TWO vast cemeteries are associated with St. Raymond’s Church in Westchester Square and are operated by the Catholic Diocese of New York. Old St. Raymond’s, located roughly between Waterbury Avenue, Bruckner Expressway, the Hutchinson River Parkway and East Tremont Avenue, was originally the “Underhill Farm of Throgg’s Neck” purchased by Rev. Michael B. McEvoy who was pastor from 1875 to 1885. Old St. Raymond’s Cemetery was started in 1875.
The church purchased additional property in the early 1950s to create New St. Raymond’s, between the Hutch, Cross Bronx Expressway, and Randall and Lafayette Avenues. New St. Raymond’s is the final resting place of boxer Hector “Macho” Camacho, pop’s Frankie Lymon, actress Lois Nettleton, salsa’s “La Lupe” Yoli and jazz songstress Billie Holliday.
Whittemore Avenue is one of the Bronx’s more unusual roadways, as no property whatever borders on it. It runs one block through St. Raymond’s Cemetery between East Tremont and Balcom Avenues. Long ago, when it was called Bowne Road, it led to a ferry landing on Westchester Creek. Balcom Avenue similarly traverses St. Raymond’s, so its intersection with Whittemore is unusual; Balcom, though, has sections in the regular street grid. The Whittemores were colonial-era landowners and the road also ran through Bowne property; that family also had holdings in Queens and can count among its members John Bowne, the Quaker who stood for freedom in 1600s Flushing.
I’ll have more from this part of NYC later, as I completed my piecemeal walk to the eastern end of Tremont Avenue in April 2024.
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9/30/24