For years, it served as a local strip for small planes, and now, Spadaro Airport will become a cemetery with room for 15,000 graves.
The 29-acre parcel on Montauk Highway in East Moriches has a site plan pending for a graveyard its developers, Long Island Community Cemetery, promises to be environmentally friendly.
The facility will maintain a low profile with gravesites not marked by upright monuments or mausoleums, according to a principal of the non-profit, Ghulam Sarwar. “We will remove all of the dilapidated buildings and landscape the property. It will be beautiful,” Sarwar said.
Operated by Bart Spadaro for decades, the one-lane strip borders Route 51, Moriches-Riverhead Road. Following his passing in 2013, Spadaro’s daughter, Susan, operated the airport, eventually stopping aviation services such as aircraft maintenance, rentals, and flight instruction. The site, adjacent to the former Lufker airstrip, also hosted a skydiving operation.
“Residents used to planes flying overhead will have a more quiet neighbor,” said Waheed Siddiqui, another project sponsor. The site plan will be heard at an upcoming Brookhaven Town Board meeting.