Recent attacks on headstones have left 10 either missing or damaged at Pine Island Cemetery. From the HOur:
When David W. Park visited Pine Island Cemetery on Crescent Street the day after Thanksgiving, what he saw didn’t leave him feeling very thankful.
Several of the headstones had been yanked out of the ground and scattered nearby. Some were in pieces while others were left tilting in their places or were missing altogether.“It’s heartbreaking to see this,” Park said. “A lot of Norwalk’s original families are buried here. Some of these headstones are 300 years old.”
Park, a member of the Norwalk Historical Commission and the chairman of the commission’s cemetery committee, said he searched the nearby brush and tall grass, but the missing headstones were nowhere to be found.
Since the winter of 2006, this has been an all too familiar scene at the cemeteries and other historic sites around the city, Park said. The members of the commission have taken to inspecting the city-owned historic cemeteries themselves to check for damages. Park estimates that approximately 10 headstones have been vandalized in recent weeks.
The destruction caused by the vandalism is extremely costly.
“The conservative estimated cost of repairing the headstones is $2,500,” Park said. “Restoring headstones is expensive. In 2002 the quote we received to restore all of the headstones in the cemetery was $350,000. But when you have a 300-year-old headstone that is missing, you can’t put a pricetag on that.”The Historical Commission has been working with the Department of Recreation and Parks to try and keep the vandals out of the park, but so far their efforts have not worked.
Mike Moccaie, director of the recreation and parks department, called Friday’s vandalism at Pine Island Cemetery is “just another case of somebody selected vandalism that occurs all the time in the city’s parks” and said that the vandalism has been difficult to prevent.
“Keeping people out of the park is a hard thing to do when there is no lighting and no activity in park after dark,” Moccaie said. “We put up several chains, but they have actually been cut. We also put up a sign that says that the park is closed after dark and that anyone who trespasses will be fined, but they go in away.”
source: The Hour, Pine Island Cemetery vandalized, by Jill Bodach, November 27, 2007
