Luyster Cemetery

A view of Luyster Cemetery in 1925 (NYPL)

In 1938, an old Dutch cemetery was demolished to make way for the expansion of the North Beach Airport—today’s LaGuardia Airport—in Queens. The small graveyard was situated on a bluff overlooking the waters of Bowery Bay, on land that had once been part of a vast estate established by Pieter Cornelisz Luyster in 1668. Pieter Luyster was a carpenter who emigrated from Holland in 1656 and was the progenitor of the Luyster family in America. After he died in 1695, the Luyster estate at Bowery Bay remained in the family for more than a century, each generation burying deceased relatives and friends in the hilltop burial ground.

By the mid-1800s, the Luyster estate had been divided into half a dozen farms that passed into other hands. In the 1870s, piano manufacturer William Steinway partnered with brewer George Ehret to acquire a large section of the old Luyster lands along the shore of Bowery Bay and in 1886 opened a pleasure garden and beach there. Reaching its peak between 1895 and 1915, Bowery Bay Beach (later called North Beach) offered swimming and boating facilities, picnic grounds, and restaurants, as well as  carousels, a Ferris wheel, roller coasters, and other attractions.

A 1903 insurance map shows the location of Luyster Cemetery within the North Beach recreational area

For decades, the Luyster Cemetery stood within this “Coney Island of Queens” and was frequently encountered by the recreation area’s visitors. Several early 20th-century newspaper articles describe the graveyard, which was a small square plot with apple trees at each corner offering protection to four rows of headstones. In 1903, the New York Times noted that the cemetery was between a roller coaster and a dance hall and that “picnickers camp among the stones and scatter their luncheon crumbs over the sod.”  

In 1919, the Queens Topographical Bureau recorded inscriptions found on the 36 headstones still present in the Luyster Cemetery at that time. Many of the headstones were brownstone, while some were of marble and others simply rough fieldstones marked only with initials and years of birth and death. The earliest identifiable grave in the burial ground was that of Mary Luyster Rapelye (1696-1732), a granddaughter of emigrant forefather Pieter Cornelisz Luyster. The latest was that of Martin Rapelye, who died at age 81 in 1816. Most of the tombstones marked the resting places of other members of the Luyster and Rapelye families.

Another view of Luyster Cemetery in 1925 (NYPL)

World War I and the passing of Prohibition in 1919 brought an end to the pleasure grounds at North Beach and by the 1930s the lonely little Luyster Cemetery stood among the the rotting structures that once housed its amusements. Before the area was redeveloped for the airport expansion in 1938, the Docks Commissioner arranged for the removal of the remains from the Luyster Cemetery to a plot at nearby St. Michael’s Cemetery. The last of the bodies were moved in May 1938. Today the former site of the Luyster Cemetery is near the west boundary of the LaGuardia Airport complex.

Location of Luyster Cemetery as surveyed by the Queens Topographical Bureau in 1919

A 2022 satellite view of the western edge of the LaGuardia Airport complex with arrow denoting the approximate location of the former site of the Luyster Cemetery (Google Earth)

Sources: Sanborn’s 1903 Insurance Maps of the Borough of Queens, Vol 5 Pl 1; The Annals of Newtown (Riker 1852); History of Queens County (Munsell 1882); Description of Private and Family Cemeteries in the Borough of Queens (Powell & Meigs 1932); “The Luyster Burial Place,” Newtown Register, Jun 7, 1900; “Some Old Graves in North Beach,” Greenpoint Weekly Star, Aug 30, 1902; “Picnic in a Graveyard,” New York Times, Aug 3, 1903; “Graves Dug 200 Years Ago,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Sep 28, 1907; “North Beach Pleasure Seekers Keep Sacred Old Graveyard of Rapelye and Luyster Families,” Daily Star (Long Island City, NY), Aug 1, 1924; “Old North Beach Resort to Become Part of New Jackson Heights Airport,” Daily Star (Long Island City, NY), Feb 5, 1929; “Old North Beach Burying Ground May Vanish to Make Way for Airport,” Daily Star (Long Island City, NY), Feb 7, 1929; “Old Cemetery to Be Dug Up,” Long Island Daiy Press, Apr 30, 1938; “At City Hall,” New York Post, May 4, 1938

Bergen Family Burial Ground

The Bergen family burial ground shown on an 1850s map.

In June of 1874, there was great excitement in the Brooklyn neighborhood now known as Sunset Park when a police officer named George Zundt uncovered human remains while excavating for a cesspool at the home he had recently moved into on 40^th Street between Third and Fourth Avenues. Among the remains, which included two skulls (“to which hair still adheres,” a local newspaper reported) and other bones, Officer Zundt found a coffin plate with the following inscription: “Catharine Crabb, Aged 71, Died March 17, 1839.”

A photo of the DeHart-Bergen House that stood just west of the Bergen family burial ground near Gowanus Bay, taken before the building was demolished in 1891 (NYPL)

It turned out that Zundt’s new home was on the site of an old burial ground that had been part of the homestead farm of Simon Bergen (1768-1830). A descendant of one of the area’s earliest Dutch settlers, Simon Bergen owned the northeasterly half of what had once been the 300-acre DeHart plantation near Gowanus Bay. Bergen’s father, also named Simon Bergen (1746-1777), and his grandfather, Johannes Bergen (1721-1786), each married members of the DeHart family, and thus the DeHart farm came to be owned by the Bergens. After the untimely demise of the elder Simon Bergen at age 31 (from wounds inflicted by a misfired musket he was considering purchasing) the farm was divided between his sons Simon and John. Simon retained that portion of the property that included the DeHart-Bergen House. Built in the 1670s, the DeHart-Bergen House stood west of Third Avenue near 37^th Street, overlooking Gowanus Bay.

The Bergen family burial ground and surrounding farmland on an 1850s property map covering that area of modern-day Sunset Park

Just east of the ancient DeHart-Bergen House was the Bergen family burial ground, situated in the middle of the block bounded by 39^th and 40^th Streets and Third and Fourth Avenues. Several 19th-century property maps and land records define the cemetery, which was “forty-nine feet from north to south and ninety-four feet from east to west” and surrounded by a stone wall. In an 1827 deed, Simon Bergen conveyed the plot to John S. Bergen, Jacob Bergen, Peter Bergen, Cornelius Bergen, Theodorus Bergen, Leffert Bergen, Garret Bergen, and John T. Bergen, and their descendants, for burial purposes forever, and reserved the perpetual right for burial for himself and his descendants.

The homestead burial ground was probably used from the late 1700s until the 1840s when Bergen descendants began to move the remains of their family members to plots at nearby Greenwood Cemetery. After Simon Bergen’s death, his farm was divided between his daughters Leah Morris and Gashe Lott, who sold the land out of the family.

A 1903 map shows redevelopment of the Bergen family burial ground with the former cemetery and old farm lines denoted.

By the late 1860s, most of the remains had been removed from the old Bergen family burial ground, and the property around it had been broken into building lots. The site’s use as a cemetery had not yet been forgotten, however. In 1870, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported that local police had visited the old Bergen family burial ground at 39^th and 40^th Streets to investigate a new grave that had been made at the site without authorization. Finding the fresh mound, officers exhumed a small pine coffin that contained the corpse of an infant only a few days old. Murder was suspected based on contusions found on the infant’s body.

This 1870 mystery is the last that is known of the Bergen family cemetery until after it had been redeveloped and was uncovered again in 1874 by Officer Zundt’s home improvement project. No records have been found to identify the Catharine Crabb whose coffin plate was retrieved among the bones uncovered in 1874, or to explain why she was buried in the Bergen family graveyard. Today, homes still stand on the former site of the Bergen family burial ground.

A 2022 Google Earth satellite view of the former site of the Bergen family burial ground in Sunset Park Brooklyn; arrow denotes approximate location of the site.

Sources: 8th Ward from 26th St. to 42nd St, [185?], Map, Bergen-[185-?]c.Fl; Map Collection, Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History; Hyde 1903 Atlas of the Borough of Brooklyn, Vol 1, Pl 33; Kings County Conveyances, Vol 26 p3-4, “United States, New York Land Records, 1630-1975,” FamilySearch; The Bergen Family; or the Descendants of Hans Hansen Bergen, one of the Early Settlers of New York and Brooklyn, L.I. (Bergen 1876); “Legal Notices,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Sep 15, 1864; “Supposed Child-Murder,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Feb 14, 1870; “Disturbing the Remains of the Dead,” Brooklyn Times Union, Jun 4, 1874; “Prepare for Death and Follow Me:”An Archaeological Survey of the Historic Period Cemeteries of New York City (Meade 2020)

41st Street Reformed Presbyterian Church Cemetery

This detail from a modern map overlaid with an 1852 map of Manhattan shows the 41st Street Reformed Presbyterian Cemetery that existed in the mid-19th century and the Port Authority Bus Terminal ramps that cover the site today.

The Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan is the busiest bus station in the world, with a quarter of a million commuters and intercity passengers arriving or departing via 8,000 buses on a typical weekday. Located on Eighth Avenue between 40^th and 42^nd streets in Midtown, the terminal has a unique ramp system that provides a direct connection to the Lincoln Tunnel. These ramps are built over the site where the 41^st Street Reformed Presbyterian Church Cemetery once existed.

The Reformed Presbyterian Church Cemetery, approximately 125 feet wide and 100 feet deep, was located 100 feet west of Ninth Avenue on the south side of West 41^st Street. The property was acquired for use as a burial ground in 1832, by three elders of the Reformed Presbyterian Church. The Reformed Presbyterian Church is a small denomination that originated in Scotland in 1690 when its members refused to become part of the national Church of Scotland.

The Reformed Presbyterian Church Cemetery in 1854.

The first Reformed Presbyterian congregation in New York City was organized in 1797 and had a church on Chambers Street in downtown Manhattan; in 1830 members living further uptown incorporated as the Second Reformed Presbyterian congregation and acquired a church at 166 Waverly Street in Greenwich Village; in 1848, part of this congregation split to form the Third Reformed Presbyterian congregation. After the 1848 split, the Third congregation remained at the Waverly Street location while the Second congregation erected a church on 11^th Street near Sixth Avenue. Records show the 41^st Street cemetery was used by both the Second and Third Reformed Presbyterian congregations, which collectively had about 500 members.

An 1856 notice of the removal of the 41st Street Reformed Presbyterian Cemetery

No records have been found to tell us how many people were interred in the Reformed Presbyterian Cemetery on 41^st Street, or the names of those who were laid to rest there during the two-and-a-half decades it was utilized for burials. In October of 1856, church trustees removed the remains of those interred in the 41^st Street burial ground to Machpelah Cemetery in what is now North Bergen, New Jersey.

In 1858, the Trustees of the Second and Third Reformed Presbyterian congregations sold the cemetery property and it was redeveloped. In 1890, the location of the former cemetery was occupied by a rag warehouse and other structures. Construction of the Port Authority Bus Terminal began in the late 1940s. Today, the piers supporting the ramp system, and several buildings beneath the ramps, stand on the former site of the 41^st Street Reformed Presbyterian Cemetery.

A 2021 view of the ramps and other structures that cover the former site of the 41st Street Reformed Presbyterian Cemetery (Michael Young)

Sources: Dripps’ 1852 Map of the City of New-York extending northward to Fiftieth St; Perris’ 1854 Maps of the City of New York, Vol 7 Pl 97; “Special Notices,” New York Herald, Oct 10, 1856; “City Items—A Burying Ground Closed,” New York Daily Tribune, Oct 16, 1856; “City Intelligence—Removing the Dead,” New York Herald, Oct 17, 1856; History of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in America (Glasgow 1888); Archaeological Documentary Study, No. 7 Line Extension/Hudson Yards Rezoning (Parsons Brinckerhoff et al 2004);  “Prepare for Death and Follow Me:”An Archaeological Survey of the Historic Period Cemeteries of New York City (Meade 2020); “A New Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York,” TR News 31 Nov-Dec 2017; “Port Authority Bus Terminal to Receive Multi-Billion-Dollar Overhaul in Midtown Manhattan,” New York YIMBY, Feb 1, 2021

Port Richmond Reformed Dutch Church Cemetery

This vintage postcard shows the Port Richmond Reformed Church as it appeared in the early 1900s. Parts of the north and south cemetery sections can be seen on either side of the church (NYPL)

The Reformed Church at Port Richmond is home to the earliest congregation on Staten Island and its surrounding cemetery includes the Island’s oldest public burial ground. Situated just south of the busy intersection of Port Richmond Avenue and Richmond Terrace, this picturesque site—landmarked by the City of New York in 2010—features attractive lawns, historical buildings, artistically significant monuments, and graves of the North Shore’s early Dutch settler families.

In 1715, the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church congregation built their first house of worship at this site, next to the graveyard that had already been in use for at least a decade. Thought to have originated as a private burial ground for the Corson family in the 1690s, the graveyard is referred to in official documents as “the burying place” as early as 1705 and became the burial ground for most families on the North Shore during the 18^th century. During the 19^th century, the church acquired more land adjacent to the church to expand its burial grounds.

An 1853 map shows the Reformed Dutch Church and cemetery grounds at Port Richmond.

The present church at this site is the congregation’s third, built in 1844. This Greek Revival-style building was enlarged in 1898 with a Sunday school wing added on the south side of the church. The surrounding cemetery is divided into three sections to the north, south, and west of the building complex.

Tombstone of Mary Van Pelt (Richard Arthur Norton, June 2006)

The cemetery section to the north of the church is the oldest and incorporates the original public burial ground of the North Shore’s Dutch settlers. This section is notable for including several finely carved brown and red sandstone gravemarkers that have been ascribed to the workshops of significant New Jersey stone carvers. Of the 224 gravestones here, the oldest with a legible inscription is that of Mary Van Pelt, who died in 1746 at age 15. Her red sandstone marker is topped with a winged death’s head in a style attributed to the “Common Jersey Carver,” an anonymous artisan whose work, dating from the 1720s to 1760s, is well represented in northern New Jersey communities. Other sandstone markers in this section of the cemetery are attributed to carver Ebenezer Price, the most prominent 18th-century stonecutter in the New York-New Jersey region.

The small cemetery section to the south of the church occupies land donated by Daniel Tompkins in 1816 and includes 105 gravestones dating between 1816 and 1896. Most of the monuments here are marble and mark the graves of members of families such as the Tysons, Merseraus, Jacques, Sinclairs, Haughwouts, Crocherons, Housmans, and Posts. The 1898 Sunday school annex was built over part of this south cemetery; some graves were moved at this time but several rows of graves were left in place and remain beneath the crawl space of the the wing.

A view of the south section of the Port Reformed Church Cemetery, April 2017 (Mary French)

The third cemetery section, not visible from the street, is located behind the Sunday school wing on land purchased in 1833 (and expanded in the 1870s) by the Reformed Church to provide for future burial needs. The 363 markers here, mostly of marble or granite, date between 1834 and 1916. Notable here is the grave of congressman and state senator Judge Jacob Tyson (1773-1848) and the family plots of the Van Name, Houseman, Drake, Kholer, and Post families.

Although the Port Richmond Reformed Church is still an active congregation, no interments have been made in their cemetery grounds for over a century. Historically, the church served as a hub for the Port Richmond community that grew and was built around it. The generations of Staten Islanders that are laid to rest in the church’s grounds are part of this legacy.

A view of the north section of the Port Reformed Church Cemetery, April 2017 (Mary French)

This 2012 aerial image shows Reformed Church building and cemetery grounds on the west side of Port Richmond Avenue, just south of Richmond Terrace (NYCityMap)

Sources: Butler’s 1853 Map of Staten Island; Fairchild Cemetery Manual (1910); “History of the Reformed Church on Staten Island,” Staten Island Historian 16(1) Jan-March 1955; Realms of History: The Cemeteries of Staten Island (Salmon 2006); Reformed Church on Staten Island, Sunday School Building, and Cemetery Designation Report, (Landmarks Preservation Commission 2010); Reformed Church on Staten Island

Lutheran Cemetery (All Faiths Cemetery)

An 1882 pictorial illustrates the grounds of Lutheran Cemetery. (Munsell)

Lutheran Cemetery is one of over a dozen cemeteries developed along the Brooklyn-Queens border after the New York legislature passed the Rural Cemetery Act in 1847, spurring the creation of new large-scale cemeteries throughout the state. Founded in 1850 by the United Lutheran Churches of New York and incorporated in 1852, the cemetery was envisioned by Reverend F.W. Geissenhainer (1797-1879) when pastor of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church on Sixth Avenue and Fifteenth Street in Manhattan.

Through Dr. Geissenhainer’s efforts, and largely at his own personal cost, Lutheran Cemetery at Middle Village was established as an open, non-sectarian burial place where graves would be sold at affordable prices so that they could be available to people of limited means. By the 1880s, nearly 200,000 internments had been made in Lutheran Cemetery’s 225 acres and it was one of the busiest cemeteries in the vicinity of New York, averaging 12,000 interments each year. On Sundays, thousands of visitors took to the cemetery’s handsome, undulating grounds that included Trinity Lutheran Church, a chapel that was situated on a knoll in the south section of the cemetery.

This 1922 view of Lutheran Cemetery shows Trinity Lutheran Church, which stood near the entrance to the south section of the cemetery grounds. The church burned down in the 1970s; a community mausoleum stands on its site today. (NYPL)

Although Lutheran Cemetery has always welcomed people from all religious denominations, it was primarily patronized by the city’s German Protestant population during its early period. At the turn of the 20^th century, it was the metropolis’ leading German burial ground and today the cemetery’s older tombstones bear this out in their strong Northern European character and German surnames. Epitaphs, often in the German language and written in Gothic script, speak of great loss, sorrow, and a desire for peace.

A view of monuments in Lutheran Cemetery’s north section, April 2023 (Mary French)

Lutheran Cemetery was not only the favored place for the city’s German Americans to be laid to rest, it was also a preferred spot to take their own lives. German immigrants were unusually suicidal during the 19^th century—so much so that American economist and statistician Francis A. Walker called them “the great suiciding people among us.” Writing in 1875 about this phenomenon among German Americans, Walker noted that “one half of all the suicides which take place among the entire population are accredited to them.” Historical newspaper coverage reveals that over two dozen people committed suicide on the grounds of Lutheran Cemetery during the first 50 years of its history. Among them were Wilhelm Fuhlmer, a 26-year-old German tailor who in 1851 shot himself in the head on the grave of the wife of his grave and only child; Christopher Kunzman, who threw himself on a grave and slit his throat with a knife in 1872; and Frances Wittstadt, who poisoned herself on her husband’s grave in 1897.

A view of the Slocum Monument at Lutheran Cemetery, April 2023. (Chris Bendall)

Another tragic chapter in the history of the city’s German community is documented by the Slocum Monument situated in the south section of Lutheran Cemetery. The monument commemorates the 1,021 lives that were lost when the General Slocum steamboat caught fire and sank in the East River on June 15, 1904. Most of the passengers on board were members of St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, located in the area known as Little Germany on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

The burning of the Slocum was New York City’s deadliest disaster until September 11, 2001, and the extensive loss of life led to the disintegration of the Lower East Side’s German community. Many of the Slocum victims were interred in private plots at Lutheran Cemetery and another 61 unidentified victims were interred in the common plot where the Slocum Monument stands. Though marking the burial place of the unidentified dead, the towering granite monument was intended to stand as an overall memorial of the disaster. It was unveiled on June 15, 1905, and an annual memorial service for the victims has been held at the monument every year since that date.

The Trump family gravesite at Lutheran Cemetery, April 2023 (Chris Bendall)

The Slocum Monument has long been the main historical attraction at Lutheran Cemetery, but recent events have raised interest in another spot here—the Trump family gravesite. Cemetery officials don’t disclose the location to the visitors, but forensic investigation will lead the determined explorer to the plot (hint: it’s near the cemetery’s southernmost boundary). Marked by a modest granite monument, it is the final resting place of former President Donald Trump’s paternal grandparents (Fred and Elizabeth), his parents (Fred and Mary), and his eldest brother, Fred Jr.

The historic Lutheran Cemetery now has over half a million interments and is known as “All Faiths Cemetery,” the result of a 1990 rebranding that was meant to better reflect the cemetery’s non-denominational status and the demographical and cultural shift in the communities it serves. The cemetery’s German clientele has disappeared as those families moved away and its newer graves and visitors reflect the eclectic mix of Latino, Slavic, and Asian families that have settled in the area in recent decades.

Chinese monuments marking newer graves stand in contrast to the older German plots at Lutheran Cemetery, April 2023 (Chris Bendall)

The location of Lutheran Cemetery in Middle Village, Queens. The cemetery’s 225 acres are separated into north and south sections on either side of  Metropolitan Avenue (OpenStreetMap)

View more photos of Lutheran / All Faiths Cemetery

Sources: The Cemeteries of New York (Judson 1881); History of Queens County (Munsell 1882); “With the Dead,” Brooklyn Times Union, Sep 14, 1888; The Leonard Manual of the Cemeteries of New York and Vicinity (1901); “Where Death Follows Death,” Newsday, Apr 20, 1988; “Occupations and Mortality of Our Foreign Population, 1870” Chicago Advance, Nov 12, Dec 10, 1874 and Jan 14, 1875. Reprinted in Discussions in Economics and Statistics (Walker 1899);  “Dreadful Suicide,” New York Spectator, Aug 28, 1851; “A Dramatic Suicide,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Feb 20 1872; “All Were Weary of Life,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Oct 19, 1897; “Many More Buried,” New York Times, Jun 21, 1904; “The Slocum Disaster. Monument for the Grave of the Unidentified Dead,” New York Tribune, Mar 5, 1905; “Infant Unveils Shaft,” New York Tribune, Jun 16, 1905; “A Spectacle of Horror—The Burning of the General Slocum,” Smithsonian Magazine, Feb 21, 2012; “Annual Memorial Service for Victims of General Slocum Tragedy,” Queens Gazette, Jun 27, 2018. “Tommy Hadziutko Marks 50 Years Working at All Faiths Cemetery in Queens,” Daily News, Dec 1, 2011; Queens Historical Society Walking Tour of Lutheran Cemetery, June 6, 2011; Our History – All Faiths Cemetery; All Faiths Cemetery Walk, November 6^th 2020; OpenStreetMap