It’s hard to bereave.
Callous caretakers have thrown dirt on a proposal to install a monument to mariners at Snug Harbor Cemetery, the final resting place for thousands of old salts who died between 1833 and 1975 when the adjacent Snug Harbor Cultural Center was a sprawling home for retired sailors.
The six-acre, L-shaped graveyard, enclosed by a brick wall, is now off-limits to the public. All but 14 of the graves are unmarked and The Post reported in June that more than 100 limestone headstones were rotting in the basement of a Snug Harbor building. The headstones were removed decades ago to thwart vandalism.“I’m obviously disappointed. It’s frustrating,” lamented Bruce Weir, 59, who is spearheading the drive to honor the forgotten mariners. The trustees board of Sailors’ Snug Harbor “offered to put a plaque outside. That’s not the same to me. The monument is the right thing to do.”
The trustees also shelved plans to open the graveyard one day a year around Memorial Day so descendants could pay their respects, Weir said. Jay Brooks, the administrator for the Trustees of Sailors’ Snug Harbor, did not return multiple messages seeking comment.
“It’s disgraceful. People should be appalled,” fumed Eileen Rakoczy, 68, whose great-grandfather was a retired sea captain who lived at Snug Harbor for nine years prior to his death in 1939. James Henry McMann is “fortunately” buried in a family plot on Long Island, she said.
She said “he’d be horrified” by the snub because “I’m sure there are people buried there that he knew.”
During a summer trip to New York, Ireland’s Ana Fetherston tried to visit her great uncle, a World War II vet who is buried in the cemetery, “so it was kind of sad that all we could do was pin some flowers to the gate,” she posted on Weir’s Facebook page.
Weir, who has a relative from Denmark buried at Snug Harbor, said he’s been battling with the board for more than two years. He said they “don’t want to be responsible for maintaining” the monument and have liability issues with opening the cemetery.
“I feel for the people who have tried to get into the cemetery,” said Lynn Rogers, executive director of Friends of Abandoned Cemeteries, a non-profit that reclaims, cleans and raises money to preserve graveyards on Staten Island.
She said her organization would provide a one-day insurance rider covering the property and her group would staff the event. “The simple request would cost them nothing,” she said.
At its peak in the early 1900s, Sailors Snug Harbor served over 1,000 residents. By the 1970s its population had dwindled and the retirement home was moved to North Carolina and the property transferred to the city as a cultural center.
The cemetery, which wasn’t sold, is still owned by the Manhattan-based Trustees of Sailors’ Snug Harbor. The grass gets cut once a month.