SITE DIRECTORY
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Cherry Lane Cemetery
Cherry Lane Cemetery
FOUNDED: 1850
ADDITONAL NAMES: N/A
AFFILIATION(S):
Second Asbury AME Zion Church
Greater Astoria Historical Society
NYGenWeb
Northeast Corridor Freedom Network, Inc.
Canvasback Kid Productions, LLC
HISTORY:
The Second Asbury AME Zion Church was built c. 1855 on Cherry Lane in Staten Island, New York. Its congregation included families with roots in NY, NJ, MD, and VA and included oystermen, steamboat stewardesses, laborers, dockworkers, and miners. The church property served as a burial ground known as Cherry Lane Cemetery. Any markers that may have identified the graves were destroyed. An estimated 1,000 people were buried there. To date, 59 individuals have been documented through death certificates, obituaries, and other historical records. The church is believed to have been destroyed by vandals during the 1880s. At that point, the property was being used primarily as a cemetery. Among the interred was the well-regarded Benjamin Prine, who had been enslaved on Staten Island and was believed to be the island’s oldest formerly enslaved resident at the time of his death in 1900.
The property was later included within a commercially zoned area. During the 1950s, the city sued the cemetery’s trustees for more than $16,000, arguing that the deed did not explicitly authorize the property’s use as either a church or a cemetery and the trustees lost the property at auction in 1954. It was sold for $1,000 to the Menden family, who were involved in commercial development across Staten Island. No effort was made to reinter the remains before the property was commercially developed—first as a Shell station, now as a strip mall. While their present location is unknown, a ground-penetrating radar investigation is underway to determine whether burials may remain beneath the former cemetery site. In 2023, a street running alongside the former cemetery was co-named Benjamin Prine Way, the only street in New York City co-named in honor of a person who was enslaved in the city. A memorial garden now stands on the site in recognition of Cherry Lane Cemetery and the community whose burial ground was erased.
BCN Contact Information:
Heather Quinlan
canvasback.kid1@gmail.com