Historical Fiction  ·  New York City, 1845–1857

The Park

Before Central Park, there was a community. Before the park was built, it had to be destroyed.

Discover the Novel

The Novel

The Park

The Park — A Novel by Daniel Martin

~128,000 words  ·  2026

In The Park, a sweeping and deeply human historical novel, the hidden past of New York City rises from beneath its most famous green space. Long before Central Park was the city's treasured refuge, it was home.

Through the intertwined lives of the Freeman family of Seneca Village, the visionary but conflicted park designers, and the waves of immigrants whose labor reshaped the land, The Park reveals the true cost of progress — and the people the city chose not to remember.

Elias and Naomi Freeman have built a life on a rocky ridge in the "wild north" of Manhattan, a free Black community where gardens grow, church bells ring, and children roam the untamed landscape. But when surveyors appear and rumors of a grand park reach their village, the ground beneath them begins to shift. Their fight to hold onto home collides with the ambitions of men downtown — reformers, politicians, and designers dreaming of transforming the land into something "for everyone," while quietly erasing those who already belonged there.

Richly atmospheric and meticulously researched, The Park is a story of displacement and resilience, of beauty built atop loss, and of the ordinary people whose lives echo beneath the landscape millions walk today.

A novel of home, memory, and the quiet histories beneath our feet — perfect for readers of Colson Whitehead, Geraldine Brooks, and Hernan Diaz.

Next Novel — In Development

Church & State

When a presidential campaign strikes a deal with America's most powerful evangelical empire, the price of that alliance is a secret buried deep enough to destroy them both — and the people paid to protect it.

Church & State is a razor-sharp novel of ambition and exposure, where political operatives, a charismatic preacher, and the men and women caught in their orbit collide in a slow-burn reckoning that asks how much truth any institution can survive.

The Author

Daniel Martin

Daniel Martin is a first-time novelist and Managing Director of Development, as well as an Honorary Member of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA). His professional life has long sat at the intersection of place, history, and the built environment — the same territory his fiction inhabits.

Drawn to the stories embedded in landscapes and the communities that shape them, Daniel spent years researching the history of Seneca Village and the forces that dismantled it to make way for Central Park. The Park is his debut novel.

He lives in Holland, Michigan, with his wife Deborah.

Currently Seeking Representation
[email protected]