Green-Wood Cemetery

Green-Wood Cemetery was founded in 1838 as a rural cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, several blocks west of Prospect Park. In the New York Times it was said to be the "ambition of the New Yorker to live upon the Fifth Avenue, to take his airings in the Central Park, and to sleep with his fathers in Green-Wood". Inspired by Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where a cemetery in a naturalistic park-like landscape in the English manner was first established, Green-Wood was able to take advantage of the varied topography provided by glacial moraines. The cemetery was the idea of Henry Evelyn Pierrepoint, a Brooklyn social leader. It was a popular tourist attraction in the 1850s and was the place most famous New Yorkers who died during the second half of the nineteenth century were buried. It is still an operating cemetery with approximately 600,000 graves. The rolling hills and dales, several ponds and an on-site chapel provide an environment that still draws visitors. On weekends cars are allowed on cemetery grounds. There are several famous monuments located there, including a statue of DeWitt Clinton and a Civil War Memorial. During the Civil War, Green-Wood Cemetery created the "Soldiers' Lot" for free veterans' burials.

Related Topics:
1838 - Brooklyn, New York - Prospect Park - New York Times - Fifth Avenue - Central Park - Mount Auburn Cemetery - Cambridge, Massachusetts - Glacial moraine - 1850s - DeWitt Clinton

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