Lady Moody’s graveyard: Preserving the city’s oldest burial ground
A historic Gravesend graveyard is getting the Green-Wood treatment.
The Old Gravesend Cemetery, located near the corner of Gravesend Neck Road and McDonald Avenue since the mid-17th century, is getting a makeover. The southern Brooklyn burial ground is just one of many public spaces being spruced up this summer as part of the New York City Parks Department’s Citywide Monuments Conservation Program.
Established by Lady Deborah Moody in 1643, the landmarked cemetery is home to more than 350 gravestones, ranging in dates from the mid-18th century to the mid-1900s. Those buried there include early settlers of Brooklyn, Revolutionary War veterans and maybe even Lady Moody herself.