat stable. Another gardener who was a German immigrant named Henry Ellerman had a lot of 8 acres and would produce two thousand dollars’ worth of crops a year, which would convert to $77,393.85 in 2023. 

[Amanda] There were other institutions in this area as well. In the northeast corner of the park, was an area with likely the longest continuous settlement. In the 1750’s a tavern had been built on a hill in the vicinity of 105th Street and Fifth Ave. This tavern would pass to the McGowan family, and this area would come to be known as McGowan Pass, due the Kingsbridge Road passing through some rocky outcroppings. During the Revolutionary war, Hessian mercenaries would occupy this area and in 1814, 1600 militia men would guard the area against a threatened British Invasion. In 1847, with the purchase of a dilapidated frame house near the now abandoned tavern, the Sister’s of Charity of New York would establish their religious community on what they came to call Mount St. Vincent. By the mid-1850’s, their convent, with seventy sisters (half of them Irish born), eleven Irish female servants, and nine Irish male employees, encompassed several substantial buildings including a laundry, a large brick chapel, a boarding academy for two hundred “young ladies”, and a free school for fifty or sixty children from the surrounding areas. 

[Amanda] There were false beliefs that the park dwellers were constantly engaging in illegal activity and that they were also squatting on the land, which we have already come to know through all of this that this is not at all true. Most of the documented evidence of the “crimes” of the park dwellers were from people who just didn’t understand the way of life of the park dwellers who were not at all sympathetic of their struggles. The press at the time would accuse the dwellers of theft repeatedly, but often what was documented was the park dwellers moving their own property from one area to another. I mentioned earlier, the park dwellers were resilient and would often supplement their diets and needs by scavenging for food, fuel, clothing, and other items they could trade. This could sometimes cross the line into theft, but not to the extent as it was publicized. Some Irish widows may have also operated liquour outlets that may have been illegal to help support themselves. There were also dance houses being operated, that would be labeled as “disorderly” and had likely been operating for many years before a police force was established in the area of Central Park. In regard to illegal squatting, I’ve mentioned already that about one-fifth of the residents own property and there was a higher rate of property ownership in this area than elsewhere in the city. Many others had formal or informal arrangements with the landowners which allowed them to use and live on the land. An example pulled from the book The Park and The People- “In the early 1840’s for example, landowners Abraham Higbe allowed Nicholas Ray and John Donnelly to settle their families and grow corn, potatoes, and other vegetables on his land in return for their clearing it of brush. After the 1840s, Donnelly apparently began to pay a cash rent of 25 dollars per year, but the landlord’s agent did not always make the annual collection, perhaps because the sum seemed so small to him. Donnolly, meanwhile, collected rents from subtenants on the same land. One resident, widow Mary O’Donnell had to enlist the help of a local policeman to locate the current landlord. When they found him, he was willing to accept whatever cash she offered as that year’s rent”. 

[Amanda] So, we’ve established an understanding of the people who dwelled on the land that would become Central Park. Now we’re going to start talking about the eviction of all these people from their homes and communities, which would begin when the Commission of Estimate finally issued its Central Park Report in the fall of 1855. The book I have used for the majority of the information in this episode- The Park and The People, has a thorough overview on the debate between the landowners and those involved in the decision making of the transfer of the land. It also details cases in sales and transfer of property in the few years prior to the 1855 report being released in anticipation of the park. I’m not going to go into all of that in this episode. I want to keep this focused on the park dwellers. There are pleas from the park dwellers for them to keep their land where they had so much of their lives and often their livelihood invested. One of those pleas came from Jupiter Zeuss Hesser, who outlined the work he had done to improve Jupiterville that he would not get back, he pled on behalf of himself and the other park dwellers less articulate than himself stating “a great number of poor families who worked a number of years on these lots, squatters and lease ground, will be entirely ruined when they must give up their cultivated land and move away without compensation. Please to have mercy on the Poor, then the Lord will have mercy on you”. His plea, sent on a postscript, was filed away marked as “too late” even though it came within six weeks of the report. The people of Seneca Village and the surrounding settlements lost more than their homes, they lost their communities. In the fall of 1857, AME Zion church, African Union church, and Colored School No 3 were gone without a trace. All Angel’s church moved a few blocks west of the park; however, the previous congregation had all scattered and the new building had a new congregation, only one person of which had been part of the previous congregation. There would be reminders of Seneca Village that would crop up later, but the same negative sentiment about the park dwellers would continue. In 1871, laborers working on building a gate at 85th Street and Eighth Ave would uncover the coffin of a person of color. Almost 50 years later in this same area, a park gardener named Gilhooley was working in the same area and discovered a human skull and eventually an entire cemetery. The New Yorker described this as “filled with the bones of tramps and squatters who lived in the Park a hundred or so years ago”. In 1859 the park commission took over the buildings at the convent and schools of the Sister’s of Charity to use as offices. When the Civil War broke out, the Sister’s were able to return temporarily to run a hospital in their old buildings for the military. After the war, a restaurant was opened where the hospital was and a statuary gallery opened in the Chapel, but these were destroyed in a fire in 1881. Some park dwellers and business owners were fortunate enough to be able to move their businesses and livelihoods elsewhere. However, most park dwellers who had been living on the land on informal leasing agreements received no monetary allowance for the work and improvements they had done to cultivate and improve the land. By 1857, the dwellers had quietly and peacefully left their homes. 

[Amanda] And this is where I’m going to end Part Two. In the third part of the episode, we’re going to talk about the design contest, the building of the park, and if you thought the opening of the park starts out the way that it was promised- a park for all to enjoy, you would unfortunately be wrong. I mean… we’re still struggling with equality in 2023… Anyway, thank you so much for tuning in to this episode. Don’t forget, if you’re enjoying this podcast, please take a moment to help support me keep this going by leaving a rating or review to help others find us. You can also find and follow the show on New York’s Dark Side Podcast’s facebook page, as well as Twitter and Instagram at NYDarksidePod. You can send me an email at nydarksidepodcast@gmail.com. And check out our website nydarksidepodcast.com. I hope you keep listening and I hope you stay curious!