"There is a stack of coffins in the parking lot of the church and a bulldozer on the grounds. Many members of our group are there, outside the locked church gates."Kathy Walker
I knew about it by then, because I'd seen it on my way to the subway. There was supposed to have been some kind of "ceremony" at 8:00 a.m., but the only thing I saw, as I turned onto Fourth Avenue from 72nd Street at around 8:30, as a yellow bulldozer in rut, carelessly running down the shrubs in front of the Sunday school in its haste to uncover the graves.
The half-dozen men who were standing around watching the dozer work looked like they may, just minutes earlier, have been standing around in front of the deli at the corner of Fifth and Bay Ridge, hoping for a day's work.
On my way home from the subway tonight, I passed by the church and found the site of today's descecration meticulously wrapped in a brown plastic tarp so seamless and tight that it was impossible to see the big hole they dug in the lawn today. I hear that the remains were hauled off on the back of a flatbed truck. How dignified.
With a couple of neighbors I met on the street, I walked to the parking lot behind the church, where I saw Robert Emerick, looking casual but elegant in black slacks and a white untucked raw silk shirt, locking the gates behind the rent-a-cops who will be guarding the premises tonight, lest some of the living sneak in.
More from the Brooklyn Paper, with thanks to Ted General:
http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/31/17/31_17_tales_from_the_crypts_at.html
More from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle:
http://www.brooklyneagle.com/categories/category.php?category_id=27&id=20154
More from AllWaysNY:
http://allwaysny.com/blog/2008/04/25/the-end-is-nigh-dead-rising-in-bay-ridge/
An archival description of the last time the remains were moved, from the Old Village Burying Ground, one of the earliest cemetaries in Brooklyn:
http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=QkVHLzE5MDEvMDcvMTAjQXIwMDcwNg==&Mode=Gif&Locale=english-skin-custom
