Calling all amateur arborists and horticultural hopefuls! Join Board Certified Master Arborist Kevin Wyatt and Green-Wood’s Curator of Plant Collections Joe Charap for this hands-on demonstration on how to effectively prune your trees and shrubs. A thoughtful and well executed pruning will keep your plants looking great and growing strong. You’ll practice using hand pruners, lopers, and pole pruners and learn the proper techniques behind sanitary, reduction, and developmental pruning. Participants will be working in Green-Wood on small trees and shrubs. Tools and protective equipment will be provided.

Join Thomas W. Gilbert, baseball historian and author, to celebrate his newly published book Playing First: Early Baseball Lives at Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery. Gilbert is an expert in baseball's 19th-century New York City and Brooklyn origins, and Green-Wood's history there is unmatched - an astounding number of early baseball innovators and players are interred at the cemetery. Playing First is the culmination of Gilbert's extensive research into the little known professional, political, and military lives of these baseball pioneers. In Green-Wood's Historic Chapel, Gilbert will reveal many fascinating stories included in his newly published book, including the truth about what actually killed famed baseball martyr James Creighton, and how a feud between baseball and cricket in early America changed Creighton's legacy forever. After the talk, Gilbert will sign books before leading a trolley tour of baseball pioneers with Green-Wood Historian Jeff Richman.

Explore the frenzied world of New York City news and media. This panel, featuring Untapped Cities founder Michelle Young, journalist and urban planner Julia Vitullo-Martin, and Brokelyn News Editor David Colon, will trace the early boom days of New York City newspapers to the current upheaval in media. In the 19th century, the pioneers of news and publishing loomed large in New York society, and they made their impact on the landscape, too, by building massive and imposing headquarters downtown. Many of these early players are now buried together at Green-Wood, including Horace Greeley, founder of the New York Tribune; James Harper, founder of Harper & Brothers; and Henry Raymond, founder of the New York Times. But the media world doesn’t stand still for long, and our panelists will detail the seismic shifts the industry has endured in the 20th and 21st centuries. Media has moved from downtown flagships, to uptown rented space, to bloggers working from their living rooms. Where will it go next? Young, Vitullo-Martin, and Colon will take a stab at answering that question. Following the talk, a trolley tour will visit the monuments of the great newspaper men of the 19th century.

Don’t miss one of Green-Wood’s most popular events! For one day only, we’re opening many of our most impressive and elaborate mausoleums for public perusal. Peek inside massive stone slabs and elaborate iron-wrought doors as you step inside stunning examples of Green-Wood’s distinct architecture. This self-guided tour will include the Egyptian Revival tomb of John Taylor Johnston, an early president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the ornamental Nichols mausoleum which served as a kind of hostel for Nichols friends and family; the imposing mausoleum of the Dewey’s, a family of early American settlers; and several more . At each stop, “house” docents will offer a glimpse into the lives of the personalities who now rest in these opulent structures. Bring your sneakers and walk the route, or use the Green-Wood trolley for “Hop on, hop off” service between each site. A handy map, provided at the main entrance, will show the locations of each open house.

Historian, author, and professor Edward T. O'Donnell speaks about his new book on the influential reformer Henry George and the tumultuous period in America known as the Gilded Age (1870-1900). As financial fortunes were soaring ever-higher for a small portion of society, Henry George emerged in the 1880s as a prominent reformer warning against the threats of increasing wealth disparity, inequality, and corporate influence in politics. He played a key role in popularizing some of the foundational ideas of progressivism that shaped U.S. social and economic policy in the 20th century. Today, George’s philosophy is more relevant than ever as America confronts similar questions about poverty, inequality, and corporate power in what some have called a Second Gilded Age. After O’Donnell’s enlightening discussion, take a trolley ride through Green-Wood to visit the monuments of Henry George and other influential reformers.