Cherry Lane Cemetery

Cherry Lane Cemetery was a 19th-century burial ground located in the Westerleigh section of Staten Island, New York, United States. Established by members of the Second Asbury African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, the cemetery was the final burial place of free and formerly enslaved black Staten Islanders until the 1950s, when the land was redeveloped into a Shell station, and then in the 1980s as a shopping plaza. Although the cemetery was never formally registered under the name "Cherry Lane", that designation has been adopted in modern historical and media accounts. In the 2020s, the site became the focus of descendant-led preservation efforts and scholarly research. It was co-named "Benjamin Prine Way" in 2023 after the most renowned of the interred, and a memorial garden was dedicated to the former burial ground in 2024.