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Cherry Lane Cemetery

African-American cemeteries in New York CityAfrican-American history in New York CityCemeteries in Staten IslandUse mdy dates from October 2025

Cherry Lane Cemetery was a 19th-century burial ground located in the Westerleigh section of Staten Island, New York. Established by members of the Second Asbury African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, the cemetery was the final resting place of free and formerly enslaved black Staten Islanders until the 1950s, when the land was redeveloped into a Shell station, and then in the 1980s as a shopping plaza. Although the cemetery was never formally registered under the name "Cherry Lane," that designation has been adopted in modern historical and media accounts. In the 2020s, the site became the focus of descendant-led preservation efforts and scholarly research, leading to the 2023 co-naming of "Benjamin Prine Way" after the most renowned of the interred, and a 2024 dedication of a memorial garden on the former burial ground.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Cherry Lane Cemetery (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors).

Cherry Lane Cemetery
Forest Avenue, New York Staten Island

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N 40.624605 ° E -74.136327 °
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Forest Avenue 1450
10302 New York, Staten Island
New York, United States
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Elm Park, Staten Island

Elm Park is the name of a small park in the Port Richmond section of Staten Island, one of the five boroughs of New York City, United States. The park is located across Innis Street from Port Richmond High School. The name "Elm Park" is sometimes used to denote the area from its namesake westward for several blocks, lending its name to the former Elm Park Station on the North Shore Branch of the Staten Island Railway. The station was situated directly beneath Morningstar Road. Passenger service on this branch of the railway was halted in 1953; a dilapidated remnant of the station's platform still exists, but the stairways leading to the street have been removed. At various times, the neighborhood was known as Jacksonville (c. 1830) and Lowville (c. 1850). Its present name was given to it by a local physician, Dr. John T. Harrison, and refers to the elm trees that could be found on the doctor's estate. The last exit on New York State Route 440 before the Bayonne Bridge is in Elm Park, which also contains one of two Catholic cemeteries on Staten Island named St. Mary's Cemetery; the other cemetery, located in Grasmere, is much larger than the Elm Park cemetery. This often causes confusion. In 2008 Senator Charles Schumer and other Staten Island representatives proposed a Park and Ride under the bridge, for users of bus service to Bayonne, New Jersey. Residents have been opposed to this move, yet local businesses, according to the Staten Island Advance, support it.