FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM MARCH 1, 2018 • THE QUEENS COURIER 17
City moves one step closer to buying
neglected cemetery in Fresh Meadows
BY SUZANNE MONTEVERDI
smonteverdi@qns.com / @smont76
Plans to renovate a neglected, landmarked
cemetery in Fresh Meadows are
moving closer to becoming reality, a local
lawmaker announced this week.
Th e Department of City Planning has
certifi ed the city Parks Department’s
application to acquire the historic
Brinckerhoff Cemetery, located
along 182nd Street north of 73rd
Avenue, according to Councilman Rory
Lancman. Th e project now enters the
Uniform Land Use Review Procedure
(ULURP), where Community Board 8,
Queens Borough President Melinda Katz
and the New York City Council will formally
approve the plans.
Th e Brinckerhoff Cemetery survives
as one of the oldest, colonial-era burial
grounds in Queens. It was the burial site
for prominent land-owning Dutch families,
such as the Brinckerhoff s, Hooglands
and Montforts, in the area originally
known as “Black Stump.”
Th e cemetery was granted offi cial landmark
status by the city’s Landmarks
Preservation Commission in 2012. Th ere
are currently no visible gravestones or
markers at the site; however, based on
archived records, the commission estimates
77 people are buried at the site.
Years ago, the property was purchased
by its current owner, who sought to
develop the plot. However, since the site
was landmarked, the owner was unable
to go through with the plans.
Th e land has been neglected since, posing
a number of quality-of-life concerns,
including damaged sidewalks, overgrown
foliage and garbage dumping, to nearby
residents. Martha Taylor, chair of
Community Board 8, said the city’s move
to purchase and renovate the plot “will
allow residents to turn the page on the
property’s disrepair.”
Lancman and Katz have already allocated
$450,000 in the 2016 fi scal year
budget to purchase the cemetery and
make the needed repairs. Th e councilman
called the refurbishment a “top priority.”
“Th e cemetery has been a source of
much frustration for community members,
understandably outraged by its poor
conditions, and this project will enable
the city to properly care for and maintain
the property,” Lancman said. “I look
forward to working with the Community
Board, Borough President Katz, and my
colleagues in the City Council as the
Brinckerhoff Cemetery project makes its
way through the ULURP.”
Queens Parks Commissioner Dorothy
Lewandowski said the agency is “very
happy to move forward on the acquisition
of Brinckerhoff Cemetery so that
it may be preserved as open space and
made accessible to the community.”
“We are grateful to Council member
Lancman and Borough President Katz
for their ongoing support of this project,”
she said.
Queens schools sign open letter to President about gun violence
BY RYAN KELLEY
rkelley@ridgewoodtimes.com
Twitter @R_Kelley6
A national conversation sparked by
the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman
Douglass High School in Parkland,
Florida, has spread to Queens, the rest of
the city and the entire state as school leaders
are speaking out as one.
In an open letter addressed to “the president
and our nation’s legislative leaders,”
the heads of 155 independent schools from
the fi ve boroughs, Long Island, Buff alo
and everywhere in between signed in support
of the letter’s message. Written by P.
David O’Halloran, headmaster of Saint
David’s School in Manhattan, the letter
demands that elected offi cials do something
to change the country’s gun violence
epidemic.
“We implore you, Mr. President and
our national legislative leaders, to do
everything necessary to stem this tide of
senseless gun violence,” the letter reads.
“Address, and ultimately deny, unrestricted
access to weapons and ammunition that
have no legitimate sporting, recreational
or protective purpose. Recognize that the
proliferation of military-grade guns and
ammunition leads to more gun violence
and more gun deaths. Th e statistics are
compelling and cannot be ignored.”
Included in the list of school offi cials
that signed the letter are Carla Jantos
MacMullen from Th e Kew-Forest School
in Forest Hills, Jim Regan from Martin
Luther School in Maspeth and Salvador
Uy from the United Nations International
School in Jamaica.
Th e letter is not the fi rst that O’Halloran
has written about this subject. Five years
ago, he wrote a similar letter aft er the
shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary
School in Newtown, Connecticut. When
he spoke to QNS over the phone, however,
O’Halloran said it feels much diff erent
this time.
“Th is has clearly hit a nerve, and what
has motivated us as heads of schools is the
teens in Florida,” O’Halloran said. “Th e
survivors who stood up and said, ‘Never
again.’”
Th e rapid response to the letter has
also been very diff erent, O’Halloran said.
Other than the independent heads of
schools, more than 100 New York City
public school principals have reached out
to express interest in signing the letter,
he said. It has even spread across the
country to California, as well as neighboring
states like Connecticut and Delaware,
O’Halloran said.
While on the phone with QNS, he
expressed amazement at the amount of
emails he was receiving by the hour as
the “ding” of his inbox notifi cation could
be heard in the background several times.
O’Halloran said he has a team working on
developing a social media platform to allow
more people to easily sign the letter.
Th e ultimate goal is not to delve into the
gun control policy debate, he said, but rather
to let “reason and compassion prevail.”
On March 24, cities around the country
will host a “March for our Lives,” a movement
started by the students of Marjory
Stoneman Douglass. Th e route for the New
York City march has not yet been determined.
Photo via Pixabay
Photo courtesy of Lancman’s offi ce
Councilman Rory Lancman and CB8 Chair Martha Taylor at Brinckerhoff Cemetery