Back in 2004 Borough President Helen Marshall set aside $571,000 for Martins Field in Flushing, an African-American burial ground, which had already received a pledge of $2.7 million from Councilman John Liu for the creation of a memorial park.
Fast forward 13 years and the neglected site still shares the public park space with a children’s playground. The name was changed to the Olde Town of Flushing Burial Ground in 2006 and the historic cemetery, where about 1,000 African-Americans, American Indians and the poor were laid to rest, was reclaimed – more or less.
Flushing purchased the land on 46th Avenue between 164th and 165th streets in 1840 to bury marginalized residents, then turned the site over to the Parks Department, which removed the headstones and made it a park in 1936.
Despite a decades-long campaign by Bayside activist Mandingo Tshaka to have the entire park declared a sacred burial ground, there is only one sign to indicate a cemetery is inside. Next to it are signs telling the public how to behave in a city park, creating confusion over the boundaries and causing some people to walk their dogs on the gravesites.
Mayor Bill de Blasio visited Flushing recently for a town hall meeting and became the latest lawmaker to call on the Parks Department to restore the cemetery.
A member of Tshaka’s burial ground conservancy told the mayor the group has not been able to get the Parks Department to work with it to install the proper memorial, such as headstones.
In fact, Parks reversed itself in 2009 and withdrew a plan to install an obelisk and four original headstones, which Tshaka said at the time “wipes out a people’s history” by making the site look like a simple park. The city agency installed a memorial wall containing at least two old engraved headstones, but regular upkeep has been haphazard.
The mayor pressed Queens Parks Commissioner Dorothy Lewandowski to co-operate with the conservancy, which still has $100,000 of Marshall’s money left for the project.
“What’s it going to take to make sure the area is property recognized and respected?” he asked.
We fear a lot.
The burial ground has lurched between periodic cleanups and cries for better maintenance. But despite the good intentions of a Who’s Who of northeast Queens legislators, the old cemetery has lost its identity and soul among the dog walkers and children in the park.
We’re counting on the mayor to become the caretaker of the Flushing Burial Ground and to do the right thing by requiring a fitting memorial as the next step toward fully recognizing the cemetery as a historic gravesite.
