| Moravian Cemetery | |
| Map Type: | USA New York City##USA New York |
| Map Size: | 250 |
| Established: | 1740 |
| Country: | United States |
| Location: | New Dorp, Staten Island, New York |
| Coordinates: | 40.584°N -74.119°W |
| Size: | 113acres |
| Findagraveid: | 65299 |
The Moravian Cemetery is a cemetery in the New Dorp neighborhood of Staten Island, New York, United States.
Located at 2205 Richmond Road, the Moravian Cemetery is the largest and oldest active cemetery on Staten Island, having opened in 1740. The cemetery encompasses 113acres and is the property of the local Moravian Church congregation of Staten Island.[1] To the cemetery's southwest is High Rock Park, one of the constituent parks of the Staten Island Greenbelt.
In what was a purely farming community, the 113acres cemetery was originally made available as a free cemetery for the public in order to discourage families from using farm burial plots. After the closure in the 1880s of the South Reformed Dutch Church in Richmondtown, the graves of that church's graveyard were reinterred at Moravian.[2]
A monument to Robert Gould Shaw, a Union soldier who led the first all-black regiment in the American Civil War and died in the Second Battle of Fort Wagner, was erected here by his family.[3]
The Moravian Cemetery is the burial place for a number of famous Staten Islanders, including members of the Vanderbilt family. The director Martin Scorsese also has a burial plot here.
In the 19th century, Cornelius Vanderbilt gave the Moravian Church 45acres of land. Later, his son William Henry Vanderbilt gave a further 4acres and constructed the residence for the cemetery's superintendent.
The Vanderbilt Mausoleum was designed by Richard Morris Hunt and constructed in 1885–1886. It is part of the family's privately owned cemetery, which is not open to the public. The Vanderbilt Mausoleum is a replica of a Romanesque church in Arles, France.
The Vanderbilt family cemetery's landscaping was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. The Vanderbilt Mausoleum and portions of the cemetery were designated a New York City designated landmark in 2016.[4]
The cemetery is the burial place of many Italian-American Catholics, even though it is a Protestant cemetery. This is due to the efforts of Father Ettore Barletta, who was in charge of the Italian Mission congregation at the nearby Moravian Church in the early 1900s. Catholic mafia families who had been refused a Catholic burial were offered burials in this cemetery.
In the novel It's Superman: A Novel, the mother of the character Lex Luthor is buried in the Moravian Cemetery.[5]