It’s easy to walk by this one regularly yet never notice it. Inside this stone vault in J.J. Walker Park off St. Luke’s Place are the remains of two firefighters who died in July 1834. The crypt says they “lost their lives by the falling of a building while engaged with discharge of their duty as fire men.” Check out the firefighter gear on top of the vault.
Theirs aren’t the only bodies interred under or next to the park’s playground and ball fields. Before it became a city park, the plot of land bordering St. Luke’s, Seventh Avenue South, and Hudson Street contained a cemetery run by Trinity Church. New York is a real necropolis.
Tags: firefighters, parks, West Village
Ephemeral New York 
May 5, 2008 at 3:54 am |
Fascinating stuff.
September 25, 2013 at 9:15 pm |
That would be Firemen Eugene Underhill and Frederick A. Ward, killed in a building collapse caused by a fire which started at 271 Pearl Street. Two other members of “Eagle” Engine 13 were also buried but survived.