{"id":338723,"date":"2026-09-05T09:48:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T09:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/338723\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T09:48:00","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T09:48:00","slug":"queens-borough-president-wants-to-turn-former-cemetery-site-into-memorial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/338723\/","title":{"rendered":"Queens Borough President Wants To Turn Former Cemetery Site Into Memorial"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>QUEENS, NY \u2014 Queens Borough President Donovan Richards and community leaders are calling on the city to purchase the site of a historic burial ground that is hidden beneath a parking lot in Elmhurst. <\/p>\n<p>The site is located at 47-11 90th St. and dates back to the 1820s when it was originally purchased by the St. Mark African Methodist Episcopal Church.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-subscribe\">\n  <a class=\"article-subscribe-link\" href=\"https:\/\/patch.com\/new-york\/jackson-heights-elmhurst\/subscribe?utm_source=amp&amp;utm_campaign=subscribe&amp;utm_medium=mobile&amp;utm_term=subscribe_in_article\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Subscribe<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<p>In the 1930s, the church sold the property off and moved to nearby Jackson Heights, according to Rev. Kimberly Detherage of St. Mark AME. <\/p>\n<p>In 2011, construction workers found the remains of an African American woman that dates back to 1850. <\/p>\n<p>According to historians, there could be as many as 300 formerly enslaved New Yorkers buried there.<\/p>\n<p>Richards and Detherage are hoping the city can turn the site into a memorial and greenspace for the community. <\/p>\n<p>The borough president&#8217;s proposal draws inspiration from the Olde Towne of Flushing Burial Ground, the site of African American and Native American remains. <\/p>\n<p>A previous planned press conference on Friday has been cancelled. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"QUEENS, NY \u2014 Queens Borough President Donovan Richards and community leaders are calling on the city to purchase&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":338724,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-338723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}