NEW YORK: For sale: a sliver of New York with room for 3,000 new tenants -- provide they're dead.The 13-acre (5.3 ha) Canarsie cemetery in New York's area of Brooklyn, audacity space for us many as 3,000 more graves, is the latest and most abnormal item on the city's real estate record.But these are hard times for assets sales in the United States, even in this specialized and lacking sector."We have sent mail to 40 cemetery operator. Ten people visit last week, and four are interested," Mark Daly, director of New York's department of administrative services, told AFP.He decline to say how much money the city, which is the owner of Canarsie, was asking.Unlike Canarsie, most cemeteries in New York are own by churches, synagogues or private relations and are not run as businesses.The only other city-owned cemetery is on Hart Island, the last latent place for paupers, prisoners and the unclaimed.Daly said that now "the city wants to shed property that no longer fits our mission. Our assignment is to support the city agencies that can be used."New York won't let just anyone snap up a graveyard. Prospective buyers must be particular in the field and agree to run the site under substantial business restrictions.Though lingering places can be sold -- prices for graves averages at 5,000 dollars but can top 8,000 dollars -- the owner has no other profits and is required to pay maintenance osts even after the total graveyard is full.Daly said the cemetery is non-sectarian. A cross and a Star of David adorn the gates.Many tombstones are inscribed with the names of Italian immigrants. "May our parents rest in peace," reads one written in Italian on the headstone of a woman who dies at 76 in 1953.Bids close end of June and a result will be announced in the autumn after approval by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the city council and a judge.One likely buyer is Richard Moylen, 54. He began his occupation in the business by cleaning graves 37 years ago and rose through the ranks to turn out to be chairman of Green-Wood cemetery, one of the prime in New York, with 600,000 interred."Very few cemeteries have a lot of available space. I already tried to buy Canarsie 25 years ago, but the city did not do its job properly," he said. "There is no additional space in Green-Wood, and Canarsie is attractive because there are acres unexploited."However, even the quietest tenants need caring for and Canarsie may not be difficulty free, he added."There are troubles with the high water table, with story about wrong burial, bodies floating, etcetera, and one part of the cemetery was a creation dump site 15 years ago.""They gave us sample and we are making tests, the position is nice and if we buy it we could make it more attractive," he said."We can have more than a few thousand places, two to three thousand, but we will try not to crowd them in. We could construct also a small mausoleum community."
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