NYT Article On Cemeteries in Queens

Article by Keith Williams (April 27, 2017)

- More than five million people are buried in Queens alone, outnumbering those living there by more than two to one

- As the population of New York — which at the time was mainly only in Manhattan — increased in the early 19th century, the city had trouble finding space for its dead

- The state government addressed the issue in 1847, when it passed the Rural Cemetery Act

- Since most of Lower Manhattan was already mostly crowded with tenements, they looked to the area around the border between Kings and Queens Counties because it was barren which made it ideal for numerous human remains (cemeteries) 

- Jack Eichenbaum, a Queens borough historian stated the land was bumpy and rocky and difficult to farm on, so by placing cemeteries we were developing a part of queens that was not developable for anything else

- following the act came a "land rush" where religious institutions and other organizations including enterprising speculators raced to buy pastoral property

- the ideal cemeterial location had: rolling topography, views of the harbor and very short vistas claims Jeff Richman the historian of Green-Wood Cemetery; despite the fact that the land wasn't good for farming or constructing a pond it was "perfect" for a "picturesque cemetery"

- Interestingly enough, cemeteries used to be popular leisure destinations; in fact the Green-Wood Cemetery rivaled Niagara Falls as the nation's top tourist site in the 1860s

- Due to the role of human corpses spreading outbreaks of cholera and yellow fever, burials were banned south of 86th Street in 1852 in Manhattan

- Fast forward a few decades, the rising property values led most of Manhattan's graveyards to "evict their residents" (Hundreds of thousands of bodies were exhumed and taken by cart and boat to new resting places *during nighttime so that they wouldn't be observed as much by the public*)

- Today, cemeteries are running out of burial spots all over; Calvary Cemetery in Queens, and Washington Cemetery, a Jewish graveyard in Brooklyn, are among sites that have been completely developed

** Currently there's no plans for the establishment of new cemeteries in NYC according to the New York State Department of State