They're All Still There
James J. Walker Park in the West Village, between St. Luke’s Place and Clarkson Street, is a very typical NYC park with a playground and a ball field. It’s was named in 1947 for former mayor Jimmy Walker, who grew up across the street at 6 St. Luke’s Place in the 1880’s and 90’s. In the park, right across from the mayor’s boyhood home is what appears to be a memorial tombstone commemorating three firemen who died fighting a fire in 1834. But what’s it doing in the middle of the park?
Before it was named after the former mayor in 1947 (who died the previous year in 1946), it was called Hudson Park. Before that it was St. John’s Park. And before that from the 18th Century to 1898 it was St. John’s Burying Ground.
Beautiful brick townhomes were built right across the street from the cemetery on Leroy St. in the 1850’s when they changed the name to St. Luke's Place to make it more fancy. The owner at 6 St. Luke's Place, then 110 Leroy St, was William H. Walker, politician and father of Jimmy Walker. He introduced a proposal to the city in 1895 to take the land through eminent domain and make it a park. It was accepted and in a few years the view from his stoop was a beautiful new park
But where did the bodies go?
Trinity Church, the owner of the cemetery said most were moved to a cemetery on 155th Street, but in actually only a few hundred were moved. The others, gravestones and all, were plowed under and an extra layer of dirt placed on top to make the new park. It is estimated as many as 10,000 bodies still reside beneath.
Oh, and for you Hamilton fans, Burr’s first wife Theodosia, you know the woman they referenced in the play he was having an affair with, was buried there in 1794. She is still there.
It is also purported Edgar Allan Poe lived adjacent to the park at 113 ½ Clarkson (Carmine) Street around 1837 and used to take walks through the cemetery (to cheer himself up?).
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