Seneca Village began in 1825 as one of New York’s first communities of black property owners. By the time the city targeted the community for destruction in the mid-1850s, about a third of its population was white — mostly Irish immigrants who had escaped the potato famine. The neighborhood, which stretched from around 82nd to 89th Streets between what at the time were Seventh and Eighth Avenues, was at one point home to more than 250 people, three churches, a school and several cemeteries.

Starting over two decades ago, a group of academics, calling themselves the Institute for the Exploration of Seneca Village History, began preparing to explore the largely forgotten site using ground penetrating radar. Following six years of negotiations, they got permission from the city in 2011 to excavate an area of Central Park, uncovering artifacts like a toothbrush handle and a small leather-soled shoe. The site is currently marked with a plaque to commemorate its history.

Unlike new statues that have been previewed by the city in recent months, the Lyons monument, which is yet to be designed, will be funded by a group of private foundations: the Ford Foundation, the JPB Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund. It is tentatively planned for the western side of the park near 106th Street. Asked why the monument was not being proposed for the land on which Seneca Village once stood, the city said in a statement that it’s a monument “not just to Seneca Village but the Lyons’ family’s broader experiences.”

Conversation about introducing more statues of women and people of color started in earnest after a commission appointed by the mayor recommended moving a Central Park statue of J. Marion Sims, who developed important advances in gynecological surgeries in the 19th century by operating on black female slaves, sometimes without anesthesia. The statue was moved last year to Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, where Dr. Sims is buried.

It is separate from the She Built NYC initiative, led by the mayor’s wife, Chirlane McCray, which aims to rectify the gender imbalance in the city’s public statues. That program was the source of controversy recently when the Italian-American actor Chazz Palminteri accused Ms. McCray of discrimination because the administration has not commissioned a monument honoring Mother Cabrini, the patron saint of immigrants and a paragon to many Italian-Americans.