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
4 comments:
@@@Hard to imagine someone wanting to live atop 290 graves@@@
In Asia, parts of Vietnam its very common.
Miles of dead are shoulder to shoulder below sidewalks, houses. This includes large parts of France and Italy in tunnels under large urban neighborhoods too!!
Why was Mac AME torn down?
It's going for 14 million Crappy
https://patch.com/new-york/new-york-city/s/gqa7x/site-historic-burial-ground-queens-selling-14-million?
14 mil! Jeez. Nice payday for Mr. Bo, tho'.
I wouldn't get all angsty about living over dead people. I'm sure the astute readers of the Crapster realized there are dead people buried pretty much everywhere, for as long as humans have walked the planet...
The hand-wringing is an obvious ploy by preservationists (who in more derogatory parlance are called NIMBYs) to put a cap on the proposed development. The lot sits right atop Corona though, so I wouldn't hold out much hope for that. Likely the best outcome will be a plaque or small kiosk of a "museum", and that's that. TG St James and the other churches nearby haven't had their little adjacent graveyards touched. I am sure there are plenty of developers slavering over the prospect, though.
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