Cemetery Buried Under Giant Main St. Parking Lot

Calling for the return of paved-over cemetery grounds belonging to the Macedonia AME Church in Flushing, Rev. Nicholas Tweed and his congregation last week asked Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to end 50 years of injustice.
The church mnembers were joined by local City, state and federal elected officials who are asking for a review of the City’s past acitons. The sacred grounds had initially been confiscated by the City in 1950 to build a housing development. In a last-minute switch, however, City officials converted the church cemetery and its surrounding property into a giant munciipal parking lot.
Describint the City’s past acitons as an "abomination," Rev. Tweed declared that the church had "lost its congregation, its cemetery, and the use of the front of its church with the creation of the Flushing Municipal Parking Field NO. 1. Asphalt and cars have surrounded us for nearly fifty years."
The Macedonia AME Church is one of the city’s oldest churches. Founded in 1811, the congregation has been at its current site since 1837. During the pre-Civil War years, teh church was part of the natio’s "Underground Railroad," which provided a haven for slaves fleeing to safety. Its cemetery has been on gorunds adjacent to the church for the last 162 years.
Citing the City’s Economic Devlopment Corporaiton’s (EDC) current zeal for large-scale devlopment of this choice, econimcally booming area, Rev. Tweed has asked the Mayor to give his church an opportunity to reacquire thier previously-owned property.
Describing Rev. Tweed’s requeset as "highly appropriate,’ Councilwoman Julia Harrison stated that "Fifty years is long enough for this congregation to gain justice and receive appropriate restitution. Since the city did not use the church proeprty for the reason that it was taken, I highly endorse its efforts to regain key segments of its property."
State Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin said that, although this was a muncipal mlatter, he strongly backed the church’s efforts to reacquire its lost property via a legal process called "right of first refusal." Based on the past history of the cemetery takeover, he said that this was the right thing to do.
From Washington, a concurringCongressman Joseph Crowley declared, "The Macedonian congregation shoudl have the "right of first refusal" to the cemetery peropty."
The early years of the city’s takeover were checkered with unkept promises and hints of back room deals.
In the late 1940s, Robert Moses initiated a Title 1 action to acquire church proeprty in order to build the current Bland housing project.
By 1950, the property was acquired, but its functions were radically switched: the housing development was moved four blocks west to College Point Blvd. and Rosoevelt Ave. In its place, at teh behest of a local merchant’s group, the city opened a giant 770-space commuter/shopper lot in August 1954.
The new facility not only surrounded the Macedonian Church on three sides, but hemmed in all church acitivites. Key to the policy changeover, and acquisition of church properties, were the approvals of Queens borough President James A. Lundy and Mayor Vincent R. Impellitteri in the now-defunct Board of Estimate.
So successful was the project, that eleven years later, in June 1965, the city built a huge ramped-deck that expanded the lot to 1,143 spaces, to accommodate an estimated 1.2 million cars a year. The economic boom currently enjoyed by the downtown Flushing business community is reflected in the dramatic 61 percent increase of parkers using the field annually (from 745,000 to 1,200,000) during the past two decades.
The field’s continued expansion has now made the Macedonian Church’s street space very cramped. The Rev. Tweed said that children attending its day care center, play in a narrow, enclosed, area rsembling a driveway. Brides and goroms going to be married are photographed amid a sea of parking meters, and during funerals, the hearse has to carefully back into the driveway ino rder to bring the casket into the church sanctuary.
Further complicating the Macedonian AME Church’s need for space has been the Eocnomic Development Corporation’s 15-year desire to turn over all, or part, of the parking lot to a private tax-paying developer to take advantage of the area’s booming economy.
About a decade ago, real esetate devloper Wiliam Zeckendorf had won a bid to erect a proposed Flushing Center, composed of offices, shops, movie theaters, and 1,671 parking spaces. Tweed credited Councilwoman Julia Harrison and her Coalition for a Planned Flushing, for thier efforts in defeating this project, which would ahve "surrounded the church with brick walls."
Earlier this week, EDC spokesperson Janel Patterson said that her agency "had no plans at this point" to sell any portion of the giant parking complex.
Built in 1954, the massive parking lto and deck lies in the center of the busy Flushing business community and serves over 3,200 cars a day. Costing $2.4 million to build, the giant two-block field is bounded by Union and 138 Sts., between 37 and 39 Aves.
The parking lot is just one block away from both the busy Main St. shopping center and the Main St. subway terminal on Roosevelt Ave. Conveniently located, the lot lies in the cneter of 23 express and local bus lines, adn two blocks away from a Long Island Railroad staiton.