No One Fought For The Dead – Forgotten African-American Cemetery on Staten Island Now A Parking Lot

This African-American Slave Cemetery Couldn’t Be Saved: Documentary Filmmaker Discusses How This Graveyard Became A Parking Lot

Many Staten Islanders do not know that the parking lot on Forest Avenue and Livermore is actually a paved over cemetery containing remains of African-Americans, including some formerly enslaved people.

The first step in the eventual demise of the cemetery was the tearing down of the church that was next to it, when an apparent mob of people tore it down. This happened in the early 1900s, after which it was a vacant lot with some headstones on it. At this particular location, the headstones were always an issue, where vandals would destroy them, leading the family members of those that were buried there to stop getting headstones put in.

Over time, it began to look like a vacant lot. At a certain point, sometime in the 1960s, this plot of land became desirable. So several members of the Angiuli family, most of whom were real estate attorneys, started a lawsuit to acquire the land illegitimately. This lead to a situation in which the court was convinced that an actual cemetery, with human remains buried in it, was not a cemetery. They managed to exploit loopholes in the law in order to cause the courts to declare that it was not a cemetery, and that there were no protections that it was entitled to.

For some reason that Ms. Quinlan has not been able to uncover, there was no one who came forward on the side of the church and cemetery. All of the witnesses and testimony was on the side of the real estate family that wanted to acquire it. They even had a person who claimed to have been a grave digger to declare that there he had never dug any graves on that property. There was no one there to cross examine, however, and find out if he had ever dug any graves on any property on Staten Island.

Due to the fact that, initially, the correct paperwork to identify it as a cemetery had never been filed with the city, there was an $11,000 tax assessment made to the property. If it had been identified as a cemetery initially, this assessment would have been invalid. This was what precipitated the whole series of events, and Heather believes that it is because of the tax assessment and the fear of the powerful, wealthy family that caused no one, including stakeholders, to come forward in this court case. They had an attorney that also didn’t bring any defense witnesses in order to prove that it was a cemetery.

There are still in existence old maps that showed this plot of land as a cemetery, but this was not enough. Unfortunately, the court accepted the case of the real estate attorneys, and auctioned off the property. The sister of the attorney bought the land at auction for $1,000, then sold it to her brother for $100. After that, the Shell gas station was built, and from there it became a shopping plaza after the Shell station became decrepit and was torn down.

Heather Quinlan, with her documentary and research, is hoping that she can get ground penetrating radar done to see if the bodies are still there. If they are, then at least there would be proof that it is a cemetery. View the video above to learn more about this African-American burial ground under a parking lot on Staten Island.

Banner Image: Youtube Video Cover. Image Credit – Staten Islander News 

Staten Islander News Service Staff Writer

This byline indicates that this article was penned by a member/members of the Staten Islander News Organization office team. Our staff writers are the backbone of our newspaper, performing all sorts of important tasks like conducting interviews, investigating leads, besides writing the news stories you see.