I’ve been leading tours at Green-Wood Cemetery since 1990. So, if my math is right, that’s 21 years worth of tours. And I’ve been leading Halloween tours of Green-Wood for about 15 years. It will come as no surprise to you: cemetery tours on Halloween are a big draw. So, each year since about 1995 or so, I’ve done two Halloween tours on the weekend before Halloween.
November 1, 1849: William Merritt Chase, who was, perhaps, America’s greatest painter/teacher, led the movement to enhance appreciation of American artists and opened his own New York School of Art.
The more I see of Green-Wood, the more amazed I am. It’s a big place: 561,000 burials, 478 acres, 7,000 trees, tens of thousands of monuments. I’ve been wandering its grounds for twenty years now. And, I am still seeing so many things that I’ve never seen before.
I came across this carte de visite photograph a few weeks ago. The seller described it as an image of Rev. Dudley Atkins Tyng, who had been born in 1825 and died in 1858. So, I checked the cemetery’s database and discovered, as I had hoped, that the Reverend Tyng was in fact a permanent resident of Green-Wood.
On Wednesday, October 6, Eugenia Farrar’s cremated remains were placed in a niche at Green-Wood Cemetery. It had been a long trip.
It was quite a day. The seventh annual, and final, performance of “Angels and Accordions,” choreographed by Martha Bowers of Dance Theatre Etc., and co-designed by Green-Wood Cemetery historian Jeff Richman, took place across the rolling Green-Wood hills on October 9.
Just back from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. I attended the Center for Civil War Photography’s annual seminar. It was just a great experience–Garry Adelman and Tim Smith, who led the three days, did an incredible job.
Well, I really had no idea. I was off to see my friend somewhere in Manhattan. Had never visited him at his home before. Checked the address: 33 West 67th Street. Turns out it is The Atelier Building, built 1904-1905 as, according to the AIA Guide to New York City, as one of the first co-op buildings in NYC. Quite a remarkable place. What a building!
The back entrance to Green-Wood, on Fort Hamilton Parkway, just doesn’t get the respect it deserves. Admittedly, it is not a spectacular as the brownstone Arches at the main entrance to Green-Wood, Fifth Avenue and 25th Street, described by Robert A. M. Stern, dean of Yale’s School of Architecture, as the finest example of High Victorian design in America.
While wandering around Bar Harbor, Maine, I came across St. Savior’s Episcopal Church. It is quite a place, with 42 memorial windows, including 10 by Louis Comfort Tiffany, one of Green-Wood’s permanent residents. Here’s a sampling of some of Tiffany’s great work there.