PROSPECT CEMETERY 2004

by Kevin Walsh

FNY has been a friend of Prospect Cemetery and its caretaker Cate Ludlam since the Dawn of Forgottening in 1998. This is a photo from FNY’s April 2004 Prospect Cemetery/King Manor tour, the first of two (the second was in April 2012). The cemetery is on 159th Street south of Archer Avenue in Jamaica.

It was covered in a feature article in the NY Times:

“Their leader was Kevin Walsh, a man with unkempt graying hair and blue-tinted wire frame glasses who runs a Web site called Forgotten New York (forgotten-ny.com) and has become a kind of cult figure among those who take local lore seriously. He looks like a cross between an Ivy League history professor and a longshoreman.” 

I get that a lot.

Since this picture was taken, the chapel has been completely restored as a jazz venue and community space, and the cemetery has been cleaned of most of its weeds, but that’s an ongoing war.

8/16/13

 

5 comments

NY2AZ August 16, 2013 - 11:00 am

Actually your persona is closer to Columbo (in my humble opinion). May God bless you & keep you. You do great work

Reply
ccs August 16, 2013 - 10:56 pm

That was a great tour. That’s me at the end of the line. (Far right)

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Pete Falina August 17, 2013 - 8:20 pm

“…a cross between an Ivy League history professor and a longshoreman.” I personally would accept that as a sincere compliment.

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Teve August 19, 2013 - 5:50 am

I pass the cemetary on the LIRR every day. The vegetation is all cut back. The entire graveyard is exposed now, and likely getting some restoration. I’m not entirely sure this is a desirable thing, though. It certainly is a different look from the previous 40 years, and now everyone– with good intentions or not– knows about it..

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Virginia August 20, 2013 - 2:33 pm

I was so glad to see this, from my daily LIRR ride I see this cemetary everyday and one day looked it up, it looks like it needs a ton of work. I would like to volunteer as there is so much history there and it should be preserved.

Reply

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