Queens Tribune

Fresh Meadows community leaders and residents called on the City Monday to protect an overgrown cemetery on 182nd Street from the threat of residential development.

Councilman Jim Gennaro (D-Fresh Meadows) addressed a crowd on the cracked and crumbling sidewalk outside the plot of land that holds members of the Brinkerhoff family, among the original farmers and settlers of Queens County. The family, according to Gennaro’s office, began using the site as a cemetery some time around 1930 and there may have been as many as 77 gravestones on the site at one point.

Those gravestones can be seen no more. Instead, the land is covered with overgrown weeds and a few trees. Hank Gottleib, a neighbor and the unofficial caretaker of the cemetery, said the DeDomenicos, who own the property, buried all the tombstones in the 1980s.

While the State has laws forbidding development on cemeteries, the DeDomenicos are petitioning a judge to declare the property abandoned.

Residents here deemed the plans as shameful.

“Cemeteries have no expiration dates,” said Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. (D-Astoria).

“This is an outrage. We are a better city, a better state than to allow people to develop on cemeteries,” added Gennaro. “This is absolutely off the table.”

He said the City Landmarks Preservation Commission should approve landmarking the site as historic. This would give the property a redevelopment value of zero, Gennaro said, and hopefully force the owners into turning the property back over to the City. Then, the City can work with local residents to design the cemetery in a respectful, dignified manner.

Sen. Toby Staviski (D-Flushing), also in attendance, said it was of the utmost importance for the borough to hang on to its history.

“We have to pay attention to our cultural history and landmarking is one way of reminding us we do have a past,” she said, adding that Queens has fewer areas landmarked than any other borough in the City.

James Gallagher Jr., president of the Fresh Meadows Homeowners Civic Association, said people have been fighting to protect the property from development since Fresh Meadows was first developed in 1935.

“Right now, we want to get this to happen as soon as possible,” he said.

The commission is waiting for the legal situation to be resolved before making a ruling on landmarking the site.