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

Composer and conductor extraordinaire, Marvin Hamlisch, wrote the award-winning  What I Did For Love for the musical  "A Chorus Line."  It is a fitting inscription on Hamlisch's memorial in Mt. Zion Cemetery.  His funeral in Manhattan's Temple Emanu-El was a  glorious celebration of  his myriad contributions to the entertainment world.

Among the 50,000 + people buried in Mt. Ararat in Lindenhurst, New York, are some of Long Island’s most recognizable names. Foremost among them is Fortunoff. In 1922, Max and Clara Fortunoff began the popular retail store in Brooklyn moving   to Westbury in 1964. What became a shopping mecca for Long Islanders closed in 2009. Max Fortunoff died in 1987, at the age of 89. He is buried with his wife, Clara, daughter Marjorie Mayrock, who preceded him in death, and a number of other family members. The Fotunoff/Mayrock plot is located under a towering oak tree, on a shady corner, at the far end of the cemetery. His footstone reads: He Lived the American Dream .

This cast iron bear marks the grave of artist William Holbrook Beard who was known for his depiction of human-like animals. Bears were particular favorites of his. His work can be seen in the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the New-York Historical Society, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. One of his most famous paintings was "Bulls and Bears in the Market in 1879. The work was a satirical rendition of the behavior of investors.  Beard was buried in Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery in 1900. But f or more than a hundred years, Beard's burial site remained unmarked. However, the cemetery decided to intervene and contacted Alexander Acevedo, a NYC art gallery owner who had previously exhibited Beard's work., To raise funds for a memorial, Acevedo appealed to donors, and Colorado sculptor Dan Ostermiller responded with a sculpture of a bear sitting on a headstone.

Finally got the chance to tour two of Washington DC's standout cemeteries: Oak Hill and Congressional. So many monuments caught my attention, some for the notable person buried below, some for the architecture, and others for the inscription. This one, with its powerful and poignant message, is a case in point.

The prominent location of former Washington Post editor Benjamin Bradlee's mausoleum, in Georgetown's Oak Hill Cemetery, was the subject of heated debate. A DC advocacy group contended that the mausoleum "threatened the cemetery's historic entranceway" and they tried to stop construction. After their initial resistance, the city, along with the cemetery's support, permitted the project to go forward. Katharine Graham, the newspaper's former publisher, and Bradlee's friend and former boss, is buried not far from the neo-classical structure. 

Little has been written about Long Island's many historically rich cemeteries. So, I was most pleased to write about ten of them for Newsday . My story is the cover for today's Long Island Life section. The history of us: Tombstone tourism connects visitors to Long Island's past

  Alvah Davison was president of the Davison Publishing Company, a firm which published textile blue books. A Brooklyn resident, he was a regular contributor to various charities. Crafted by Valhalla's renowned Presbrey-Leland monument company, Davison's memorial contains a center sarcophagus with room for two entombments. Surrounded by circular colonnades, in the Greek Doric style, the structure's base is supported by three steps.

 Green-Wood Cemetery continues to be a treasure trove for story ideas. My latest is in this month's American Cemetery & Cremation magazine. Even though all four of the monuments featured in the article appear in my cemetery books, I've since learned even more about them, and their back stories. 

Way back when, the first significant monument I was introduced to at Green-Wood was the "bride." So significant was this that I noted it in my first book Grave Undertakings.  Naturally, I included this monument in my second book, Green-Wood Cemetery. Since that time, I've learned more about the sad backstory behind the striking statuary. The young woman was indeed a bride who died from a cerebral hemorrhage on her honeymoon, just days after her wedding. The statue was commissioned by her father, who wanted the memorial to be a carbon copy of how his daughter looked on her wedding day. The artisans worked from photographs from the famed Marcy studios. For two years, the statue was a work in progress; sketches were done before it was sent to Italy to be carved. Here is one of the early sketches.

Edward I. Koch, New York City's beloved mayor (and my favorite) died six years ago today. It was a privilege to attend his funeral, and write about it for 'American Funeral Director.' Of the thousands of funerals I've been at over the years, Mayor Koch's remains my favorite. It incorporated all the elements of a good funeral, and the memory of his casket being shouldered out of Temple Emanu-El to the tune of New York New York is indelible. Mayor Koch is buried in Trinity Cemetery (uptown).