Greenwood Cemetery

I've never consciously thought about this, but it turns out I really like cemeteries. I tend to visit them when I move or visit someplace new (much like other people scope out churches or grocery stores). As such, I have a hierarchy of cemeteries I like, based on sereneness, aesthetics, interesting statues, lawn beauty, and age of graves/amount of famous people. (Hey Jazz, remember that cemetery in Paris where we thought we'd get attacked by feral cats?) Based on my criteria, Greenwood Cemetery in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, might be the best I've ever been to. It might also be one of my top three favorite places in NYC now.

The day helped. It was a sunny Saturday, I had just eaten a delightful lemon Italian ice, and I was with two people that I very much like (one of them, my cousin, took all these pictures. Thanks Melis!) None of us had been to Greenwood, but it's very neat. It was originally a 478 acre park, and is full of rolling hills, ponds with fountains, and lovely architecture, some of which was designed by Richard Upjohn (be excited, Genevans!). It is the highest point in Brooklyn and involved the first hills I've seen in awhile. A very calm, quiet, lovely place. And free, of course, which is even better.

We made it through about a third of the cemetery (in over an hour, mind) and saw a few famous plots. Louis Comfort Tiffany's was very unobtrusive (we couldn't find it originally, in fact) and Boss Tweed had an entire family plot. We were interested in seeing the Steinway Family Mausoleum and the guide by the gate told us, "you can't miss it. It is large enough for about 200 bodies." And yet, we did miss it. We walked by it, twice, both times because we spotted interesting statues farther away. But up close, the Steinway Mausoleum is about the size of a house. (for a cool Steinway story, check this out.)

There are plenty of other famous-ish people interred there: Henry Ward Beecher, Leonard Bernstein, DeWitt Clinton, Currier and Ives, Alice Roosevelt, Margaret Sanger, Lorenzo da Ponte (ack!!) and a few slightly less famous but still interesting people: William "Bill the Butcher" Poole (head of the Bowery Boys gang), Susan McKinney Steward (the first black woman to get a medical degree in NY), Laura Keene (actress who was on stage when Lincoln was shot), and Henry Bergh (founder of the ASPCA).

And here are some statues of note:


Greenwood is awesome; therefore, Brooklyn is awesome. It is one of those places that Manhattan doesn't have and never will. It's a beautiful place, especially in the May sun with good friends. After we left there was a street fair a few blocks away, and we got some roasted corn-on-the-cob and wandered among balloons and smoke and cotton candy, not to mention booming basses. Again: Brooklyn is awesome. But we all knew that already.