Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Slowly but surely, Bayside Cemetery getting cleaned up

From Ink Lake:

Progress continues apace at cleaning up the monument to neglect that is Bayside Cemetery in Ozone Park.

Thanks to CAJAC (Community Association for Jewish At-Risk Cemeteries), new landscapers have been hired, and every weekend volunteers are out there. Usually it’s one or two “regulars”, but sometimes CAJAC is able to rustle up Boy Scout troops, familes of people interred there, or other small groups.

When I first went out there this past summer, the task seemed Sisyphean, it now seems merely Herculean. The key is persistence.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank god! There are pictures on the internet from a few years ago of disinterred/exposed human remains and broken-into crypts. How this could have been allowed to exist in NYC is beyond description.

Anonymous said...

I was one of the volunteers their last weekend. There is a lot ot do but the place looks less awful that it did a few years back. It is really heartbreaking to see how bad things had gotten.

Sarah said...

"Show me the manner in which a nation cares for its dead, and I will measure with mathematical exactness, the tender mercies of its people, their loyalty to high ideals, and their regard for the laws of the land." William Ewart Gladstone

Anonymous said...

"Show me the manner in which a nation cares for its dead, and I will measure with mathematical exactness, the tender mercies of its people, their loyalty to high ideals, and their regard for the laws of the land." William Ewart Gladstone

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Show me a nation who puts way too much effort and resources in storing the dead and i will show you, with great detail, a nation too hung up on myths & fairytales and an indulgence in wasteful use of resources.