Photograph of Gravesend Cemetery — Photograph by Jim.henderson, CC0 1.0. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Old Gravesend Cemetery

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. 16 historic topographic surveys show this location, the earliest from 1889.

From the record

“Old Gravesend Cemetery is a historic cemetery at Gravesend Neck Road and McDonald Avenue in Gravesend, Brooklyn, New York, New York. The cemetery was founded about 1658 and contains the graves of a number of the original patentees and their families.”
Wikipedia article Old Gravesend Cemetery, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 207 National Register listings published here for Kings County · listed in 1980 · category: Site.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 site as contributing to the listing.
Address. Gravesend Neck Rd. and MacDonald Ave., New York, 11223
When was it listed? September 1980
Category. site
Borough. Brooklyn
National Register reference number. 80002635 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Then and now

1889 to 1995

The ground this property stands on, surveyed 106 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet covering Old Gravesend Cemetery, surveyed 1995

Topographic sheet covering Old Gravesend Cemetery, surveyed 1889

Fires near this property

1,719 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 1,719 fires within 5 miles of Old Gravesend Cemetery between 1992 and 2020, burning about 1,004 acres in total. 109 started naturally. 155 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1215
Arson/incendiarism	155
Natural	109
Smoking	87
Debris and open burning	54
Equipment and vehicle use	42
Fireworks	18
Recreation and ceremony	16
Misuse of fire by a minor	11
Railroad operations and maintenance	7
Power generation/transmission/distribution	3
Other causes	2

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
9 September 2017	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	N/A
9 September 2014	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	not named
9 September 2010	Smoking	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	not named
9 September 2005	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	not named
9 September 2005	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	not named
9 September 1995	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	3.0 acres	Gateway National Recreation Area	PLUMB2
8 September 2014	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.9 acres	Fire Department of New York	not named
8 September 2014	Smoking	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	not named

Every fire recorded in Kings County

Mines and quarries near this property

3 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 3 workings within 5 miles of Old Gravesend Cemetery: 3 unknowns. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Lead, Iron. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status
D Smith Steel/ Brooklyn, N.Y.	Iron	Unknown
N L Industries/ Brooklyn. N.Y.	Lead	Unknown
Roosevelt Metal/ Brooklyn, N.Y.	Lead	Unknown

Every working recorded in Kings County

Maps showing this location

16 surveys

United States Geological Survey topographic sheets whose coverage includes this point. Matched by taking the coordinate the National Park Service records for this property, then testing that coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet.

1889 USGS Brooklyn quadrangle1:62500
1891 USGS Brooklyn quadrangle1:62500
1897 USGS Brooklyn quadrangle1:62500 - 3 printings
1898 USGS Brooklyn quadrangle1:62500
1900 USGS Brooklyn quadrangle1:62500 - 11 printings
1947 USGS Coney Island quadrangle1:24000
1949 USGS New York quadrangle1:250000
1954 USGS New York quadrangle1:250000 - 2 printings
1955 USGS Coney Island quadrangle1:24000
1957 USGS New York quadrangle1:250000
1958 USGS New York quadrangle1:250000 - 3 printings
1960 USGS New York quadrangle1:250000 - 2 printings
1966 USGS Coney Island quadrangle1:24000 - 4 printings
1969 USGS New York quadrangle1:250000
1984 USGS Long Island West quadrangle1:100000 - 2 printings
1995 USGS Coney Island quadrangle1:24000

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Avenue U Station (Dual System BRT)	0.3 miles	2005
Coney Island Yard Electric Motor Repair Shop	0.3 miles	2006
Coney Island Yard Gatehouse	0.4 miles	2006
Hubbard House	0.4 miles	2000
Jewish Center of Coney Island, The	1.0 miles	2013
Beth El Jewish Center of Flatbush	1.0 miles	2009

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 80002635 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Kings County	All 207 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.