A historical cemetery where generations of Great Neck’s once-prominent Allen family are buried is now the site of a private homeowner’s backyard in the Village of Great Neck Plaza.
Town Historian Howard Kroplick, whose investigation into the cemetery found displaced headstones and residential construction on the centuries-old grave site, said in October the town was investigating the legal ownership of the cemetery and would be meeting with village officials and members of the Great Neck Historical Society to discuss the site’s future.
“It’s heading in the right direction,” said Kroplick. “To me, [the village] is doing the right thing in that we’re going to meet with them to see who’s responsible.”
Village of Great Neck Plaza Mayor Jean Celendar said the village takes issues of historical preservation seriously, but that because the cemetery is on a private plot of land maintenance is primarily the responsibility of the property owners.
”I don’t think it’s been neglected… the village has inspected it,” Celender said. “It happens to be a village in the cemetery, but it’s not a village cemetery.”
Celender said she hoped the issue could be resolved in meetings with the property owners, rather than through a legal process she said would waste money.
A scheduled meeting between the site’s private owners and town and village officials was postponed due to Hurricane Sandy, according to town attorney John Riordan.
“Everything was put on the back burner,” Riordan said.
The fate of the cemetery is complicated by uncertain ownership. North Hempstead’s Town Council has approved a title search that is yet to be completed,.
Riordan said the village wanted to reach an agreement with the owners of the property surrounding the cemetery. He said that the town was also eager to resolve the situation without a legal battle over ownership.
“It’s kind of an odd situation. These homeowners have a cemetery in their back yard,” Riordan said. “If it can be resolved where the cemetery is preserved, taken care of and maintained, it really doesn’t matter who is responsible.”
A report presented by Kroplick to town officials details the investigation of the cemetery, which began on July 25 when Kroplick said he received an anonymous phone call reporting possible desecration of the graveyard.
Located between 15 and 17 Pearce Place in Great Neck Plaza, the cemetery holds the remains of six 19th century members of the Allen family – a prominent Great Neck family that moved to the peninsula before 1700 and were one-time owners of the Saddle Rock Grist Mill. An unrelated infant is also interred in the graveyard.
According to descriptions and photographs in the report, Kroplick found the cemetery overgrown with weeds and used for storage, with a storage shed erected on the property.
”[The anonymous tipster] was right. The cemetery itself, there were structures on it,” said Kroplick. “It looked like the headstones had been moved.”
“To me, this was a solid case of where history was being taken away,” he added.
Kroplick said he contacted officials with the Village of Great Neck Plaza, who seemed unaware of the alterations. He said village officials told him that the cemetery was the village’s property and had been placed under the care of a neighboring private citizen.
A Village of Great Neck historical survey from 2000 describes the integrity of the site as low and notes that the owners of 17 Pearce Place enlarged a garage in 1991, obscuring the cemetery from public view.
According to Kroplick’s report, the village is listed in county books as the owner of the plot and has paid taxes on it in recent years. Photographs from the report also show the removal of structures from the graveyard in October, after the publication of a Newsday article on the state of the cemetery.
But responsibility for the cemetery is still unclear, said Kroplick.
“If a cemetery is abandoned, it’s the responsibility of the town to take care of it,” he said.
The report also points to another quirk in the graveyard’s history: a $500 bequest left to Nassau County by Richard Allen for the maintenance of the plot. Deputy County Treasurer Beaumont Jefferson said the money had never been used and there was no documentation about the account, according to the report.
The report also tracked changes to the cemetery since 2000. A Great Neck Plaza historic survey from summer 2000 shows the headstones in a different location from their current placement, according to the report.
