Bayside Cemetery

New York · United States · Cemetery

A Jewish burial ground over a century old in Ozone Park, so badly neglected and vandalised that the caretakers close it at four in the afternoon.

Bayside Cemetery at Ozone Park in Queens, New York is more than a century old and is really three cemeteries together. Thousands of people pass it on the A train at Boyd Avenue without knowing what it is.

Its condition is the story. The grounds have been neglected for decades and vandalised so persistently that the caretakers close the gates at four in the afternoon.

Walking through it, many of the graves carry photographs of the people buried beneath them, in the tradition of the community that founded it. Some graves have been opened. One area is almost sectioned off and holds only infants and children, their headstones so far sunk into the ground that the names are going out of reach.

What people report here is grief rather than menace, and it is hard to separate from what the place actually is.

This is a Jewish burial ground that has been desecrated repeatedly. It should be visited, if at all, with that in front of everything else.

FAQ

Where is Bayside Cemetery located?

Bayside Cemetery is in New York, United States.