Families Speak Up: Newark's Neglected City Cemetery Raises Alarm Again
Newark's City Cemetery serves as the last home for 18,000 individuals, encompassing those who were impoverished, unnamed, or left unclaimed; however, it appears much like an overgrown vacant lot.
A relative mentions that the cemetery has been neglected, and this isn’t the first time this issue has come up. They requested CBS News Investigator Mahsa Saeidi to find out who’s responsible for managing it so they can pay their respects appropriately.
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The City Cemetery was wrongly utilized as an unauthorized dumping ground during the 1990s.
Anna Lascurain began searching for her grandfather's gravesite in the late '90s at the request of her mom, Elsie. Elsie wanted to transfer her father's remains from the city's cemetery to a private cemetery, but for years, Lascurain says they couldn't even find the grounds.
“I obtained some tax maps and cross-referenced them with the City Cemetery... When we visited the site, it was devastating,” Lascurain stated. “Everything imaginable had been heaped up here… debris.”
Lascurain told her mother to file a lawsuit. Video taken for that litigation appears to show the cemetery operating as a junkyard – insensitive and potentially illegal.
Under state law, to repurpose a cemetery you must exhume the bodies and bury them elsewhere.
"And none of that was ever done," Lascurain's attorney told CBS News New York back in 1998.
The lawsuit alleged the sacred land that held human remains was illegally converted, leased and developed by the City of Newark.
Engineer hired for Newark sewer project testifies skulls were found
CBS News New York acquired footage of previously unviewed testimonies.
For a brief period from 1949-1958, the Spatola family maintained the cemetery for the city. In depositions conducted in 2000, with Newark's city attorney present, Agata Spatola O'Connor explained how her family tried to make things right and memorialize the dead.
"This was my father's contribution, you understand, he didn't charge the city for these," she said. "And my father, just, he couldn't believe that, he said no matter how poor they are, they deserve to be..."
When Newark's city attorney then objected, citing hearsay, Spatola O'Connor said, "Well, I was there."
The attorney again objected when Spatola O'Connor said her father recommended the city do some landscaping.
Thomas Ferguson, a consulting engineer, stated that he was contracted in 1966 to supervise a sewage project for the municipality.
In 1999, Ferguson stated, 'I had absolutely no clue that there was a graveyard in that location.'
While the work was progressing, something unsettling occurred.
"And they were starting to dig ... and that's when, um, well, about two skulls came down," Ferguson said, "then, they hit ... it was rotten wood and stuff, and then, this putrid liquid started coming down also."
Major flood forced closure of City Cemetery, mayor says
The outcome of Lascurain's legal case garnered attention, compelling Newark’s municipal authorities to reinstate the cemetery. Photos from past years depict its meticulous restoration, yet currently, it lies overgrown with weeds, encircled by a chain-link fence, and barred to public entry.
Lascurain was never able to find her grandfather's gravesite, but she's still calling for something to be done.
"This is shameful," Lascurain said. "Clean it up and make it look respectable."
Forensic photographer Karl Petry worked with Lascurain on the lawsuit back in the '90s.
"I wasn't born from a wealthy family, and I know what it's like, when you don't have much," he said. "It's the indignity of the whole thing ... It's just forgotten."
Initially, some staff at the city told CBS News New York they weren't aware Newark had a cemetery, but they wanted to look into it for all families impacted.
The city later confirmed it does, in fact, still own the 5-acre plot, and the Department of Public Works is in charge of upkeep.
"We absolutely want to clean it up, need to clean it up," Newark Mayor Ras Baraka said.
Baraka says the cemetery was closed after a major flood in 2010. That was four years before he took office.
"We have a schedule to clean up lots ... But our DPW guys are not going to go on that site until we give them permission to go on that site," he said.
Baraka said the concern is that some of the remains were disturbed when it flooded. The next step is to evaluate the site for health and safety, which the mayor's office says is happening now.
The mayor's office also wants backup from the state, so they've reached out to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.
There is not currently a timeline for the cemetery's cleanup, but the mayor's office says plans are in motion.
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