Green-Wood Cemetery

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Green-Wood Cemetery

Green-Wood Cemetery is a cemetery in Brooklyn . It houses around 600,000 graves on 1.9 km² (478 acres).

The idea of ​​creating a cemetery on the highest point of Brooklyn came from city planner Henry Evelyn Pierrepont , who, together with other investors, bought the original 178 acres. The facility was designed as a park cemetery by the engineer and first president of the cemetery, David Bates Douglass , who furnished the park with lawns, hills, ponds and walking paths. Opened in 1838, the Green-Wood Cemetery soon became popular for excursions. With its breathtaking beauty, Greenwood has become the fashionable place to be buried. After 1860, Green-Wood drew 500,000 visitors a year, rivaling Niagara Falls as the country's largest tourist attraction. Crowds flocked to Green-Wood on family outings, carriage rides and “ sculpture viewing ”. But Green-Wood's popularity also helped inspire the need and creation of public parks, including New York Central Park and Prospect Park in Brooklyn.

The neo-Gothic style entrance gate was designed in the 1860s by the architect Richard Upjohn , who also designed other buildings in the cemetery. The Warren and Wetmore designed cemetery chapel was completed in 1911.

Green-Wood are mountains, valleys, ponds and paths in which one of the largest open-air collections of the 19th and 20th centuries of statues and mausoleums exists. The four seasons offer beauty under centuries-old trees and an oasis of calm for visitors. About 560,000 people are buried here, including personalities as diverse as B. Leonard Bernstein , William Magear ("Boss") Tweed , Claudio S. Grafulla , Charles Clyde Ebbets , Jean-Michel Basquiat , Louis Comfort Tiffany , Horace Greeley , Peter Cooper , Fred Ebb , Louis Moreau Gottschalk , Lola Montez and civil war Generals, baseball legends, politicians, artists, entertainers and inventors.

Everyone who represented something in New York in the 19th century wanted to be buried there. The New York Times put it in a nutshell in 1866: “It is the ambition of New Yorkers to live on Fifth Avenue, to take their walks in Central Park and to rest with their fathers in Green-Wood. "

A magnet for bird watchers, Greenwood is now a registered member of the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary System.

The Hezekiah Pierrepont Memorial by Richard Upjohn (2015)

The cemetery was listed as a Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places in March 1997 and declared a National Historic Landmark on September 20, 2006 .

The tomb of Charlotte Canda (1828–1845)

The tomb of Charlotte Canda in Green Wood Cemetery

Charlotte was born in New York on February 3, 1828, and was adopted by Charles and Adele Canda. She amazed everyone when she mastered five languages ​​by the age of 13 and was able to draw like Da Vinci. Her parents ran a “finishing school” on Lafayette Square and she was affectionately known in town as “the French girl”. She was popular everywhere and at 16 she had chosen a French nobleman to be her fiancé. In November 1844 her aunt Clemence died at the age of 26. Charlotte was heartbroken and in the midst of the Gothic style of Old St. Patrick Church , she got the inspiration to draw a fairy tale castle for Clemence. They hid the drawings in their drawing table.

On the evening of February 3, 1845, Charlotte's 17th birthday, a strong northeast wind was blowing, bringing sleet and hail with it. Still, Charlotte's friends came to her birthday party. At the end of the evening, she and her father took their friend home to Waverly Place. The driver threw the reins over the seat, stepped down, opened the carriage door, and had Mr. Canda escort the friend to the front door; meanwhile he stamped his feet and the horses shook their manes. Inexplicably, suddenly the horses shied and ran - Charlotte in the carriage and the door open. As they turned the corner, she was thrown from the carriage onto Broadway . She was brought in by witnesses from a nearby hotel, but she died shortly before midnight. The parents later found Charlotte's drawing of the fairytale castle that served as a model for their tomb.

It was built from white Carrara marble in the style of a tabernacle and executed by stonemasons John Frazee and Robert Launitz . It is decorated with 17 rose buds, flowers and musical instruments. A life-size statue of Canda in her birthday dress under a canopy dominates the tomb. When it was created, it was flanked by two angels.

A board reported the circumstances of her death.

Charles Albert Jarrett de la Marie, alleged to have been Charlotte's fiancé, committed suicide a year after her death and was buried near her.

literature

Web links

Commons : Green-Wood Cemetery  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Douglass Archives
  2. ^ History
  3. ^ Famous Residents
  4. ↑ Listing of National Historic Landmarks by State: New York. National Park Service , accessed October 24, 2019.
    Green-Wood Cemetery on the National Register Information System. National Park Service , accessed October 24, 2019.
  5. ^ The local "New York Times"

Coordinates: 40 ° 39 ′ 8 "  N , 73 ° 59 ′ 28"  W.