Benjamin Feldman is one of Green-Wood’s most ardent enthusiasts. For many years, Ben spent a good deal of his free time cataloguing Green-Wood’s collections. Inspired by Green-Wood stories, he wrote Butchery on Bond Street: Sexual Politics and The Burdell-Cunningham Case in Antebellum New York (2007) (the story of the Dr. Harvey Burdell and Emma Cunningham, the woman who stood trial for his 1857 murder, but was acquitted). Both Burdell and Cunningham are interred at Green-Wood; he is in section 44, lot 3799; she in section 121, lot 12275. In 2009, Ben wrote Call Me Daddy: Babes and Bathos in Edward West Browning’s Jazz-Age New York (in 1934, “Daddy” Browning was interred in section 163, lot 21285). And, in 2014, Ben penned East in Eden: William Niblo and His Pleasure Garden of Yore. Niblo rests in an elaborate mausoleum on Green-Wood’s Crescent Water, section 26, lot 6618. To this day, marble lions greet Mr. Niblo’s visitors. Ben describes himself as “New York-based author, historian, raconteur, flâneur.” He blogs regularly as “The New York Wanderer.”
This is Virginia Penny:
She, like so many of the individuals who fascinate Ben, is interred at Green-Wood; she is in section 128, lot 31262, grave 90–a single grave in a public lot with this modest gravestone:
Enjoy Ben’s latest–it is a fascinating read.