19th-Century Burial Vault Full Of Human Remains Discovered By Washington Square Park

[Recursion]

http://gothamist.com/2015/11/05/park_remains_found.php

The remains of at least twelve people were discovered underground next to Washington Square Park on Tuesday by a crew of Department of Design and Construction workers who unearthed a white-walled burial vault.

Situated near the intersection of Waverley Place just past the park's eastern edge, the vault likely dates back to the 19th century—a contemporary of the water mains DDC workers were upgrading when they made the discovery. "We had no idea about the vault," DDC spokeswoman Shavone Williams told us this morning. "If we'd known about it, we wouldn't have dug there."

"It doesn’t creep me as much as it just intrigues me," one neighbor told CBS. "If it were more recent it might be creepy; if it were from, like, the 1980s." Fair enough.

"We are always sensitive, knowing that there is so much rich history around," Williams added. In Washington Square Park, that history is already understood to be decidedly morbid—from 1797 to 1826 the eastern end of the park was a potter's field or, as the New York Public Library once put it, a burial ground for the "indigent, poor, criminals, and victims of epidemic." Historians have estimated that as many as 20,000 New Yorkers may have been buried during the field's nearly 30-year run.

[jberryhill]

1. Was there a cop and a strangely dressed man there?

[ProfessorGAC]

2. Whevever I Hear Washington Park. . .

. . .i think of Larry Fishburne and the little boy in "Searching for Bobby Fisher". I love that movie.

[AngryAmish]

3. Actually, it was for storing grain during the Civil War.

[Recursion]

4. Bwah (nt)