No Flowers for These Dead

Discarded Tires on the Graves

Cemeteries are the place, where the earthly remains of a person are placed once their mortal existence ends. It becomes a place where the living can visit and reflect the life of the souls they stand before.

Cemeteries are referred to as Hallowed ground. The meaning, a location that is considered sacred, holy, or deeply revered.

There has been on occasion a person or persons, who violate this code of humanity for reasons such as greed or convenience.

Such is the case of the Newark City Cemetery also known as Floral Rest, the ground set aside by the City, for those who have died without the means for a proper burial. Commonly known as a pauper’s cemetery.

Located on Bessemer Street, it opened in 1869 and closed in 1954, according to a 1950 newspaper article of city representative, Owen Malady, who boasted of maintaining 200,000 burial cards for the site.

Since its closure, and because it was considered a pauper's cemetery, city officials assumed no one would miss it and decided to remove all signs and burial markers, converting the site into open land.  The City sold a portion to Kingsland Drum and Barrel Co. Inc. later that company rented a portion of the graveyard for $125.00 per month for additional barrel storage.

The City now had 15 acres of land they needed to dump their roadside garbage, and dump they did. 

Concrete roadway dividers, old tires, paint cans, pieces of metal, household goods, piles of broken wooden utility poles and concrete were dumped making its own mountains of garbage on this flat graveyard.

By chance, an elderly woman named Elsie, whose father was buried at this cemetery wanted to exhume his grave and move his remains to the family plot in Hackensack.  When she went with her daughter to find the cemetery, it wasn’t there. In its place was a dump. Confirming that this area was where the cemetery was, the situation was now exposed to the public. 

On August 25^th 1998, the woman, Elsie Lascurain had her attorneys file a lawsuit in the Essex County Chancery Division against the City of Newark. 

The outcome was that no monetary damages were awarded to Elsie, but the City agreed to remove all the garbage and make this area a memorial park with gardens that included park benches for the visitors.

Soon, the city lived up to their promise and the area was cleaned up. A granite memorial was erected acknowledging those buried, and park benches were placed near the front gate.

 That didn’t last long.

As of today, the City put up a steel fence that surrounds the property. The entrance gate is chained and locked.  No one is allowed to step into this Memorial Park.

Weeds have taken over the land, growing over 10 feet high.  Peering through the fence, you cannot see either the memorial or the benches.

I know first-hand about this case.  Being a forensic photographer and videographer, I assisted the plaintiff in this case. I was the one taking the photos and taping the depositions for court.  I heard the details that were both sad and shocking. Early this year a book was written by the daughter of the woman seeking her father’s remains. 

The story was covered by the CBS TV network. Both the writer and I were interviewed. 

Under this soil you’ll find veterans from the Civil War to World War II, immigrants who ventured to this country, and the thousands of the poor and middle-class, who because of their financial misfortune led them to die poor and were buried here.

Adding outrage to an already sad story, the desecration of their graves was the final insult.

If the tale of this cemetery interests you, I would suggest reading, Troubled BONES By author, Anna M. Lascurain. The full details of this story, from the family to the court battle will astound you.