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

Over the weekend, Green-Wood Cemetery participated in openhousenewyork (sic). One of the highlights this year was the rare opportunity to see inside some of Green-Wood's most famous mausoleums. Had a fabulous day doing just that under yesterday's picture perfect sky. The Steinway Mausoleum --which houses the remains of Henry Steinway, the piano maker, and many of his family members--is the largest in the cemetery.

When French-born New Yorker Louis Bonard died in February of 1871, he left his entire estate --valued at $250,000 --to ASPCA founder Henry Bergh. Bonard, an animal lover, wanted Bergh to use the money to continue his good work. This will was contested, unsuccessfully, by siblings of Bonard --siblings he had been estranged from for many ears --on the grounds that Bonard was insane given his belief in metempsychosis (reincarnation). During the proceedings in Surrogate Court, several witnesses were called, including a physician and several acquaintances of Bonard’s. One of these acquaintances testified that Bonard believed that after death, “the soul passed into the body of some animal.”  On May 16, 1871, Bonard’s body was removed from a receiving vault at Green-Wood Cemetery and buried in a plot near the cemetery’s main entrance. Bonard’s monument was paid for out of estate funds, overseen by Henry Bergh, and cost $600.00.

Cypress Hills Military Cemetery was formed during the Civil War and is located within Brooklyn’s Cypress Hills Cemetery. At the time, approximately three acres were allotted for the burial of the Civil War dead in what was called Union Grounds. After the war, in 1870, Cypress Hills Cemetery deeded the property to the United States for $9,600. By that time, 3,170 Union soldiers and 461 Confederate POWs had been buried there. Before 1873, only U.S. soldiers who died as a result of injury or disease during the Civil War were eligible for burial in a national cemetery. But that year, eligibility was extended to honorably discharged veterans who served during the war, making more space necessary. In 1884, 15 additional acres were purchased. Today, the cemetery’s 18 acres contain not only veterans of the Civil War but those of the Vietnam and Korean Wars, as well as the American Revolution and Spanish-American War. Cypress Hills National Cemetery has long been closed to new interments but a...

I am looking forward to next Sunday's  trolley tour at Green-Wood Cemetery. If you are interested in attending, there may still be some tickets left. You can register through the link below: http://www.green-wood.com/event/1-p-m-images-of-america-green-wood-cemetery-trolley-tour/

  Founded in Brooklyn, in 1865, Abraham and Straus was one of the most popular department stores in New York. Boasting over a dozen locations,  A & S (as it was commonly called) became synonymous with elegance and style. Company co-founder Abraham Abraham died in 1911, and his funeral was emblematic of the esteem in which he was held. On that day, all   A & S and Macy’s (owned by his business partners Isidor and Nathan Straus) locations were closed. Fifty honorary pallbearers, which included the Straus brothers, former Brooklyn Mayor Charles Schieren and New York City Mayor Jay Gaynor, accompanied Abraham's casket into the synagogue. It was Mayor Gaynor, a close friend of Abraham's, who also gave the eulogy. “ I never knew a more just and equitable man than Abraham Abraham,” Gaynor told the congregation.  Abraham is entombed in Salem Fields Cemetery within a stately mausoleum.

At the 1972 funeral of Jackie Robinson, 2,500 people packed Riverside Church in New York City. New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, NY City Mayor John Lindsay, Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn and NAACP Executive Director Roy Wilkins were just a few of the dignitaries to join family and friends in saying good-bye to the baseball legend. Rev. Jesse Jackson told the 2,500 strong throng that “The body corrodes and fades away, but the deeds live on.” Indeed, the legacy of Robinson, the first African-American to play in Major League Baseball, has never left us. The Georgia-born Robinson was a member of the Negro League when he was recruited by Dodgers VP, Branch Rickey, to help integrate the game of baseball. After playing a few seasons for the Dodgers farm team, Robinson made history on April 15, 1947, when he played his first game for the Brooklyn Dodgers in Ebbets Field. That same year he was named the National League Rookie of the Year and, in 1949, he was its MVP. With Robinson ...

At the age of 22, George Ehret left Germany to join his father --a brewer --in New York. Within ten years --in 1866-- he established the Hell Gate Brewery, named for its location near Hell's Gate on the East River in Manhattan. For a good part of the late 19th Century, Hell Gate Brewery was the country’s largest brewer, rivaling Anheuser-Busch Pabst and Schlitz. Ehret chronicled his success in a book he published in 1891: Twenty-Five Years of Brewing with an Illustrated History of American Beer. In addition to the brewery, Ehret amassed substantial real estate holdings in New York City, many of which were rental properties. As both a boss and landlord, Ehret was benevolent. Perhaps his kindness and philanthropic ways were part of the reason that more than 2000 people--–including the German Ambassador--attended his funeral mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in January of 1927, when he died at the age of 92. Ehret was entombed in the family mausoleum in Woodlawn Cemetery, joining...

Jazz legend and New Orleans native Louis Armstrong died in his sleep on July 6, 1971, in the Corona, NY, home where he had lived since 1943. The next day, a visitation was held in a local funeral home. Meant to be private, the name of the funeral home was withheld from the press, but neighbors quickly figured it out and soon gathered outside. A day later, a public visitation occurred from 10 A.M. until 10 P.M. at the Seventh Regiment Armory at Park and 66th Street in Manhattan. It was estimated that 25,000 people filed past Armstrong's open casket to pay their final respects. Dressed in a navy-blue suit, pink shirt, and pink and silver tie, Armstrong reposed in a steel grey casket with a white velvet interior under the grand, wooden staircase in the armory's front hall, filled with floral tributes. Armstrong's religious service took place at the Corona Congressional Church the following afternoon. Among the five hundred mourners who packed into the small brick church, four ...

Arlington National Cemetery's Tomb of the Unknowns-- commonly called The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier --is perched high atop a hill, affording a spectacular view of Washington, DC. Since the 1921 burial of an unidentified WWI veteran, three more veterans --from WWI, Korea, and Vietnam--have been entombed. The sarcophagus, in the shape of a tomb, is constructed of white marble and sports columns in the corners. The east panel, which faces Washington, DC, features three Greek figures representing Peace, Victory, and Valor. The Tomb of the Unknowns is guarded around the clock every day of the year by Tomb Guard sentinels, who are all volunteers from the elite 3rd U.S. Infantry. From the beginning of October to the end of March, the guard is changed each hour in an impressive ceremony. In the warmer weather -April through September—that change occurs every half-hour.

Frank Costello, born Francesco Castiglia, was luckier than most of his mob cronies --he died a natural death at the age of 82. Having survived a 1957 murder attempt by Vincent Gigante-- a low-level criminal at the time—Costello later refused to identify Gigante as the shooter. Nicknamed the "Prime Minister of the Underworld," Costello was a Mafia leader who wanted to be accepted as a businessman and member of the establishment. Unlike most of his peers, Costello was said to eschew violence. He cultivated refinement and sought out sophisticated friends among New York's established bigwigs and politicians. These men curried his favors to such an extent that the underworld grapevine claimed, "Nobody in New York City can be made a judge without Costello's consent." During the mid-fifties Kefauver hearings on organized crime, Costello was front and center. At least his hands were, as the networks agreed not to broadcast his face. When the committee asked what he ...