Gardens of Stone --- A Cemetery Blog by Alexandra Kathryn Mosca

Yesterday, I attended a wonderful lecture about Louis Comfort Tiffany at the Cold Spring Harbor Library in Long Island. Although I researched Louis Comfort and his father, Charles Lewis, the famed jeweler, I learned a number of things about the family and took a new look at their modest gravestones in Green-Wood Cemetery. It seems that Louis C. Tiffany was quite the party animal, throwing lavish parties—sometimes for 1,000 people—-at Laurelton Hall, his 100-room estate set on 580 acres in Oyster Bay, LI. The invitations were proffered by scrolls, often written in hieroglyphics, and guests were—-more often than not—-requested to attend in costume. Louis Comfort Tiffany died in 1933, but Laurelton Hall lived on, serving as a haven for artists per Tiffany’s wishes. Sadly, in 1957, the mansion burned down in a mysterious fire, the origin of which has never been discovered. Much of the contents of Tiffany’s home were destroyed. One of these, (seen above) was Tiffany's prized work ...

Johnny Torrio, who was once considered to be America's top public enemy, died in 1957. However, his death went largely unnoticed by the media and the public. Torrio suffered a heart attack while sitting in a barber's chair on April 15th and later died in Brooklyn's now-defunct Cumberland Hospital.   It wasn't until three weeks after his death that a small news item was published in the New York Times, referring to Torrio as "the man who put Al Capone in business." Later that year, Albert Anastasia, a rival mobster, was also killed while getting a shave in a barber's chair.