Maple Grove Cemetery

Maple Grove Cemetery

Maple Grove Cemetery Association has operated this 65-acre rural cemetery in Kew Gardens, Queens, since 1875. Led by President Phillip Rash-Flynn, with Executive Vice President Bonnie Dixon and Treasurer Tsai Chiu Lee, the non-sectarian institution serves as both an active burial ground and a community cultural center. The Association manages the grounds, a Victorian administration building, a receiving tomb, and a monumental park collection, all anchored by an endowment and permanent maintenance funds. The endowment invests across buyout, growth, and fund-of-funds strategies to meet the dual mandate of perpetual care and cultural programming. Physical assets include the Victorian Monumental Park Collection, the Center at Maple Grove — a community event space carved from a former chapel — and art installations on the grounds. The investment function supports maintenance of these structures and the cemetery's role as a public archive, with historical records housed at Columbia University Libraries. The Association participates in the New York State Association of Cemeteries and the Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York. The organization maintains an endowment with an estimated $94 million (Altss estimate), directed toward capital preservation and income generation for groundskeeping. Governance runs through the Maple Grove Cemetery Association, while its philanthropic arm, the Friends of Maple Grove Cemetery — led by President Shahriar Hossain with historian Carl Ballenas — raises supplementary funds for restoration and educational events. The Association has no disclosed satellite offices beyond its Kew Gardens campus. Maple Grove's structure as a National Register of Historic Places site since 2004 creates a distinct governance layer: the Association must satisfy both New York State cemetery regulations and historic preservation standards. This dual obligation — running a regulated perpetual-care trust alongside a landmarked cultural venue — shapes a conservative allocation posture rarely observed in institutional portfolios that lack a physical-plant liability of this scale.