Park Cemetery
Bridgeport, Connecticut
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"In grateful memory of the founders of the Park Cemetery
Barak T. Nichols, Curtis Thompson, Bradley H. Hull and of
James W. Thompson who developed and beautified it."
Park Cemetery is located at 620 Lindley Street in Bridgeport, Connecticut. There is not much information available on it. It was established in 1878. In 1890, Congregation Adath Israel in Bridgeport purchased land located within Park Cemetery, and the "Jewish section" was used until the 1920s. It now exists as a grouping of several stones in and around a tiny fenced area in the extreme back end of the cemetery.
Park Cemetery is an eclectic place. There are stones engraved in foreign languages (German nd Dutch are popular) and several markers state people's country of birth. You can find veterans from conflicts beginning with the Civil War, but World War II seems to be the most represented. You will also find several Woodmen of America interred in Park Cemetery, and former Socialist mayor of Bridgeport, Jasper McLevy.
It is evident that Park Cemetery, at one time, was a rather nice area. But time (especially the last fifteen years) has taken its toll. The cemetery's back boundary is the Routes 25 and 8 Connector - a loud, busy 10-lane highway that links the two thoroughfares to Interstate 95. And the grounds are in appalling disrepair. There is no rhyme or reason to the burials; no pattern exists, no logical layout can be discerned. There is no "older section" as can be found in other cemeteries. Newer burials are being crammed into already crowded areas while other sections remain sparse. There is a section of the cemetery reserved for Title 19. It's at the entrance (creating a disconcerting first impression) and you can't miss it - dozens of flags, plastic neon whirligigs, balloons...it's like entering a carnival rather than the diginified final resting place of thousands of souls.
The most atrocious aspect of Park Cemetery is its upkeep. As you approach the cemetery, there is a cheap, hand-painted sign informing you of your location. The columns flanking the entryway do not match. Another sign - a hand painted piece of plywood propped against a tree - says "close at 5:00". There are pockmarked roads in need of paving. A large tree which has split down the center looks in danger of falling; it is held together with a single length of chain. And dozens of the stones are off their pedestals and broken, some into three or four pieces. The amount of trash on the grounds is also unacceptable. The Park Cemetery Association's explanation? A shortage of funds (despite continuous contemporary burials) and their idea that it is the family's responsibility to maintain the monuments. The association must assume that families remain intact and in the same geographic location over numerous generations.
And as if all this weren't enough, read these recent articles (October 2018) about how Park Cemetery was illegally exhuming people and burying new bodies in old graves as a scheme to sell more plots.Park Cemetery dates from approximately the late-1800s. The local cemeteries I have researched date back as far as the late 1600s, and most are in better condition. Some communities have directed an organized effort to the clean-up and restore their burial grounds. The Park Cemetery Association (620 Lindley St., Bridgeport, CT 06606. Phone: (203) 334-8165) should be ashamed.
Curious as to why Bridgeport - Connecticut's most populous city that can trace its earliest European settlement to 1644 - only has one cemetery with stones dating from the 1700s? Visit the page, The Mystery of Bridgeport's Missing Cemeteries.
Estimated number of interments, as of January 2024: at least 13,563.
Photos were taken 19 October 2008.
