Why you should be cremated...

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LIVING

The hidden cemeteries of NYC

By Reed Tucker

October 25, 2014 | 11:14am

Getty Images

You think New York City streets are crowded? Imagine how bad it’s gotten below ground over the years. And not just on the L train.

Interring the dead has always been a challenge on a relatively small island like Manhattan, and over the years, dozens of areas have served as cemeteries.

One of the more popular final resting places, the graveyard at lower Manhattan’s Trinity Church, was packed with 125,000 bodies by 1822. Some corpses rested just 18 inches below ground, according to “The Graveyard Shift” by Carolee Inskeep. Lime had to be spread to combat the stench.

The city began forbidding burials south of Canal Street in 1832. In 1851, burials below 86th street were outlawed.

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The big question, though, is whether there are still bodies decomposing beneath our feet. In the case of these five locations, the answer is yes.

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It’s fitting that this West Village green space includes a baseball diamond, because its namesake — James J. Walker, the mayor of New York from 1926 to 1932 — helped make it legal for the sport to be played on Sundays. But as little kids are sliding into home plate, they might also be sliding across the final resting place of some of the 10,000 bodies estimated to still be buried here.

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