On Wednesday December 16, 2020 Dr. Thayer’s course LBSCI790.3: Public History held community presentations on student fieldwork related to the Olde Towne of Flushing Burial Ground, a site less than two miles from the Queens College campus. Incorporated in 1839, the Burial Ground reached its period of peak use for the burial of between 500 and 1,000 African American, Native American, and impoverished Whites during the late 19th century that was paved over and replaced with a playground in the 1930s.

Class projects for Fall 2020 included a documentary screening, a genealogical database for those interred at the site, lesson plans for local high schools, a directory for historic sites and organizations in Flushing and beyond, a digital mapping project of other burial grounds in Queens that have been transformed into parks, a guide on recruiting, managing, and retaining volunteers for cultural heritage organizations, and a proposal for a horticultural therapy garden for consideration in the City’s plans for re-design and re-opening of the Burial Ground.

In addition to GSLIS students, attendees included stakeholders from the Olde Towne of Flushing Burial Ground Conservancy, Green Earth Urban Gardens, the New York City Parks Department, Queens Memory, Queens Public Library, Queens College Special Collections and Archives, local school teachers, and GSLIS alumni from the 2016 iteration of the course.

Class projects will eventually be hosted and made publicly-accessible on the Queens Memory platform, a digital community archive dedicated to documenting and preserving the history of the borough.

GSLIS students included:

Mitsuko Brooks

Kimberly Cabrera

Sarah Healy

Maura Sobocisnski Johnson

Riah Lee Kinsey

Gabriella Lacza

Sinead Lamel

Melissa Lino

Aimee Lusty

Amy Mackin

Kevin O’Leary

Yonatan Peres

Matthew Rakowski

Alexandra Rettie

Carlos Rodriguez

Gregory Stanger