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

The grave of Leonard Bernstein is one of the most visited in Green-Wood Cemetery.

  In mid June, I spent an enjoyable afternoon giving friends a long-awaited tour of Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery. With so much to see, I did my best to hit the high points: DeWitt Clinton, Leonard Bernstein, Elias Howe and his dog Fannie, Henry Steinway, Civil War Soldiers' Monument, VanNess-Parsons....and many more. We drove to some sites and walked to others (lots of Fitbit steps for me) stopping to get a closer look at random monuments, and to read a number of poignant inscriptions. Over the years, I've traversed Green-Wood's 478 acres countless times, researching my book about the cemetery, giving public and private tours, as well as serving in my capacity as a funeral director. Yet, each and every time, I make a new find or learn of one before my visit that I must see. The Badger monument was one such grave site.   On Christmas Eve, in 2011, hearts broke across the country as we watched the awful news about a  Connecticut house fire  which claimed the liv...

  Graves of both survivors and casualties of the tragic 1912 sinking of the Titanic can be seen in a number of New York Cemeteries. Woodlawn in the Bronx and Green-Wood in Brooklyn contain the most. The grave of William Augustus Spencer is one of them. Buried beneath a slab that notes he: "Bravely Met Death At Sea," his grave is one of a number of family graves arrayed around a central family m onument. Over in Woodlawn Cemetery, the first grave I wanted to see was Archibald Gracie's. Known as a "Hero of the Titanic," Gracie was instrumental in helping other passengers into lifeboats, effectively saving their lives. The end result of my research was the April cover story for American Cemetery magazine.  

Green-Wood Cemetery's Stubenbord-Sutherland monument features a seated mourning figure holding a sprig of ivy. The granite monument is rose-colored and semi-circle in design.  The Sutherland family was active in Brooklyn politics, while the Stubenbords owned a popular Coney Island hotel. 

                                            In honor of opening day at Yankee Stadium. Alfred Manuel "Billy" Martin had a distinguished career in baseball. The second baseman for the Yankees was a contemporary of Jackie Robinson, Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford, and Yogi Berra, and later became the team's manager. In that role, he led the team to a number of victories. The outspoken Martin's public feuds, most notably with team owner, George Steinbrenner, were legendary. Martin was killed in a car accident on Christmas day in 1989. After a funeral Mass in St. Patrick's Cathedral, attended by many former teammates, he was buried in New York's Gate of Heaven Cemetery, nearby the grave of Babe Ruth. These words are etched upon his monument: "I may not have been the greatest Yankee to put on the uniform, but I was the proudest.

Archibald Gracie IV was instrumental in saving the lives of a number of fellow RMS Titanic passengers. Gracie, too, survived and began work on a book about that tragic night. Sadly, Gracie died eight months later from the effects of his ordeal in the sea. His book, titled "Titanic: A Survivor's Story" was published posthumously. Gracie is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, surrounded by many family graves. The Gracie ancestral home serves as the New York City mayoral residence.

The closing words to The Great Gatsby are etched into the slab in front of the monument. Despite the disappointing initial sales of the book, Max Perkins (Fitzgerald's editor at Scribner) wrote him: "The amount of meaning you get into a sentence, the dimension and intensity of the impressions you make a paragraph carry, are most extraordinary."

One of my favorite monuments in Calvary Cemetery is that of 25-year-old Rose, who died in 1927.

  A cenotaph in Staten island's Moravian Cemetery memorializes Eberhard Faber. Although Faber is buried in Brooklyn's Green-Wood, graves of many of Faber's family members, including his brother and his sons, are here. Faber was born into a family making pencils since 1761. In 1848, he moved to New York City, where he opened his first pencil factory on 42nd Street near the East River. Unfortunately, the factory was destroyed in a fire in 1872. The businessman built a larger factory in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. He was the first pencil manufacturer to put rubber erasers on his pencils. Although there is a cenotaph monument in his memory, his burial place is at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.

In the 1980s, Anthony "Fat Tony" Salerno was the boss of the Genovese crime family.He died in prison, in 1992, six years into a life sentence. Salerno is entombed in a private mausoleum in St. Raymond's Cemetery.  

    The parents of famed film director Martin Scorsese, whose hit films include Goodfellas and Gangs of New York, are entombed in a private mausoleum in Staten Island's Moravian Cemetery. Both parents, Catherine and Charles, had small roles in Goodfellas.   

Lawrence Peter "Yogi" Berra had a successful career in Major League Baseball for 19 years. He played mostly for the Yankees but also briefly for the Mets. In addition to playing, Berra also coached and managed both teams. He is considered one of the greatest catchers in baseball history and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972. Berra died at the age of 90 and was laid to rest at the Gate of Heaven Cemetery in New Jersey.

May Singhi Breen was known as the “The Ukulele Lady.” For three decades --the 1920s to the 1950s -- she wrote ukulele arrangements for piano sheet music. And in 1931, she was responsible for the ukulele being included in the New York Musicians’ list of musical instruments. Singhi-Breen was inducted in the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum (yes, there is one) in 2000. She was married to composer Peter DeRose a pianist and composer, with whom she often collaborated.  

Designer Vera Wang's family rests in style in Westchester County's Kensico Cemetery.   The  Wang family memorial overlooks the Cohasset Plot, a seven acre hillside expanse which contains an abundance of decorative laser-etched monuments bearing Asian surnames. At dusk the ivory granite structure takes on a greyish hue.

J ohn L. Goldwater, the creator of Archie Comics, is buried beneath in Kensico Cemetery. His 2019 New York Times obituary noted that "He is survived by Archie, Jughead, Betty and Veronica in Riverdale, U.S.A."

The Mercedes-Benz monument which marks the gravesite of Ray Tse is not to be missed.

The gravesite of journalist Henry Villard is a perennial favorite for Sleepy Hollow visitors. It looks all the more vivid in the late afternoon light, surrounded by foliage. A brief biography of Villard, who served as a Civil War correspondent, can be found on the rear of the monument.

Frank Vance Storrs created Playbill, much to the appreciation of theater-goers everywhere. His whimsical monument in Valhalla's Kensico Cemetery reads: Life is a Book-A Different Page is Turned Each Day-The Happiness of the Next None Dare Say.

Along with partner Edmund Teller, German-born Paul Bonwit established Bonwit Teller on Manhattan's tony 5th Avenue. Bonwit Teller was noted for its fashion conscious female clientele, and had branches in Southhampton, Palm Beach and Bar Harbor. When Bonwit died in 1939, hundreds of friends and business associates attended his funeral service in temple Emanu-El where Rev. Dr. Nathan A Perilman spoke of Bonwit's leadership role in American retailing and his philantrophy. Bonwit is entombed in the family mausoleum in Valhalla New York's Kensico Cemetery. Today, Trump Tower stands on the site of the former Bonwit Teller building .

Producer and promoter, Sidney Simcha Bernstein, helped bring the Beatles to America. Sid Bernstein, Who Helped Import the Beatles, Dies at 95 .