NYC Parks
Cypress Hills Cemetery
The New York Chapter of the Association for Gravestone Studies and
The Evergreens Cemetery Preservation Foundation
Invite you to three lectures in the Uncommon Ground Series:
Urban Cemeteries as Historic Landscapes Part II: Design, Topography/Geology and Stewardship
The subject of urban cemeteries, both private and public, will be explored with a view toward greater understanding, appreciation and stewardship of these evocative landscapes. Urban Cemeteries and Stewardship: Reclaim, Restore and Maintain: Abandoned Cemeteries in Staten Island
Thursday, April 3, 2014 at 6:00 p.m.
Co-sponsored by
The Evergreens Cemetery Preservation Foundation
Friends of Abandoned Cemeteries, Inc. (FACSI) was founded in 1981 by New York State Division of Cemeteries Director Pearce O’Callaghan. Over the last decade, under the guidance of its executive director, Lynn Rogers, the organization has restored 11 abandoned cemeteries. The cemeteries date from the year 1630 and include a Native American Lenape burial ground. Once dreaded blights, these sites have been converted into welcoming landscapes with unique historical and educational value. In this lecture, Ms. Rogers will explore the grass-roots efforts that led to their recovery. A native New Yorker, Lynn Rogers has served as Executive Director of Friends of Abandoned Cemeteries Inc. for over a decade. She has spearheaded the restoration of 11 cemeteries in Staten Island. With extensive experience, understanding and commitment to these individual sites, she has enabled community groups to responsibly recover historic landscapes embedded in their surroundings. To date, FACSI has assisted in the transcription of over 60,000 cemetery records now available to the public. Currently in the process of transcribing historic cemetery books from a local funeral home, Lynn is a 2011 Staten Island Advance Woman of Achievement and a recipient of the Legion of Honor Award from the Four Chaplains Society.
The Arsenal Gallery
Central Park, 64th St. and Fifth Ave., Third Floor
Free. Event seating is limited. RSVP to http://bit.ly/1aCOoM1
or call 212.360.8240.
This is the third lecture in a series of three.
To sign up for spring and summer cemetery tours in NYC or to offer a tour,
please call 212.360.8240 or email Kaitilin.Griffin@parks.nyc.gov