ENDANGERED BUILDING OF THE MONTH:
Old Calvary Cemetery Gatehouse

Following on the heels of our highly popular “Dead in New York” lecture series, which explored New York’s historic cemeteries, October’s “Unprotected Building of the Month” is the Old Calvary Cemetery Gatehouse in Blissville, Queens. Cemetery architecture is too often an overlooked and under appreciated historic resource in need of protection. Characterized by the AIA Guide to New York as “a romantic, vernacular, spectacular Queen Anne gem,” this unique structure was built in 1892 as the gatehouse to historic Calvary Cemetery, which boasts highest number of permanent residents of all cemeteries in the United States, the first of which was buried in 1848. The cemetery is the resting place of many notable New Yorkers, including Governor Alfred E. Smith and Mayor Robert Wagner, Jr. The Landmarks Preservation Commission held a hearing on the gatehouse in 1973, but over thirty years have passed and the building remains bereft of protection. In 1966, the Commission designated the Green-Wood Cemetery Gate in Brooklyn. Why not add this equally significant gatehouse to the list of New York’s protected treasures? Please contact the Landmarks Preservation Commission at comments@lpc.nyc.gov and ask them to designate the Old Calvary Cemetery Gatehouse in Queens as an individual New York City landmark.

Past Endangered Building Alerts:

Drake-Dehart House
All Saint's Church
McCarren Park Play Center