Union Cemetery, 1897.

In 1851 the Methodist Protestant churches of Manhattan and Brooklyn established a cemetery in Bushwick. Held jointly by two congregations and used for their community burials, the churches also sold family lots and single graves. By the 1860s, more than 1,500 burials took place each year. In 1893 the trustees announced plans to sell the cemetery, citing the lack of space for new burials and the city of Brooklyn's possible plans to construct roads through the graveyard. While this angered lot owners and they went so far as to get an injunction, the trustees won out and the cemetery was sold. In the winter of 1897/1898 more than 30,000 burials were disinterred and removed to a new burial plot in Cedar Grove Cemetery in Queens.

Despite the sale, the land (with some grave sites still open holes in the ground) remained empty. In 1907 it was purchased by the city for the the construction of Bushwick High School, which still occupies the land today.