Fight Development Of Brinckerhoff Cemetery 

City Councilmember James Gennaro (c.) calls for preservation of the historic Brinckerhoff Cemetery as state Senator Toby Stavisky (at Gennaro’s l.), Councilmember Peter Vallone Jr. (at Gennaro’s r.) and members of the Queens Historical Society and the Fresh Meadows Homeowners Civic Association,

City Councilmember James F. Gennaro (D-Fresh Meadows) and state Senator Toby Ann Stavisky (D-Whitestone), joined by Councilmember Peter F. Vallone Jr. (D-Astoria), led a number of historical advocates and community members in a rally to oppose potential development at the weed-covered, colonial-era Brinckerhoff Cemetery and call for the plot's protection and beautification through city and state law.

 The Brinckerhoff family, among the original farmers and settlers of Queens County, began using the plot on 182nd Street between 69th and 73rd Avenues as a cemetery some time around 1700, records show. According to a 1919 survey, there were 77 gravestones at the site. A 1936 newspaper article said the cemetery had fallen into disrepair and that some of the gravestones had toppled over. Today, the site remains a blighted and neglected plot overgrown with weeds that doesn't appear to be a cemetery; unofficial Brinckerhoff caretaker Hank Gottleib said that the plot's owners buried all the site's tombstones in the 1980s. The sidewalk is broken and jagged, with gaping cracks several inches wide and changes in elevation up to one foot tall from sloping slabs of concrete.

As a result of Gennaro’s casework staff working with the family of the current owners, a fence was recently installed and the site was cleared of litter after many years of neglect. Following that success, Gennaro's staff is now pursuing the repair of the sidewalk through the Department of Parks and the Department of Transportation.

An ongoing legal battle over the site began in 1957, when the City of New York wrongfully sold the cemetery to real estate investor Joseph DeDomenico. The DeDomenico family currently wants to build two houses on the site, while the elected officials gathered today, the Queens Historical Society and the Fresh Meadows Homeowners Civic Association would like the site landmarked and cleaned up. According to the New York Secretary of State's Cemetery Division, state law does not allow building on burial grounds without the full removal of bodies, which must be approved by a local court. While the DeDomenico family insists that the site's bodies have decomposed, the Cemetery Division argues that burial grounds remain so forever whether bodies are intact or not.

Gennaro said that while the current court battle and the prevailing restriction on building on a burial ground is protecting the site from development, landmarking would provide further protection. He also called on the city to acquire the land and give it a rehabilitation that is respectful of the dead buried there, perhaps as a memorial park or a gated-off memorial site.

“We respect our dead here in New York, whether they were buried yesterday or two centuries ago, in a fancy cemetery or in a weed-strewn lot,” Gennaro said. "The city should not only landmark this property, but acquire it and turn it into a site that appropriately honors the interred and celebrates the colonial history here.”

Stavisky also supports landmarking the Brinckerhoff Cemetery, and called on the state to change the fact that it does not regulate abandoned colonial cemeteries like the Brinckerhoff burial ground.

“New York is rich with colonial history that we should honor and that our children should be familiar with on a daily basis,” Stavisky said. “The fact that Brinckerhoff Cemetery appears to be abandoned doesn’t change the fact that our local ancestors are buried there, and the site deserves the same recognition and protections as any other burial ground.”

Vallone said, “Cemeteries do not have an expiration date. History does not have an expiration date. This site is an important landmark for Queens and the history of New York City.”

The city Landmarks Preservation Commission has been considering Brinckerhoff Cemetery as a landmark since 2000, but the ongoing legal battle has forced the issue to be laid aside until that is resolved.

Queens Historical Society President James Driscoll and his colleagues have been advocating for Brinckerhoff’s landmarking, and even enlisted an attorney to threaten legal action against the DeDomenico family should they attempt to build housing on the plot.

 “We’re calling upon the Landmarks Preservation Commission to do the right thing and landmark Brinckerhoff Cemetery immediately,” Driscoll said.

James Gallagher, Jr., president of the Fresh Meadows Homeowners Civic Association, has been fighting for the site's protection through landmarking since 1999. Last month, the group formally requested a meeting with the Landmarks Preservation Commission to discuss the cemetery's status.

“The community has been asking for the landmarking at Brinckerhoff Cemetery since 1935,” Gallagher said. “Right now, we want to get this to happen as soon as possible.”

Also at the rally were Hank Gottleib, Community Board 8 District Manager Marie Adam-Ovide and about 20 local residents interested in the protection and rehabilitation of the Brinckerhoff Cemetery.