IBX DOA

 AMNY

The success or failure of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s marquee transit proposal, the Interborough Express (IBX) connecting Brooklyn and Queens by light rail, is centered on a short, skinny tunnel underneath a Queens cemetery that the MTA says requires the line to be routed away from existing railroad tracks and onto the street.

Based on a long-time dream of transit planners and aficionados, the IBX would utilize existing railroad tracks called the Bay Ridge Branch, which were built for the Long Island Rail Road but have long since been used only by freight, and only about one round trip per day at that. The 14-mile spur runs from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn to Jackson Heights, Queens; Hochul first proposed reactivating the line for passenger service back in 2022.

The project is set to bring rail service to several transit-starved neighborhoods and connect to 17 other train lines, while providing a crucial new link for Brooklyn and Queens residents to move between boroughs without having to take a train through Manhattan first. Hochul has described her vision for the IBX as a “transformative” investment in expanding the city’s transit.

After undergoing a “feasibility study,” the MTA opted not to endorse building a subway along the right-of-way. Instead, the MTA endorsed building light rail, which it has never constructed before in New York City despite being in many cities around the world; the agency said this would be $3 billion cheaper (the overall plan is projected to cost $5.5 billion) without sacrificing speed or capacity.

The basis for that claim lies buried among the dead beneath All Faiths Cemetery in Middle Village, Queens, just across the way from the M train’s Metropolitan Avenue terminus. The cemetery opened for business in 1852, and today its 225 acres are the final resting place for 540,000 people, including the grandparents, parents, and older brother of former President Donald Trump.

Also underneath All Faiths is a short tunnel, about 520 feet in length and 30 feet in width, that freight trains under the CSX banner travel under en route to and from Bay Ridge. The MTA says this tunnel is too narrow to add in passenger tracks alongside the freight ones, and expanding it would be prohibitively expensive and require disturbing final resting places above it.

That, in effect, kills the possibility of using subways on the corridor, the MTA claims. Instead, light rail can be routed out of the railroad right-of-way and onto busy Metropolitan Avenue, turning left on 69th Street before returning to the Bay Ridge Branch tracks after two-thirds of a mile.

 This is never going to happen. 

 

Living on top of a Historic Elmhurst Cemetery

The Elmhurst History and Cemeteries Preservation Society, Inc. has been working with the St. Mark’s American Methodist Episcopal Church (AMES) to save and landmark a historically significant burial site in Elmhurst. The site has been studied and documented by multiple organizations that it has at least 290  human interments and remains.
 

The site is under evaluation by NYC’s Landmarks Preservation Commission for landmarking. The burial ground represents the history of post slavery African Americans, specifically those who lived and worshipped in Elmhurst.   There was also a recent PBS documentary about the famous Iron Lady Coffin which was excavated from this site.

 So why is this property on the market for real estate development (condo?).

Hard to imagine someone wanting to live atop 290 graves!!!

Signed Anonymous

From James Ng Elmhurst History & Cemeteries Preservation Society, Inc. & Elmhurst resident.

Group seeks to preserve historic Elmhurst cemetery

From the Queens Gazette:

Underneath a muddy desolate back lot near 47-11 90th Street in Elmhurst exists a forgotten cemetery. Almost two centuries ago, African-American residents of what was then known as Newtown buried their family and friends in this sacred place of eternal rest.

According to the Elmhurst History & Cemeteries Preservation Society, a total of 310 burials were made in the cemetery. Some burials have been removed but numerous remains are still at the site. The society stated that the African American community in Elmhurst traces backs to the time of slavery in the late 1600s.

In 1828 a parcel of land was donated to former slaves who were members of the United African Society (later known as St. Mark's AME Church) one year after slavery was abolished in New York State. The first African American church, parsonage, school and cemetery were set up at this site. Elmhurst had a free African American community living, working and worshiping in this particular area of Newtown.

In 1914, Booker T. Washington came to speak in Elmhurst to help raise funds for the St. Mark's AME church.

The goal of the society is to make the site a NYC Landmark and for it to be placed under the National Register of Historic Places.

More information, including a petition to save the burial ground, can be viewed here.

Elmhurst fights for its historic African burial ground

From the Times Ledger:

The fight for survival continues for one of the city’s oldest African burial grounds now that a Request for Evaluation was submitted to the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission.

The Elmhurst Histories and Cemeteries Preservations Society submitted the request Oct. 1 as a step toward keeping the piece of local and national history from being buried underneath a 55-foot-tall residential building. On Sept. 13, the developing company Song Liu filed permits to develop the five story structure at 47-11 90th St., according to reports from the city Department of Buildings. If construction were to take place, a vital part of American history could be wiped off the map.

In 1828, St. Mark’s American Methodist Episcopal Church was founded — on the site of the proposed building — one year after enslaved people were emancipated in New York City 35 years before the Emancipation Proclamation. Newly Freed African-Americans quickly established the congregation which eventually evolved and relocated three times. The church still remains active today as the St. Mark’s A.M.E Church in North Corona, which is still responsible for the 310 bodies still believed to be resting in the lot hugged by highways.

Construction can only take place when there has been an agreement struck between Song Liu and St. Mark’s AME Church of Corona, according to Giampino. In order for Song Liu to touch the earth, the remains must be properly removed and reburied. St. Mark’s AME Church did not respond to request for comment about the matter.

“It’s a very sad story,” said James McMenamin, vice president of the Elmhurst Histories and Cemeteries Preservation Society.

In 1928, after St. Marks AME had to move to new location, the New York City refused to grant the church permission to remove the remains to a new location. The burial ground was then mostly forgotten and even written off of city maps, according to Giampino.

“The Pepsi Cola sign gets landmarked and $1.9 million (is allocated) to save and restore the house next door to Louis Armstrong,” said McMenamin. “In the meantime we have been trying to save this structure in Elmhurst and we have gotten zip.”

Yep, that about sums it up.

St. Saviour's still waits for funding

From CBS 2:

A part of the city’s past has been languishing in a pair of sealed trailers in Queens for almost a decade.

CBS2’s Lou Young was there Tuesday when they were opened for the first time since 2008. Luckily, the pieces of history are right where they were left.

The trailers contain the pieces of St. Savior’s Church which originally stood in Maspeth, Queens for 160 years before it faced demolition in the face of 21st century progress.

Preservationists would like to put St. Savior’s back together on a plot of land owned by All Faiths Cemetery in Middle Village. All they need is money — which the city was not interested in providing eight years ago.

“Every preservationist said it was a noted building that should be saved,” Robert Holden from the Juniper Park Civic Association said. “Unfortunately the Bloomberg administration didn’t agree.”

Now it’s the de Blasio administration’s turn to consider the $2 million project on a tight city budget that won’t be finalized until later this Spring.

Galasso Trucking has stored the church pieces for free since 2008. The company has pledged to donate the use of their trailers until the restoration is complete.

Is it time for Newtown Playground to be recognized as a burial ground?

From the Queens Chronicle:

Lifelong Elmhurst resident Marialena Giampino grew up hearing stories about the neighborhood’s settlers and how they are buried underneath Newtown Playground at the intersection of 56th Avenue and 92nd Street.

She thinks it’s about time the city and community officially recognize the history below the slides and climbing equipment.

“The goal is to get some type of memorial or plaque commemorating the people buried there,” Giampino said. “To the normal person who maybe isn’t from Elmhurst, they don’t know what’s there.”

According to a 1932 city report on cemeteries, provided to the Chronicle by Giampino, at least 86 people were buried at what was called Old Newtown Cemetery.

The first funeral took place in 1729, about 75 years after the neighborhood was founded and more than four decades prior to the American Revolution.

Some of the neighborhood’s most prominent residents were buried there, with entire families interred alongside each other on the site.

Eventually, the cemetery served as a potter’s field — the final resting place for unknown or indigent residents — until about 1880, with the Parks Department taking over the location in 1917.

A decade later, the surviving headstones were all laid flat and covered with soil so playground equipment and a drinking fountain could be installed.

Giampino brought up the site’s history to Community Board 4, of which she is a member, last week, saying now would be the perfect time to memorialize those who are buried there.

Grave trampling at St. George Church of Flushing?

From the Queens Chronicle:

A parishioner at St. George’s Episcopal Church in Downtown Flushing is concerned about the tombstones being damaged in the church’s graveyard.

“Hundreds of people waiting for food have been trampling all over the cemetery grass every Wednesday and Saturday,” Francis Abele said in a letter to the Chronicle. “This action, not only disrespects the buried but also desecrates such a sacred place.”

The Rev. Wilfredo Benitez, the rector at the church, does not agree with the claim that the tombstones were harmed by people waiting for food, saying that those in line are separated from tombstones by a rope barrier.

Queens Chronicle has a photo of the trampling. There doesn't appear to be a rope.

Why Maurice Avenue is just about the worst place for a shelter

From the Newtown Pentacle:

The reason that this little travelogue is being presented today involves the plans recently presented by the De Blasio administration to convert a hotel in the area over to a homeless shelter. A subsequent post will detail the hotel and the area directly surrounding it, but this is the northern side of the zone which the “Big Little Mayor” has picked to warehouse those who are considered socially and economically undesirable. The community of Maspeth has responded with their characteristic flair, and pushed back on City Hall with considerable skill and energy. City Hall, as is its habit under the current Mayor reacted to the protests by implying that Maspeth’s indignation is fueled by racism. Several publications picked up this theme, and the Internet commentarium knee jerk followed the rhetoric offered by the administration of the “Dope from Park Slope.”

My personal views on the Maspeth shelter project were the subject of a debate recently with a former colleague whose views and perspectives I greatly respect, but the argument I make about the placement of people – people who exist at the lowest end of the socio-economic spectrum – in this area is that it’s a human rights violation.

Simply put, it ain’t exactly a bed of salubrious roses out around these parts even if you’ve got money in your pocket, let alone when you’re down and out. This wouldn’t be a shelter, this would be a penal colony.

On the subject of every neighborhood having to do “its fair share” – Maspeth already handles close to 20% of NYC’s garbage, it hosts the LIE and BQE, has several NYS and one Federal Superfund sites in it, and there are intersections where close to 3-400 heavy trucks an hour roll through on their way to Manhattan. The garbage train also transits through Maspeth a few times a day, which represents and comingles Brooklyn’s share of the garbage handling with Maspeth’s.

There are virtually no mass transit lines available from this location, police patrols are infrequent at best, and at night this is a virtually abandoned part of the city. Bus service is spotty, and it’s one of the places in Queens where you truly need a personal vehicle to get around.

There are streets with no sidewalks here in the half mile around the proposed shelter.

The shocking ignorance of City Hall regarding the existential realities of Western Queens never fails to amaze me. All they seem to know about our neighborhoods is what they see on maps rolled out on mahogany desktops that have pins stuck into them by paid cronies.

Grave robbing at Maple Grove

From DNA Info:

Thieves have been stealing bronze vases attached to memorial markers from Maple Grove Cemetery to sell them as scrap.

The problem at the Kew Gardens resting place started a little more than five years ago, as first reported by the New York Post. About 500 vases have been stolen so far, according to Bonnie Dixon, general manager at the cemetery.

“It’s just so disturbing,” Dixon said. “I can’t imagine how anybody would do that but people do and it's sad.”

The vases, which are engraved with the letters "MG" for Maple Grove, cost about $250 each and weigh about 2.5 pounds, Dixon said.

A pound of bronze sells for about $1.20 to $1.50, according to local scrap metal buyers.

Sad stroll down 58th Avenue

Before
After
Before
After

(Apologies for the lack of photo of the old Maspeth United Methodist Church. It used to have a giant tree in front of it nearly blocking out the whole building, so a drawing was the best I could find.)

Slave burial ground in Bronx being recognized

From NY 1:

Little historians working on a school project helped uncover an African slave burial ground.

It started last year, when their teachers discovered the photo seen at left while working with the department of education's Teaching American History project that focuses on teaching local history to kids.

"There's an image that said, 'Slave burial ground' in the Bronx, but that was all the information we had on it," said Brian Carllin, director of the Teaching American History Project.
They turned to the Huntington Free Library for help. Its president, Thomas Casey, immediately recognized the photo and offered some insight.

"The U.S. census, the first one we have is 1790, and we find from the 1790 reports that, in fact, about one-third the population were slaves," Casey said.

They were slaves who belonged to the Hunts, Leggettes, the Tiffanys, families that owned large portions of land in the 17th-century Bronx.

The white landowners were buried in a fenced-off cemetery preserved in Drake Park, while the rest of the park was built over the burial ground for their slaves.

Elected officials and community members are now calling for official recognition of the land where the slaves are interred.

"Make sure that we put this site, we put this African-American burial ground on the site of the state historic registry," said state Senator Jeff Klein, whose district covers parts of the Bronx and Westchester.

Those involved say that even a sidewalk in the park could be hallowed ground. They believe that the burial ground stretches throughout much of this area, and they want to see the people buried here memorialized.

Legislators say they won't stop with recognition on the state registry and hope to have the burial ground recognized as a national historic site, too.

This is quite similar to the East Harlem MTA depot site.

But then there's Elmhurst, where no elected officials give a shit about a slave burial ground being destroyed by a condo project, and learning about its history is certainly not part of any school project.

MTA to vacate Manhattan slave graveyard

From the NY Post:

The MTA will likely shut down its East Harlem bus depot because it sits atop a 17th-century African burial ground, two transit sources told The Post.

The 126th Street facility — home to the M15 fleet that traverses Second Avenue, the city’s busiest bus route — could close permanently as early as June, one of the sources revealed.

The Post first reported three years ago that the agency had confirmed the existence of the burial ground, used by Harlem’s first house of worship, the Elmendorf Reformed Church, from 1665 until 1869 to bury slaves and freed slaves.

Community activists began lobbying to relocate the 67-year-old depot, a former trolley yard, to memorialize the cherished ground and even establish a cultural center around it. At the time, the MTA maintained it would continue to study the issue but planned to go ahead with the refurbishment of the depot in 2015.

Now the agency appears ready to wash its hands of the 104,000-square-foot building, sources said.

It's a shame that slave graveyard in Elmhurst isn't owned by the MTA.

Church hopes to preserve slave burial ground

Aerial view of site of United African Society in 1924

From the Daily News:

A local church is hoping to preserve a long-forgotten burial ground for freed slaves that was discovered on the Elmhurst site where a five-story condominium building is slated to go up.

Leaders of the Saint Marks A.M.E. Church in Jackson Heights plan to meet on Thursday with the owners of the property, at 90-11 Corona Ave., to plead their case.

The church was founded in 1828 on the site of the burial ground as the United African Society. Over the years, the congregation’s name and location changed.

“The site is very significant because it is believed to be one of the first places where former slaves organized and started their own church,” said the church’s pastor Kimberly Detherage.

“In a time when people are tearing things down and building, it’s important to know our history,” she said.

The construction crew found the body of a woman in 2011 when a machine accidentally dredged up her iron casket as they were tearing down a decades-old warehouse. She is believed to have died in the 1850s.

“We dubbed her the Iron Lady,” said John Houston, owner of the Triboro Funeral Home, in Corona, where she is stored. “The body is so well-preserved they thought it was a [recent] murder.”

After the discovery, construction was halted and the owners of the site, 90 Queens Inc., hired an archeologist to research the burial ground. Bones of 15 more bodies were unearthed in October.

Houston said there’s no telling how many more are buried there.

The city issued a partial stop work order at the site, which is across the street from Newtown High School.

“We were never aware there was a graveyard there,” said the project’s construction manager, who declined to give her name. “We covered everything back and are talking to the Health Department to find out ... the proper way to [handle] this.”

The property owners did not immediately return calls.

Liz Crowley wants to make Bronx cemetery a park

From the Daily News:

Part of Hart Island, a 130-acre isle off mainland Bronx that has been used as a public cemetery since 1869, may become the city’s newest park after a Queens lawmaker vowed to revisit a measure that would bring it under the jurisdiction of the Parks Department.

A Queens lawmaker?

City Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley (D-Middle Village) said she’ll re-introduce the bill she co-sponsored to transfer Hart Island’s jurisdiction from the city Department of Correction. Crowley said she aims to have the bill — which died in committee on New Year’s Eve — reintroduced by next month.

Crowley said she plans to work with the Council’s new Parks Committee leadership to give the plan a fair hearing.

The northern end of the island — which hasn’t had new burials in many years — could easily be turned into a park, said Melinda Hunt of the Hart Island Project, which is advocating for increased accessibility to Hart Island.

A Parks Department spokesman said he wouldn’t comment on legislation that didn’t yet exist, but said the department has refused jurisdiction of Hart Island in the past because the agency won’t operate on an active burial ground.

I guess since Crowley lacked the talent and ability to obtain a park anywhere within her own district, she's focused her attention on another borough. You know, Liz, there's a cemetery in the town you grew up in, that should be preserved. Why not focus on that?

Condo project halted as cemetery is investigated

Received in e-mail:

"15 Graves Opened
CONDOS/STORE FRONTS BUILT OVER CHURCH CEMETERY

Recent construction on property previously owned by the Union Street African Methodist Episcopal Church and its cemetery has uncovered more than 15 exposed graves thought to be those of Negro slaves and their decedents that have been dug up and then recovered shallowly after a stop order from the Health Department. The property is the site of new condominium apartments and storefronts on Corona Avenue at 91st Street -- across the street from Newtown High School.

Wing Fung Realty is the management company whose sign declares they are conducting the sale of the apartments that are entered at 47-19 and 47-21 91st Street (next door to a residence at 47-07 91st Street) and the block of store fronts from 90-05 to 90-19 Corona Avenue, which are next door to the Sabor Colombia 2 restaurant at 90-31 Corona Avenue. Dahill Construction is listed as the current property owners on the NY Department of Transportation notices for sidewalk and bus shelter (Q 19) openings in the lobby and storefront windows.

The current Corona Avenue condos and stores are separated from the uncovered graves by a thin strip of parking lot. As more graves are suspected to be beneath the property, additional construction has been halted until January 3, 2014 while Saint Mark AME Church of Jackson Heights, the owner of the graves but not the property, investigates the situation." - Lydia Gardner

See previously.

Part of Evergreen Cemetery may be developed

From the Daily News:

Dozens of trees, some more than a century old, were cut down in the Evergreens Cemetery, a case of arborcide that leaves only an unsightly bald patch on the rolling hills of the celebrated boneyard.

One worker, who asked not to be identified, estimated close to 70 stately maples, elms, sassafras and oaks were slaughtered in the past two months.

“This is murder,” said the worker. “These trees withstood all the wind and the rain from Hurricane Sandy, and they remained undamaged, and now they're cutting them down?”

The cemetery worker said some people speculated the land - located on the edge of the cemetery near Highland Blvd. not far from the Broadway Junction subway station — would be used for commercial development.

Grassi didn’t deny it, but said such plans are up in the air.

“We haven't made a final decision yet,” he said. “But we are hoping to replant trees over there.”

Quaker graveyard still has pole in it

From the Queens Chronicle:

There is some unfinished business at Flushing’s Quaker Meeting House.

The concrete base of a misplaced utility pole buried on the house’s property stands as the sole remnant of flawed construction work next to the house.

The concrete support is 8 feet below the surface, at the southern end of the house’s historic cemetery. Members of a committee designed to address ongoing problems with the adjacent construction site want it gone, but lack the means to remove it.

Work at the planned apartment building at 136-33 37 Ave. has been suspended by a stop-work order issued as a result of its incursion into the Quaker house’s property. The Chronicle first reported in April the work was being carried out by Pinnacle Engineering without Meeting House members’ knowledge, necessary archeological testing and permits from the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

Workers on the construction site tore down the Quaker Meeting House’s chain-link fence and erected a makeshift plywood barrier about 4 feet onto the historic property. They also slapped a utility pole into an old graveyard dating back centuries.

The LPC must approve any construction work at or near a historic graveyard, a process which typically includes archeological testing to see if any remains are below ground.
The apartment project’s owner, Jeff Huang, quickly responded after the LPC informed him he could face substantial fines for the work, with the utility pole’s above-ground portion taken down and the fence moved back.

He then paid for the cost of an archeological assessment of the disturbed area in May, a process that involves sifting and sonar to search for any remains. Remains were not found in the area, though the site’s age could be a reason.

The LPC does not require the pole’s base be removed, a process that has the potential to further disturb the cemetery. The Meeting House committee plans otherwise...and is working on an alternative plan that would see it taken out.

Elmhurst site is, indeed, a cemetery

"Re: Past article regarding possible cemetery in Elmhurst.

I have attached a link to the nypl digital archives.





This is a map from the 1900s, but you might already know Elmhurst queens was founded in the mid-1600s.


And here's another indicating it was a Methodist Episcopal church with African cemetery.

There was a cemetery on that whole block of construction as the map reveals."

Regards,
Victor

Well, there doesn't seem to be any stopping of work. So much for dead bodies.

Cemetery and DOT in war over cleaning

From The Forum:

According to [Pat] Noonan and another resident in that area who did not want to give his name, they have asked Dan Austin, president of All Faith’s Cemetery, to clean up the weeds and trees that sit on the edge of the property.

Noonan and the other resident have also complained to local and city officials about the area, including State Senator Joe Addabbo, Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley, Queens Borough President Helen Marshall and the Department of Transportation (DOT).

When asked by The Forum about the area, Austin said that the cemetery does not own that property and it is the city’s responsibility. He said that he has paperwork from DOT that says that the city is in charge of the maintenance.

He also said that the size and width of that side of the street isn’t big enough to make a sidewalk and they are waiting for the city to put a retaining wall in that area.

Austin said that they have been cleaning up that property despite it not being their responsibility.

But a letter from that Queens DOT Borough Commissioner Maura McCarthy to Borough President Marshall, says the cemetery is responsible for taking care of that area.

“The All Faith Cemetery is responsible for the maintenance of its property,” the letter read, which was obtained by The Forum and is dated January 20 of this year. “This includes vegetation along the side of the road on 73rd Place.”

A DOT spokesperson echoed McCarthy’s letter, saying that the cemetery is responsible for the road’s maintenance.

Noonan also said that Councilwoman Crowley’s office secured a money allocation to clean up the road almost two years ago, but the project never happened.

What a surprise!

Man searches for Fort Totten graveyard

From the NY Times:

The fort, Mr. Wilkins insisted to no avail, had once been his family’s rolling farmland and the cemetery on it was still his. It had been retained, he said, by a special provision set out when his father sold the property, which was eventually bought by the military before the Civil War.

More than a century later, Tom Loggia, Mr. Wilkins’s great-grandnephew, is continuing the family quest to seek out and memorialize a cemetery that he steadfastly insists lies unmarked on the land.

His goal, which he has been pursuing for years, is to erect a monument or marker to replace the vanished headstones of what he says are up to 30 members of an extended family and their neighbors.

But history repeats itself, sometimes with eerie symmetry: About a decade ago, on Mr. Loggia’s first try, he was turned away by a guard at the fort’s gates, he said.

Fort Totten was decommissioned; parts of it were turned into a city park, while the Army, the Coast Guard and the New York Fire Department control the rest. Officials there remain skeptical that the graveyard exists.