Lake Placid, NY - Pine Ridge cemetery asks for synagogue’s forgotten $20k gift

[Yisrael]

Lake Placid, NY — A $20,000 discovery could help a Saranac Lake cemetery maintain and repair areas of the Jewish section that have fallen into disrepair over the past decade.

Natalie Leduc of Saranac Lake, president of the Pine Ridge Cemetery Association, told the North Elba Town Board Tuesday that when the synagogue in Saranac Lake dissolved to join the Lake Placid congregation in the early 1990s, the money from the building’s sale was distributed to several groups. One of the recipients was town, which was given $20,000, for the upkeep of Pine Ridge’s Jewish section.

“No one knew about this money,” Leduc said to the board. Maintenance of the section has been sporadic and mediocre at best, she said, with funds for mowing coming out of the cemetery board member’s own pockets with no reimbursement.

“There is so much preventative maintenance that needs to be done,” Leduc added. Several headstones have had to be moved due to expanding tree roots, a wall in the cemetery is crumbling, and the number of actual grave sites isn’t known because the cemetery association’s map is outdated. [adirondackdailyenterprise]