Green-Wood has come a long way in its 177 years. It started out in 1838 as a revolutionary idea: no more graveyard burials, but rather a rural cemetery, Christian non-demoninational, with acres of trees and ponds, miles of winding roads and paths, serving New York City and Brooklyn. It then struggled to get people to … Read more
Driving around Green-Wood a few years ago, I noticed a small obelisk along Central Avenue that seemed to have some sort of ship carved into it. It took me a while to get back to that monument to take a closer look, and here’s what I saw: This is the detail that caught my eye: … Read more
Hundreds of 19th-century painters are interred at Green-Wood: landscape painters, portraitists, and more. But Green-Wood has only a few modernists. Alfred Henry Maurer was one. Painter Alfred Maurer (1868-1932), who is interred at Green-Wood, worked late in the 19th and early in the 20th century, when American and European art were changing fundamentally. His art, … Read more
Mark Daly, administrator and senior researcher in Green-Wood’s Green-ealogy program, was recently contacted by an individual inquiring about a Margaret Pine. Mark gets many inquiries, dozens a week, but this one was different: Margaret was described in the inquiry as the last slave in New York State. That caught Mark’s attention! Mark worked with Frank … Read more
I am always on the lookout for items pertaining to Green-Wood and/or its permanent residents. I look for such items online, at auction, in catalogues, and at shows. I came across this carte de visite photograph, taken during the Civil War, listed in a recent Cowan’s auction: And here’s the catalogue description: CDV of an … Read more
An exhibition in the Green-Wood chapel May 23 – July 12, 2015 Green-Wood is the final resting place of over 5,000 individuals who contributed to the efforts of the Civil War in America. A great many veterans are buried at Green-Wood, and they’re resting among nurses, journalists, financiers, undertakers, and more. This exhibition commemorates and … Read more
Do you have a personal story about Green-Wood? We’d love to hear it. No matter how small a detail and no matter how foggy the memory, we’re interested. Did you have your first date here? Were you ever lost here? Did you come here as a child? We’re trying to better understand … Read more
There is always more to know. On the night of December 5, 1876, the Brooklyn Theatre in downtown Brooklyn was packed with one thousand patrons. Then the fire began–and soon the building collapsed. But, still, it was thought that few lives had been lost. But, the next morning, when firemen began to sift through the … Read more
“Death Becomes Her–A Century of Mourning Attire,” is now on display at The Metropolitan Museum. Running through February 1, 2015, it displays extraordinary mourning costumes, mostly for women, and related accessories, which were in use for the century between 1815 and 1915. These are mostly high end outfits–courtesy of the Met’s Costume Institute. Many of … Read more
Last week, Chelsea Dowell, Green-Wood’s manager of programs and membership, and I went over to the studios of Brooklyn Independent Media (BRIC) to shoot a live segment about the cemetery. Shot at BRIC’s Arts Media House, corner of Fulton Street and Rockwell Place, “BK LIVE,” is a one hour show about Brooklyn, broken into four … Read more