Horace Greeley’s Grave/Goose in Grass (Green-Wood Cemetery: Part 3)

Horace Greeley (1811 – 1872) was a famous newspaper editor and politician, best known for saying, “Go west young man.” The monument, though ravaged by black streaks and time, is still etched with that look of resolve Victorian gentlemen favored in their personal statuary (apparent throughout Green-Wood Cemetery).

Greeley’s Grave in Green-Wood is located at one of the cemetery’s highest points, overlooking Bush Terminal (Pictures . . . History . . . More on BSB: No. 1 . . . No. 2).

Go North Young Man: A groundskeeper grooms the majestic burial site

Serene Nature (Seamless Adaptation): Goose in the grass, at the foot of a family plot, paying homage to the clan

(Green-Wood Cemetery: Part 1 . . . Part 2)

Hello from Green-Wood Cemetery (Part 2)

Here comes the bride

My grave’s cooler than your grave

Here lies Boss Tweed

What next, touchscreen tombstones? (“Press here for auto-eulogy")

Let’s have some people over for drinks (tell them to bring flowers)

Tranquility Gardens (exterior)

Tranquility Gardens (interior)

The Chapel

Rules is rules

The Catacombs (interior)

The Catacombs (exterior)

View of the Jackie Gleason Bus Depot on 5th Ave.

Hello from Green-Wood (Part 1)

Hello from Green-Wood Cemetery (Part 1)

Portentousness, setting, and fate converge, absorbing all mundane details: this pine cone beside this mausoleum at this intersection of Orchard Path and Hemlock Avenue will signal my way . . . It’s a landscape oddly lacking in humility—such rampant triumphalism even in death: the Greek goddess headstone pointing upward, the massive, bludgeon-like crosses and smug affirmations of faith’s promised rewards. The sound of whistling past the graveyard is almost deafening inside.


See that my grave is kept clean.


The Primrose Path leads to numbered lots and this morbid topiary—so beautiful (“life-affirming”?)—is a fragrant canopy over a field of bones and rotting flesh. The effort to create a “resting place” that transcends the temporal world while encompassing said world has produced something astounding. Maybe that’s the ultimate meaning of Green-Wood for we the living.





“Hello from Green-Wood (Part 2)”

Condos on the Highway, Next to the Cemetery

How’s this for a killer idea: condos on the highway (more or less), next to the cemetery (the Hillside Mausoleum at Green-Wood)? The half-finished building in Windsor Terrace is laughably dubbed “The Simone”—a simulation of elegance in a place lacking same. “Who the hell would want to live there!?” I exclaimed aloud. Not that there’s anything wrong with living near a cemetery, as the picture below illustrates. But The Simone’s proximity to Green-Wood simply underscores the developer’s morbid take on the dictum “location, location, location.”