This CITO Event was published with special permission of Geocaching HQĬemetery Description “Located aside Broad Street opposite Narragansett Street and just east of Roger Williams Park. The Cranston Historic Cemetery Commission (CHCC) has made significant progress here in the last year and this event hopes to bring about the greatest improvement to date. Please join us for RI Historic Cemetery Restoration and Awareness Day 2018, an annual recognition of the state's cemeteries as established by RI House Resolution 7203. He's at a loss to resolve the fate of the entombed bodies "in arespectful fashion," Russo said.You are invited to participate as we do our part in maintaining Rhode Island's historic cemeteries, one at a time. That's not surprising, he said, because it would cost severalthousand dollars to move a body and inter it elsewhere. Russo's effort to create a nonprofit fund to repair and maintainthe building went "nowhere," said the lawyer.įewer than 10 families have claimed their loved ones, Russosaid. "Youwant to be mindful of the bodies that are in there."Ī plan to renovate the building as a funeral home and crematorynever came to fruition. "It is a very sensitive situation," Muksian-Schutt said. And then, they wouldonly do enough to stabilize a structure. The City Council in 2005 rejected a plan for the city to takeownership of the mausoleum.Ĭity officials cannot go on the property unless an "imminentpublic-safety issue existed," said Robin Muksian-Schutt, directorof administration for Mayor Allan W. The City of Cranston wants no part of it. "I don't think any city or town has money lying around to takecare of this - and neither does the state," Beardsworth said. Thestate Department of Health has not inspected the mausoleum,according to spokeswoman Annemarie Beardsworth. The state does not have jurisdiction over such properties. The judge, in turn, asked him to lay out the legalrationale for that at a hearing. Silverstein to order the state or the city to addressthe situation. Russo returned to court recently to ask Superior Court JudgeMichael A. "The building has to come down," said Phil Pare, of Phil Pare& Sons Inc. The mausoleum has been fenced off to keep vandals at bay - a notwholly successful effort, according to a West Warwick contractorwho inspected the building for Russo. Inside, there iswater damage, collapsed ceilings and mold, lead paint andasbestos. Just cleaning the inside of the building would take $30,000,said the contractor he hired to inspect the mausoleum. It could take $1 million to $2 million to disinter the bodiesand bury them elsewhere, Russo estimates. Russo has had no better luck than Ferrucci at solving the vexingproblem of what to do with a building that no one wants and no onehas the money to close. Ferrucci, the lawyer appointed tofind a solution to the mausoleum mess, died in November 2009,leaving the case to Russo, his law partner. Cullinan died in 2002, her guardianfound that almost no money was left for maintenance and repairs.The following year, a Superior Court judge ordered the mausoleuminto receivership - a form of bankruptcy where a court appoints atrustee to either liquidate a company or sell its assets to pay itsdebt. The situation at the three-story, 60-by-66-foot granite buildingbegan falling apart nine years ago, with the death of themausoleum's last remaining caretaker - one of Cullinan's twodaughters. The three-story building named forthe Providence municipal park that it abuts became a sought-afterstatus symbol among those looking for an eternal resting place forthemselves or their loved ones.Īs it stands, the building won't make it to the end of time. Thomas Cullinan opened the Roger Williams Park Mausoleum in 1926as a profit-making enterprise just off the Providence line in theWashington Park neighborhood. "Eventually, something bad is going to happen," said Mark Russo,the Providence lawyer in charge of the building. crumbles todust, it threatens the bodies of the 527 people entombed there. The Providence Journal / Andrew DickermanĬRANSTON - Death is permanent a building's condition isnot.Īnd, as the temple-like building at 100 Cyr St. Roger Williams Park Mausoleum, languishing without an owner fornine years, has been fenced off to keep out vandals, but acontractor who inspected the site found graffiti inside.
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