Congregation Shaare Zedek Cemetery

You are approaching the site of a long-vanished piece of history in the heart of the Upper East Side. During the mid-nineteenth century, a small, fenced burial ground stood on the south side of East 88th Street between what are now Park and Madison Avenues. It was established around 1840 by the Congregation Shaare Zedek, a Polish Jewish community founded just a few years prior. This plot was part of a larger, shared burial area that the congregation managed alongside the nearby German Jewish community of Rodeph Sholom. By the 1870s, the cemetery had fallen into a state of neglect. Reporters from the era documented a crumbling brick wall and described local squatters who kept goats on the property. These animals were frequently seen grazing among the toppled and overgrown tombstones. The congregation eventually sought to remove the remains to a more permanent, larger site in Queens, but they faced significant resistance. Many families with loved ones buried in the soil refused to allow the disinterment, and the congregation even consulted with the chief rabbi of New York City, Jacob Joseph, to navigate the complex religious laws surrounding the disturbance of the dead. It was not until 1899 that the remains were finally relocated. Today, the quiet, somber history of those early immigrant families has been completely paved over, replaced by modern residential buildings.