Real Estate for the Afterlife

Living in New York City is expensive, but it appears that also residing in the city that never sleeps after death takes a large amount of money. Cemetery plots as well as above ground crypts have increased in price significantly over the years, with basic plots across the boroughs generally priced from $4,500 to $19,000, not including hefty fees for foundations, interments and maintenance. The cheapest can be found on Staten Island, but if you want to rest in a rare spot in Manhattan you could be spending upwards of $1 million.

Cemetery directors fully understand the concept that land is a finite resource in New York and have been coming up with ingenious ways to extend the occupancy of cemeteries, especially with the new popularity of cremations. Plots have decreased in size over the years and some are even “double-depth,” a plot that can contain two coffins on top of each other. Just as New Yorkers with small apartments have been forced to turn dining rooms into bedrooms and closets into home offices, cemeteries, too, have gotten creative. Walkways, roadways, and other paths have been removed to make up for more grave sites.

Many cemeteries in New York are building columbaria, aboveground structures with niches that can hold hundreds or even thousands of urns for cremains. The niches within the structures can have glass fronts in which survivors can view the urns, which are often then accompanied by photos and other articles of their deceased loved one. Trinity Church’s cemetery in Manhattan no longer accommodates in-ground burials, and aboveground crypts can run as high as $60,000 for a single coffin, while niches for a single urn range from $1,900 to $6,500.

See Jane Margolies, Real Estate for the Afterlife, New York Times, March 15, 2019.

Special thanks to Joel C. Dobris (Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law) for bringing this article to my attention.