Green-thumbed Good Samaritan Maria Mancuso was so tired of seeing litter strewn in the tiny Revolutionary War-era cemetery, sleeping tranquilly behind Xaverian High School, that she decided to transform the eyesore into a sight for sore eyes so that future generations could pass by, reflect for a moment, and thank the war heroes buried there.
The spry, 85-year-young member of the Garden Club of Bay Ridge began bringing an empty plastic bag with her from her home a few blocks away. Whenever she walked by Barkuloo Cemetery at the tip of Narrows Avenue and Mackay Place — named for a Dutch family who buried their dead there since the 1600s — she would stop in to collect the used coffee cups, bottles and other trash tossed in by litterbugs who were mindless of its distinction as the final resting place of dozens of young men who had made the supreme sacrifice for their country.
“It looked like a dumping ground with bird poop all over the place,” said Mancuso who took the matter up at the next meeting of her club, an urban oasis which has helped beautify Brooklyn and assist young people with scholarships for the past 76 years.
Armed with the club’s blessing, $100 from state Sen. Marty Golden (R-Bay Ridge), and plantings from their own gardens, Mancuso, and fellow members and seniors Melanie Proscia and Margaret Morales, set about beautifying the Diocese of Brooklyn-owned site with flowers and shrubbery. Mancuso said her son even raked the soil free of old roots and helped fix up the rotting bricks circling some of the headstones.
“We felt that those wonderful men had lost their lives, and that people who lived close by here weren’t paying proper attention,” said Mancuso who has lived in the neighborhood for 60 years.
Their handiwork didn’t go unnoticed.
“These women gave it the individual acknowledgement that comes when you put flowers on a gravestone,” said Ralph Perfetto, a trustee of the Bay Ridge Historical Society, which takes care of the plot, and whose list of projects for the site include mending the front gate and painting the railing.
The women’s labor of love, conducted in partnership with the society, was even ceremoniously unveiled during a Memorial Day tribute attended by Senator Golden with music provided by a band from Xaverian High School, whose landscaper, Joseph Imbriale, big-heartedly trims Barkuloo free of charge.
Propped against the backdrop of the upper bay, its fate continues to lie with its devoted community.
Senator Golden said he wasn’t above lending Barkuloo a helping hand, but the cemetery’s upkeep was really a job for area groups.
“If we get involved, people see it as something political,” commented his spokesman John Quaglione.
For now, at least, Brooklyn’s smallest cemetery, once owned by the Cortelyou family, hums along peacefully enough, flecked with small American flags and a prevailing sense that someone does indeed care for its dead, who count among their valiant numbers such borough war heroes as the Barkuloo brothers: Jaques (1747-1813) and Harmanus (1745-1788).
