‘Capt. Trek’s Revolution
Push to preserve B’klyn ‘war grave’
Sir Patrick Stewart has a new mission: to make sure the city pays proper respect to fallen Revolutionary War soldiers buried under an empty Brooklyn lot.
The knighted “Star Trek” actor and Park Slope resident is joining preservationists’ battle to create a memorial for the heroes at the Ninth Street site that has been earmarked for a new school.
The lot is the final resting place of soldiers from the Maryland 400 — a group of stalwarts who held off invading Brits long enough for Gen. George Washington to retreat to safety during the Battle of Brooklyn in 1776, Stewart says.
“Over 200 were buried here,” he told GQ magazine. “I’ve told you the story, and all it is is a concreted-over car park, but underneath the concrete is the mass grave. It’s worth making, I think, a bit of a fuss of.”
Stewart, who played Capt. Captain Jean-Luc Picard in “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” made a personal appeal to Mayor de Blasio to erect a me- morial on the lot between Third and Fourth avenues, and Hizzoner told him, “I’m on it,” City Hall officials confirmed.
The land is privately owned, and the city plans to build a school there as part of the mayor’s campaign promise to expand free, city-run pre-K.
Officials are looking into the grave claims, City Hall said.
“As part of an ongoing environmental review, the Landmarks Preservation Commission is coordinating with State Historic Preservation Office on this archaeological question,” said de Blasio spokeswoman Melissa Grace.
“We note that, at this time, no one knows the location of these burials or the likelihood of remains being found at this location.”
But a representative for the lot’s owner says the notion that war heroes are buried there is a fiction worthy of Star Trek’s holodeck.
“There is no evidence of that fact — there was a building there for many years. Just because the lot was empty so somebody decided they should check it out,” said a rep for owner William Freed.
The previous building had a below-ground boiler room, and any Revolutionary heroes would have turned up as the basement was being dug, the rep said.