Families say Newark's City Cemetery has been forgotten, and it's not the first time
Newark's City Cemetery is the final resting place for 18,000 people – including the poor, unknown or unclaimed – but it looks like an abandoned lot.
A family member says the cemetery's been forgotten, and it's not the first time. She asked CBS News investigator Mahsa Saeidi to track down who's in charge to help honor the dead.
City Cemetery was illegally used as junkyard in 1990s
Anna Lascurain began searching for her grandfather's gravesite in the late '90s at the request of her mom, Elsie. Elsie wanted to transfer her father's remains from the city's cemetery to a private cemetery, but for years, Lascurain says they couldn't even find the grounds.
"I got a hold of tax maps, and I matched the tax maps to City Cemetery ... and then when we went there, it was heartbreaking," Lascurain said. "Anything you can think of was just piled on top of this ... Junk."
Lascurain told her mother to file a lawsuit. Video taken for that litigation appears to show the cemetery operating as a junkyard – insensitive and potentially illegal.
Under state law, to repurpose a cemetery you must exhume the bodies and bury them elsewhere.
"And none of that was ever done," Lascurain's attorney told CBS News New York back in 1998.
The lawsuit alleged the sacred land that held human remains was illegally converted, leased and developed by the City of Newark.
Engineer hired for Newark sewer project testifies skulls were found
CBS News New York obtained video of never-before-seen depositions.
For a brief period from 1949-1958, the Spatola family maintained the cemetery for the city. In depositions conducted in 2000, with Newark's city attorney present, Agata Spatola O'Connor explained how her family tried to make things right and memorialize the dead.
"This was my father's contribution, you understand, he didn't charge the city for these," she said. "And my father, just, he couldn't believe that, he said no matter how poor they are, they deserve to be..."
When Newark's city attorney then objected, citing hearsay, Spatola O'Connor said, "Well, I was there."
The attorney again objected when Spatola O'Connor said her father recommended the city do some landscaping.
Consulting engineer Thomas Ferguson testified that in 1966, he had been hired to oversee a sewer project for the city.
"I had no idea there was a cemetery ever there," Ferguson said in 1999.
As work was underway, something disturbing happened.
"And they were starting to dig ... and that's when, um, well, about two skulls came down," Ferguson said, "then, they hit ... it was rotten wood and stuff, and then, this putrid liquid started coming down also."
Major flood forced closure of City Cemetery, mayor says
The result of Lascurain's lawsuit made headlines, forcing Newark city officials to restore the cemetery. Pictures show the pristine transformation years later, but now it's covered in weeds, surrounded by a chain link fence and locked to public access.
Lascurain was never able to find her grandfather's gravesite, but she's still calling for something to be done.
"This is shameful," Lascurain said. "Clean it up and make it look respectable."
Forensic photographer Karl Petry worked with Lascurain on the lawsuit back in the '90s.
"I wasn't born from a wealthy family, and I know what it's like, when you don't have much," he said. "It's the indignity of the whole thing ... It's just forgotten."
Initially, some staff at the city told CBS News New York they weren't aware Newark had a cemetery, but they wanted to look into it for all families impacted.
The city later confirmed it does, in fact, still own the 5-acre plot, and the Department of Public Works is in charge of upkeep.
"We absolutely want to clean it up, need to clean it up," Newark Mayor Ras Baraka said.
Baraka says the cemetery was closed after a major flood in 2010. That was four years before he took office.
"We have a schedule to clean up lots ... But our DPW guys are not going to go on that site until we give them permission to go on that site," he said.
Baraka said the concern is that some of the remains were disturbed when it flooded. The next step is to evaluate the site for health and safety, which the mayor's office says is happening now.
The mayor's office also wants backup from the state, so they've reached out to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.
There is not currently a timeline for the cemetery's cleanup, but the mayor's office says plans are in motion.
