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Of the more than half a million interred at Green-Wood Cemetery, few are remembered. Many died long ago, and their families and friends are long gone. So it is always comforting to learn of one person, here and there, who is remembered. Such an individual is William J. Florence (1831-1891), one of 19th century America’s great actors.
It was quite a day. The seventh annual, and final, performance of “Angels and Accordions,” choreographed by Martha Bowers of Dance Theatre Etc., and co-designed by Green-Wood Cemetery historian Jeff Richman, took place across the rolling Green-Wood hills on October 9.
It has been less than a week since about 50 gravestones at Green-Wood were vandalized. I was out on the grounds Friday morning. The damage is even more aggravating when examined closely. For instance, I knew that an small angel had had its head snapped off after being pushed off its base and crashing to … Read more
Cartoonist Vincent Musacchia, a lifelong Brooklynite, died last month and was inurned (his cremated body placed in an urn) at Green-Wood this past Tuesday. Vince had reported recently on a blog that, for the last three years, he had been “. . . freelancing. Working on Advertising, Comic Strips & Comic Book projects.” On October … Read more
Sometimes, as we peruse Green-Wood’s massive archives, with millions of documents chronicling the lives of the 574,000 souls who are interred here, something unusual catches one’s eye. So it was for volunteer Jim Lambert, who recently worked for months recording the information from Green-Wood’s chronological books pertaining to each of the 1400 individuals who are … Read more
Have you ever gone on an amusement park ride and screamed at the top of your lungs? If so, you owe a great big “thank you” to William F. Mangels. And Green-Wood and the Coney Island History Project will be thanking him in a few months–with a ground-breaking exhibition in our Historic Chapel: “William F. … Read more
Just last week, I met Melinda Hunt, the director of the Hart Island Project, which assists families and individuals who have loved ones interred at the Potter’s Field there. She had come to Green-Wood for a meeting. A descendant of Samuel Osgood, the first postmaster general of the United States after the Constitution was ratified, … Read more
July 19, 2009 By MICHAEL WILSON Kestutis Demereckas, a tall, broad son of Lithuania who favors classic white headstones over the shiny black ones, stood grinning over a coffin-size patch of grass in Green-Wood Cemetery that was marked with nothing at all. Below the grass, in a shady part of Section 79, near the center … Read more
Historic grave sites are crumbling at New York’s Green-Wood Cemetery — the resting place of Leonard Bernstein, Louis Tiffany and others — and the money to save them is scarce. It’s tough being an angel, even in as idyllic a setting as the Green-Wood Cemetery, where the leaves of shade trees rustle in the summer … Read more
One of the first monuments a visitor is likely to notice upon coming through Green-Wood’s landmarked brownstone Main Gates is the Brooklyn Theatre Fire Monument. It commemorates the tragedy of the evening of December 5, 1876, when 278 souls were lost after a crowded theatre in downtown Brooklyn caught fire and collapsed. That disaster marked … Read more
