It's an ugly and long-ignored chapter in the city's history: A slave market operated for decades in the heart of Wall Street.
The city has never formally acknowledged the human mill that was run at the corner of Wall and Pearl Sts. from 1711 to 1762.
Three centuries after the market was established, the city is planning to erect a historic marker commemorating the site.
"It's beyond past due," said City Councilman Jumaane Williams (D-Brooklyn), who pushed for the creation of the sign.
The marker — first reported by WNYC — will be temporarily set up a block away at tiny Manahatta Park on the corner of Wall and Water Sts., officials said.
The 16-inch-by-24-inch metal sign is slated to be unveiled on or near June 19, a date marking the abolition of slavery in the U.S. in 1865.
"Everybody looked at it and felt that this was a very significant location that deserved acknowledgment in a public manner," said Jonathan Kuhn, the Parks Department's director of art and antiquities.
The marker will note the years the market operated, the year slavery was abolished in New York (1827) and that "slave labor was integral to the economy of New York both before and after the Civil War," officials said.
In the 18th and early 19th centuries, the city relied on slaves to build roads and buildings — including City Hall, historians say.
Fortunately for the white elite, there was never a shortage of manpower.
African slaves would arrive by the boatloads, many of them coming from the West Indies. As more and more flooded into lower Manhattan, the white upper crust began to fear rebellion.
The market was formed by the Common Council, the precursor to the City Council, as a way to bring order and tax the sale of slaves, according to research carried out by the Parks Department and the Landmarks Preservation Commission.
"It's morally right to have the contemporary City Council acknowledge that most of the people that built the roads and early buildings in colonial New York were indentured servants and African slaves," said Christopher Cobb, an independent scholar who brought the issue to the attention of Williams' office.
Several New Yorkers said the site deserves to be memorialized.
"You wouldn't think that was transpiring right here on Wall St.," said Dale Tippins, 58, who was working on a film set at the location.
"But if that was the case, there should be some sort of landmark to indicate what transpired."