Jeff Richman The Green-Wood Historic Fund continues to collect items that help us tell the stories of the cemetery’s history and its permanent residents. Just weeks ago, we were able to purchase four carte de visite photographs of members of the Smillie family. As you will read below, these were important purchases for our collections. Green-Wood was … Read more
By the 1850s, Green-Wood was the place for burials of New York City residents. The great heroes of that era were firemen–the Firemen’s Monument had been established at Green-Wood in 1848. We recently came across a full-page ad by American Antiques of Oxford, Maryland, in Maine Antique Digest, for a “Rare and Important New York … Read more
There is a lot going on across Green-Wood’s magnificent 478 acres. New trees are being planted. So, in April, Green-Wood staff was contacted by Bart Chezar, a Park Slope environmentalist who is active with the American Chestnut Foundation. Bart explained in an e-mail: In 2004, working with staff in Prospect Park, we planted several American … Read more
Everett Ortner, preservationist extraordinaire and friend of Green-Wood, died on May 22 at the age of 92 from complications from a fall. In 1963, Everett and his wife Evelyn purchased an 1886 brownstone at 272 Berkeley Place in Park Slope for $32,500. That purchase would change their lives. Park Slope, in the 1960s, was hardly … Read more
Yesterday, Green-Wood hosted its 14th Annual Free Memorial Day Concert. A big crowd turned out to enjoy the music of the Interschool Orchestras of New York (ISO) Symphonic Band, founded and conducted by Brian Worsdale. Maggie Worsdale was the special guest vocalist. It has become a tradition at Green-Wood: the concert music features pieces composed … Read more
Since soon after Green-Wood Cemetery’s founding in 1838, it has been a great sculpture garden. If you lived in mid-19th-century New York City or Brooklyn, and you wanted to see sculpture, you came to Green-Wood. There was virtually no other public sculpture at that time. The Metropolitan and Brooklyn Museums did not yet exist. No … Read more
Donna Summer, “The Queen of Disco,” died at the age of 63 this past Thursday. Here is her obituary in The New York Times. In a career that spanned decades, she had 14 Top Ten Singles, three double albums in a row that sold more than a million copies each, and won 4 Grammys (for … Read more
This past Saturday the General Meade Society of Philadelphia (“Preserving the Memory of the Victor of Gettysburg”) ventured up to Green-Wood for a Civil War tour. Here’s their website. And here’s the group: During the tour, I talked about Green-Wood’s Civil War Project, now in its 10th year. Since its inception, hundreds of volunteers have … Read more
I’ve been catching up on some e-mail this week and came across a link Ruth Edebohls (one of our great Historic Fund tour guides and a great fan of New York history) sent me to a Daily News story from January, 2012. It reports that a marker was unveiled in front of the home of Abigail … Read more
There he was, for almost a decade, the security guard at Green-Wood’s main gates. He was Edward Watters, a native of Belize. Edward always had a sharp salute for the American flag as he went through his late-day ritual of taking down the Stars and Stripes of his adopted country from the nearby flag pole. … Read more