The Woodlawn Cemetery is a cemetery in the north of the district Bronx in New York City . With an area of over 160 hectares and around 300,000 graves, it is one of the largest cemeteries in the city.
The park-like facility in the Bronx River Valley was designed by the architect James C. Sidney and opened as a cemetery in 1863 after burials had become fashionable among the urban population in rural areas outside the city limits. A secondary function as a recreational park was planned from the start. In 1776, George Washington had a redoubt built against the advancing British troops on what would later be the cemetery grounds, which is now located at the south end of the cemetery.
Three quarters of the site consisted of arable land until the 19th century, the rest was forested. Sidney designed a sprawling park cemetery with hills, wooded sections, a lake and a ramified network of paths, the largest of which are now accessible by car. The design should correspond to the romantic ideal of naturalness. The surrounding area was not built up at the time, but it was easily accessible from Manhattan . Today the Bronx connects directly to the south with the cemetery, which closes the New York metropolitan area to the north.
Soon after its opening, Woodlawn Cemetery became one of the most prestigious burial sites in the city. Many famous personalities from politics, business and art are buried there, including the writer Herman Melville , the jazz musician Miles Davis and the entrepreneur Winfield Woolworth . Wealthy families had large mausoleums built for themselves , often in the neoclassical style.
↑ Eric Homberger: New York. A Cultural and Literary Companion . Signal Books, Oxford 2002, ISBN 1-902669-42-8 , pp. 141ff.
↑ Marina Harrison, Lucy D. Rosenfeld: Artwalks in New York. Delightful discoveries of publicart and gardens in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens The Bronx and Staten Island . New York University Press, New York 2004, ISBN 0-8147-3661-0 , pp. 156f.
