Green Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn: A Picture Thread

I love the rural cemetery type, used to live around the corner from Allegheny Cemetery, spent a lot of time walking around. My favorite, don't have a photo, was a small, worn headstone that simply said "My Angel Lila".

Wonderful photos!

Somewhere out there is a 134 year old woman named Julia Sariol who will be reunited with Arthur in good time.

http://i.imgur.com/sXAYJfv.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/DYkc6el.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/k1mJ7oc.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/MLqsPJF.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/Qpvu57M.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/me0vNOr.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/xE7AgPG.jpg

Thanks for the kind words... would love to see photos of other folks' nearby rural cemeteries.

http://imgur.com/zJigsGd

I went to Green-Wood for the first time last summer, on a blazingly hot day, and it was an incredible experience. I don't think I saw another soul while I was there. I have a few pictures at home I'll post but I am kicking myself for living in NYC for 30 years and never going before. Will go at least every summer from now on.

http://i.imgur.com/zJigsGd.jpg

what's wild is that I've been there likely 12 times now and you've probably seen things I haven't seen! it's just too big. reminds me of the met museum.

You found the Morse monument! I found it for the first time a month ago! I have a lot of photos that are worth digging up and posting here; perhaps that's a good wintry day project.

uh.
http://creativetime.org/projects/here-lie-secrets/

they opened all their gates daily, the best news i've heard in weeks

thats great. i hope it's not too jammed. solace!

it's busy out there by cemetery standards but it's like 1/25th of the park at worst.

wish i lived closer to it, then!

this was absolute heaven yesterday. i intend to go every day; likely leaving in a half hour. I imagine I will post a zillion photos soon enough but here's a taste.

http://i.imgur.com/BPspkMP.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/FR5kCSc.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/PXJRBWt.jpg

^ you're gonna want to open that one up in another tab.

Okay, so I've been going looking for people who were born on the day I visit and who died on the day I visit; as there's no way to do this "better" or more efficiently, you sort of zone out and have to wait for them to find you.
http://i.imgur.com/8T84c5G.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/wDOdD5t.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/7q3WFIg.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/a2yEepM.jpg

Department of Unique Names: Pasquale del Purgatorio
http://i.imgur.com/k7NIINe.jpg

Department of Unique Names: He's Good'nough
http://i.imgur.com/acuSt31.jpg

Department of Unique Names: Joseph Neefus Limeburner
http://i.imgur.com/697IY0T.jpg

Department of Unique Names: Silas O. Deadly
http://i.imgur.com/D1zPrNc.jpg

Department of Unique Names: HOLLAMAN
http://i.imgur.com/WlmHdrt.jpg

My favorite Celtic cross
http://i.imgur.com/8rBBOi7.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/dArRKJk.jpg

Poor lil' Willie. Died at 5 in 1884: "God's Finger Touched Him and He Slept"
http://i.imgur.com/DK6sjvo.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/JDkyDnc.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/ECdVOtU.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/aecaB0c.jpg

Would love to know what the writing here says
http://i.imgur.com/gbABR0m.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/IdPCsqT.jpg

ROLL CREDITS
http://i.imgur.com/wCSDL2v.jpg

Man, what a hellish tragedy this must've been: three sisters (including a pair of twins) all dead on Christmas
http://i.imgur.com/gk9wxR4.jpg

I assume Trilby was his dog
http://i.imgur.com/vmkm6xj.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/RusAfZj.jpg

More fun if you're not familiar with the International Order of Odd Fellows https://odd-fellows.org/
http://i.imgur.com/qQU4sJC.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/WxaRT7i.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/MAxcgHF.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/blU4SnC.jpg

Why Mickey and Minnie for a 52 year old man named William? Your guess is as good as mine.
http://i.imgur.com/s1YhLri.jpg

HAVE AN EGG CREAM
http://i.imgur.com/2qoaAqG.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/7DDdP1f.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/wWAb5Ht.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/UmuJU3w.jpg

Best for last, this is the craziest thing I've seen out there in months:
http://i.imgur.com/mkFWu8P.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/vpwGFqI.jpg

i did some looking around and the boots guy was DJ Blu Gemz
https://www.residentadvisor.net/news/42818

The 3 girls died in a house fire, says google. The father died some years later.

"Matthew Badger, the Connecticut man who lost his three daughters in a fire on Christmas Day 2011, had died, according to the foundation he started."

Ouch.

"Officials said a bag of smoldering ash and embers left in a first-floor mudroom caused the fire. The girls wanted the ash removed from the fireplace so that Santa Claus could come through the chimney, WPIX reported."

I just sat and gawped at this entire thread and was fascinated from front to back. Thanks for taking the time and effort to document this incredible place - fantastic choices and shots too.

Thanks! My phonetography is point and shoot at absolute best so you can credit the environment rather than me.

The Badger family story is such a tragedy, thanks for pointing me toward the story:
https://abcnews.go.com/US/badger-girls-tragedy-father-died-conn-fire-launches/story?id=16200358
Looks like the foundation closed after his death.
https://www.instagram.com/lilysarahgracefund

you inspired me to look up a few of the other names and there was much to learn!

http://i.imgur.com/2qoaAqG.jpg
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/22/arts/music/sid-bernstein-who-helped-import-the-beatles-dies-at-95.html

Sid Bernstein — he rarely used his full given name, Sidney, was born in Manhattan on Aug. 12, 1918. He was adopted by Yiddish-speaking Russian immigrants who called him Simcha, which means joy or gladness in Hebrew. In 1943 he joined the Army and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. While he was stationed in France after the war, he set up and ran a nightclub for American soldiers.

Upon his return to New York he began organizing singles weekends in the Catskills, as well as weekly dances at the Tremont Terrace, a Bronx nightclub. When the Puerto Rican population of the neighborhood grew, and Latin music was in greater demand, Mr. Bernstein changed the club’s name to the Trocadero and began alternating Latin concerts with the bar mitzvahs that were still an important part of the club’s business.

By the early 1960s, around the time he was presenting Judy Garland and others at Carnegie Hall, Mr. Bernstein was also overseeing shows by James Brown and other rhythm-and-blues performers at the Paramount. Between the 1964 and ’65 Beatles tours, he began managing the Young Rascals (they soon dropped Young from their name) and the singer-songwriter Laura Nyro. He later presented concerts or arranged tours by Jimi Hendrix, Fleetwood Mac and others.

http://i.imgur.com/gbABR0m.jpg
Apparently the director of this documentary short about the repatriation of the remains of Emir Abelkader al-Jazairi to Algeria
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgwJ9pyTH-o
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emir_Abdelkader_al-Jazairi

http://i.imgur.com/IdPCsqT.jpg
Apparently murdered by the Gottis
https://nypost.com/2013/04/06/gottis-last-hit/
http://www.ipsn.org/garofalo.html

http://i.imgur.com/WxaRT7i.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tu1Y-M0c8hY
lol, this song sucks

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millie_Cavendish

I'm a fan of The Black Crook following seeing this pseudo-revival a few years back:
http://operetta-research-center.org/joshua-william-gelb-black-crook/

http://i.imgur.com/MAxcgHF.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Forbes
http://www.richardcfreyfinearts.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/2367793_orig.jpg

Sunday was the first day where it's actually felt too busy, there were probably a few thousand people in there aboveground. Many picnicking, most with kids, a few true blue assholes with dogs they snuck in. I understand the desire to be in that space, lord knows i do, but you gotta show some basic respect. Weekdays are much more manageable, especially if the weather isn't great.

Belated April 9 trip pix:

http://i.imgur.com/5RqwVOd.jpg
Happy Death Day

The Kukuck Clan
http://i.imgur.com/rChvCMU.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/5E3GE16.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/VWpvt18.jpg

Front and Back here:
http://i.imgur.com/erzr1UH.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/OaSiBxT.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/N2KsG4X.jpg

I believe this is a Tiffany-executed piece; the lilies are brilliantly rendered and are cut deeply enough you can fit your hand around them. Tiffany works are unmarked though they apparently have a record at the Cemetery of where they are. Given the lax security and ease of exploration, I think they'd rather not encourage anyone to have a go at them.
http://i.imgur.com/XP0kPXo.jpg

Mood:
http://i.imgur.com/hV2m071.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/NxQ8TUQ.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/I5wnYty.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/WOAgjk3.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/D50jsYz.jpg

The Taste That Refreshes:
http://i.imgur.com/aDTXnxc.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/OwI8XxP.jpg

L'TRIMM!
http://i.imgur.com/5eC6aOb.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T3egCDI4ls

U, have you ever seen the grave of one Jim Creighton?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Creighton

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/3296

hm, i have not (and that accompanying picture doesn't help me place it) but i will look for it!
https://www.green-wood.com/2012/honoring-baseball-pioneer-james-creighton/

Funny you should bring up baseball though, as I went out for a short walk on April 20 and found this monument to Henry Chadwick on his Death Day
http://i.imgur.com/I2Iksry.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Chadwick_(writer)
https://www.green-wood.com/2011/opening-day-are-you-ready-for-some-baseball/
https://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/mlb-starts-fans-flock-henry-chadwick-grave-b-klyn-article-1.3904461

Some striking moments of nature in bloom taking place out there:
http://i.imgur.com/LCBPrEr.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/EfdQIOU.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/YdGRDC6.jpg

And some violence here, where the recent storm snapped a huge tree in half. The stone in the foreground is probably twelve feet tall for scale.
http://i.imgur.com/Qbv2oGX.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/2D63NFW.jpg
"Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am."
https://biblehub.com/john/17-24.htm

http://i.imgur.com/vVWcStG.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/eNs2OmJ.jpg
signing an epitaph like a letter

http://i.imgur.com/6yxz3LY.jpg
From the turn of the 20th century Egyptomania period
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptomania

http://i.imgur.com/a6jcaVB.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/lgj0UVj.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/kLFlk3I.jpg

One of my all-time favorites is the grave of Clara Ruppertz Koch, which features the golden rule on her gravestone:
http://i.imgur.com/rfzR6L8.jpg

Fronted by a sculpture that I guess we have to assume is her, holding a book:
http://i.imgur.com/VemL8kZ.jpg

And the front of that book, in bronze, is yet another portrait of her with the inscription "THE BEST WOMAN THAT EVER LIVED"
http://i.imgur.com/npA8lfb.jpg

Morbs, here's a lecture for you
https://www.green-wood.com/event/virtual-tour-of-green-woods-baseball-legends/

we can't have nice things apparently so i may have to be a volunteer cop

It’s very difficult for me to send this email. The conduct of a small percentage of our visitors has created an unacceptable situation. If things don’t change, we may be left with no choice but to close our gates as many other cemeteries have done.

Four weeks ago today, we decided to staff all four of our gates until 7pm every day of the week. We knew how important that was. We all need open space, a connection to nature, and a place for serenity. Thousands of you have come to visit. We’ve been delighted to welcome you.

But some of our visitors have behaved very badly. They have brought their dogs. They've ridden bikes. Their kids have climbed trees. They've taken flowers that had been placed on graves. None of these actions is appropriate or permitted.

Green-Wood is a cemetery. It is an arboretum, and a place of tranquility. Families come to visit the graves of their loved ones. It is not a public park. It is a not a place of recreation. Our rules are clear on what is allowed and what is not.

With the nice weather predicted this weekend, we will surely again be seeing large crowds. We have a group of volunteers who will be assisting us as Green-Wood Ambassadors, making sure the cemetery rules are honored. If you would like to join the group, please click here. We hope, together, we can keep Green-Wood open and available for everyone.

http://i.imgur.com/fsElfR3.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/pJY9ME5.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Poole
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oro4ph7yTmc

http://i.imgur.com/7Ucfhm7.jpg

a child's size throne, next to a baby's grave with a single shoe sitting on the seat
http://i.imgur.com/hCGUyas.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/Jttq6Br.jpg

good ol' dime titty mary
http://i.imgur.com/tOxwCGB.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/commB4c.jpg

Packard, Silas Sadler (28 April 1826–27 October 1898), pioneer business educator, was born in Cummington, Massachusetts, the son of Chester Packard, a mill operator and mechanic, and Eunice Sadler. The family had resided in Massachusetts since the first Packard settled in Hingham in 1638. Chester Packard succumbed to the “Ohio Fever” in 1833, and the family moved to the vicinity of Fredonia, in Licking County, Ohio. After a number of irregular terms in district schools, Packard had a year of secondary school at the Granville Academy. That concluded his formal education. He began teaching at seventeen, as a writing master in Eden, Ohio, after learning the craft from an itinerant instructor of penmanship. While teaching at a district school in Delaware County, Ohio, the following year, he learned the art of portrait painting in just three weeks of lessons from a traveling artist. In the fall of 1845 he crossed the Ohio River into Kentucky, where, for the next two and a half years, he taught school and painted portraits. Packard apparently thought his paintings lacked artistic merit for, many years later, he dryly remarked that “the houses that harbor them are absolutely free from rats.”...

One of the few mausoleums out there that has been allowed to fall into a kind of disrepair. The glass in the left-hand door has fallen out and the ivy has entered uninvited.
http://i.imgur.com/FUVkZcW.jpg

My favorite name on this day out: "Matilda Tomes Stoutenburgh"
http://i.imgur.com/JgeePze.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/CHa76Ca.jpg
https://www.nytimes.com/1862/06/28/archives/the-battle-near-charleston-list-of-killed-wounded-and-missing-of.html

i dearly love constant and try to visit her every time i go
http://i.imgur.com/VAfHTDi.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/8h1jgFe.jpg
a paper wasp nest wedged in the bars protecting stained glass on the outside of a tomb. "Hymenopotera" indeed.

http://i.imgur.com/fXsPJQ7.jpg
From my May 2 trip.

http://i.imgur.com/iK9QGG2.jpg
my first cemetery dick pic

http://i.imgur.com/P2u3Kw3.jpg
This was one of a bunch of stones around a family plot with an Italian last name... perhaps this was/is colloquial for "little one"?

http://i.imgur.com/7j2f8DT.jpg
With COVID going on, the cemetery has seen an influx of people who are not used to the basic rules of the space and who do some exceptionally disrespectful stuff. This (amazingly incorrect) arithmetic pencilled onto a zinc grave marker is an unpleasant example.

http://i.imgur.com/1eILViy.jpg
Outrageous interlocking typography.

http://i.imgur.com/LGt1BWF.jpg
"mon epoux regrette" = "my late husband"
the handshake symbol is a mark of The International Order of Odd Fellows: https://blog.billiongraves.com/club-society-and-fraternity-gravestone-symbols-part-2/

http://i.imgur.com/xC5BLAr.jpg
Fisher Howe, Eliza's husband, appears to have been an author of some works on the Eastern world:
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Oriental_and_Sacred_Scenes/xZNCAAAAcAAJ
https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_True_Site_of_Calvary_and_Suggestions/d-x7IqdGHTQC

http://i.imgur.com/4WnZFlP.jpg
The Howe family's stones appear to be made of slate and are beautifully carved. They look virtually brand-new some 140 years later with utterly outrageous detail work. This piece stands about three feet tall.

http://i.imgur.com/OZlj3uD.jpg
This Confederate grave (a rarity amongst NY graves) houses the first General officer killed in the Civil War.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_S._Garnett
This is obviously not the original marker. In 2007, Green-Wood had 1300 fresh stones put in for veteran servicemen as part of their Civil War Project.
https://www.green-wood.com/2010/civil-war-project/

http://i.imgur.com/7z4b6jH.jpg
In addition to possums and raccoons (and possibly some skunks?), Green-Wood has a healthy population of groundhogs who have set up notable burrow around the grounds. Another, presumably young, visitor to the cemetery has set out a gift for when they emerge.

http://i.imgur.com/VzkEYL7.jpg
Several smaller markers - either parts of a larger piece or stones that were recently exhumed from where they've slumped into the earth - can often be found dotting the landscape almost randomly. I like how this one has been installed like a fairy home.

http://i.imgur.com/BBsmXtU.jpg
Basquiat's grave is a personal favorite as I'm a fan of his work. It's one of the most heavily-sought out (and, given the size of the stone, hardest to find) spots in the cemetery and attracts the most offerings from visitors. Generally these are cleared out on a weekly-or-so basis by the groundskeepers but, given the current influx of bodies and general madness, I imagine they're running behind. I've found letters, artwork, pens, paints, spray cans, money, all kinds of stuff here. Today's sighting includes a cunning miniature bust of Van Gogh made of Sculpey clay (barely visible in this picture above the dash in "Jean-Michel"), a tattered Puerto Rican flag and a macrame coaster.

http://i.imgur.com/EXKR3rp.jpg
Age has worn down most of the stones and left behind a dark patina of lichen and soot. Sometimes this makes them difficult to decipher; sometimes it renders them newly beautiful in ways the original sculptor could hardly have dreamed of.

http://i.imgur.com/tv9SeGM.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/JOAdnAg.jpg
One of the best of the Cemetery's many outrageous ornamental door handles.

http://i.imgur.com/i0IKR9g.jpg

Spectacular metal work on a tomb door window.

http://i.imgur.com/UoH7J9G.jpg
Probably unrelated... but who knows!

http://i.imgur.com/ya3y67y.jpg
This grave is something of an ongoing mystery for me. There are no other markings or names on the stone but the ones you see here and the marker stands a good seven feet tall. There are no stones for a considerable portion of space in front of the marker... enough room to, say, bury a horse. That said, when I asked him, the Cemetery historian stated categorically that he does not believe there is a horse buried on the grounds. One wonders if perhaps the Seaman in question is Seaman Lichtenstein who, as per this 1902 obit "was a lover of horses and owned many fast trotters, some of which held records"? Further research and conversation is likely necessary.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/136450223/seaman-lichtenstein

http://i.imgur.com/94oBWzm.jpg
A shady spot hides a uniquely stylized rendering of the Sacratissimum Cor Iseu (aka "Sacred Heart of Jesus") pose
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_Heart

http://i.imgur.com/2kmjFIl.jpg
It was once common to have a head and foot stone, especially over the grave of children, with a garden running between. Most of these are now barren so it's always a treat to see new life sprouting from within.

http://i.imgur.com/uPPHx34.jpg
Two-year-old John R Hardenbergh was my May 3 "happy death day" sighting. The 1904 Corporate Directory linked below lists Thomas E Hardenbergh as the Secretary of the NJ Singer Manufacturing Company
https://books.google.com/books?id=IOU5AQAAMAAJ
https://www.loc.gov/item/nj0983/

http://i.imgur.com/09PMJQ5.jpg
Chatty and esoterically phrased writing on stones always catches my eye. Here's "Children Meet Me In Heaven" "Saved By Grace" and the particularly puzzling "Face To Face" for the Hunt family.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/89367144/john-wesley-hunt

http://i.imgur.com/cmC22VZ.jpg
A flower path up the stairs to Schults... and dig the funky typeface on the family name!

http://i.imgur.com/r7Z7Azs.jpg
The inset stone here does fade against the white background but it has been restored as of 2012 and still lovingly describes the outlines of Isabelle Georgia's beautiful cameo. The inscription below reads "Adored By All Who Knew Her"

http://i.imgur.com/bDqrb2M.jpg
Not pictured: Hufflepuff across the way.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/13-hours-22-bodies-long-lonesome-shift-crematory-worker-heat-n1186981

was walking up a hill at the front gate and saw the smoke coming up and recognized what I was seeing and there's a moment

some real pressure points from that link

Padilla began working at Green-Wood three years after the 9/11 attacks. He started as a part-time landscaper, but three years later, in 2007, a full-time job opened up. To land it, Padilla had to complete a 40-day trial that culminated in a unique test given to all prospective Green-Wood employees: dig a full-size grave by himself in under four hours.

“I dug the hole, and I cried the minute I was done, like a little baby,” said Padilla, who was then 27. “It was a major accomplishment for myself.”

“I love coming here every day, even with everything that’s happening,” Padilla said. “Have you seen this place?” he said when asked why. “How beautiful it is?”

Padilla said the crisis hit him especially hard one day last week when he noticed two sets of remains came in the same day, a man and woman with the same last name. Padilla said it appeared they were a husband and wife who both died from COVID-19, apparently within hours of each other.

Padilla drove toward the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and headed east, nodding his head to tracks from the late rapper Pop Smoke. He soon pulled up outside his home in Middle Village, Queens, where he lives with his girlfriend.

It was nearing 10 p.m. Padilla knew there were about two dozen sets of remains waiting for him when he showed up at work the next morning. Thursday was the first day of his work week. He had six more days ahead of him. But he wasn’t thinking about that now. He was exhausted and just wanted to take a shower. Padilla walked into his bedroom and kicked off his shoes, but he never made it to the shower. He lay down in his bed, still fully dressed, and drifted off into a deep sleep.

Speaking of Pop Smoke, I kept running into groups of kids in hoodies in the same section of the cemetery and couldn't figure out why... that's hardly a regular occurrence. A bit of research revealed he was buried in one of the new sections of the cemetery and they must be paying respects. I'll try to find and get a photo next time I'm in there.

I have a few hundred more pictures from the past two weeks but it takes time to upload and curate and read up on the histories... anybody care?

I like looking and reading the histories (if they're short). But it's on your time, so do what you will.

Experimental/Broadway composer/singer/songwriter Gelsey Bell just released a music-infused walking tour of Green-Wood; I'm a fan of her work and figure this is worth $7 for either a virtual exploration or an in-person one if you're nearby enough to do it there. I'll test drive afore too long.
https://gelseybell.bandcamp.com/album/cairns

took a walk out there to get my head together and found an all-time champion.

Ladies, gentlemen, intersex and non-binary: allow me to introduce you to... Mother Puttfarcken

http://i.imgur.com/X8XZByf.jpg

It wasn't particularly close given the sheer quality of "Mother Puttfarcken" but second place name of the walk went to the under-any-other-circumstances strong contender: Sister Eunice Dibble Rehorn
http://i.imgur.com/IEtZqYa.jpg

Bronze goes to Flossey M. Sullivan, "A bud on earth to bloom in Heaven."
http://i.imgur.com/TNVY6Fz.jpg

Epitaph weirdo of the day is this line for two-year old baby Clydie: "Who plucked that flower? THE MASTER!"
http://i.imgur.com/vPmMu2I.jpg

Second place:
http://i.imgur.com/OZ8vKns.jpg

Kinda love these two.
http://i.imgur.com/eWWblBA.jpg

I needed these, thank u forks

i'm glad! i wish you'd come out sometime.