Post by Joanna on Jul 31, 2014 1:39:10 GMT -5
America's Three Most Scenic Cemeteries
I love cemeteries. That doesn’t surprise most people. Because I’m a crime novelist, they expect me to peer into the dark, shivery corners everyone else avoids. But the reasons I love graveyards have little to do with the spooky. To me, they’re beautiful green spaces and open-air art museums. While there are two famous American cemeteries that rate as tourist attractions in their own right – Arlington and Gettysburg – there are others that deserve to be better known. Here are my favorite final resting places in the United States. They should be on every traveler’s list of things to see before they ... you know.
Green-Wood Cemetery (New York City). Close your eyes and imagine 478 acres of rolling hills (above), complete with several ponds, a lake, a glorious view of the Statue of Liberty and thousands of historic monuments. Throw in a chapel that’s modeled on Christopher Wren’s Thomas Tower at Oxford’s Christ Church College, and you’ve got Brooklyn’s spectacular Green-Wood. The cemetery took a beating from Hurricane Sandy, losing some 300 mature trees, but the grand mausoleums and monuments are still in place. This 1838 cemetery boasts National Historic Landmark status, in part because it’s where the Battle of Long Island was fought in 1776. But it’s just as significant to bird-watchers, and it’s a member of the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary System. Green-Wood offers a variety of ticketed tours that take you around its expansive grounds by trolley or into its catacombs by flashlight, but visitors are welcome to walk the grounds daily.
Granary Burying Ground (Boston). A sign at the entrance to the Granary Burying Ground claims that “Famous, infamous and unknown Bostonians are buried here.” This small cemetery on Tremont Street, founded in 1660, holds many Revolutionary War heroes, including Paul Revere, John Hancock, Samuel Adams and James Otis. One of the grandest monuments belongs to Benjamin Franklin’s family (though Ben himself rests in Philadelphia). One of the more infamous residents is Samuel Sewall, a magistrate who presided over the Salem witch trials. Almost every headstone is eye-catching in its own right, with elaborate carvings of skeletons sporting scythes, winged skulls, sly-looking cherubs, and other symbols of mourning, as well as poetic epitaphs. The towering Egyptian Revival gate that marks the entryway is a work of art in its own right. Open daily, the Granary Burying Ground has excellent signage to point out the most famous – and infamous – graves.
St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 (New Orleans). New Orleans never had an easy time burying people – with its water table, they could get unburied when it rained. So they devised a city of the dead with above-ground tombs and opened St. Louis No. 1 in 1789. Its whitewashed crypts, some topped with mournful statues and surrounded by wrought-iron gates, have a ghostly beauty that has been captured on film, most famously in “Easy Rider.” The cemetery, as racially diverse as New Orleans itself, is a stop on the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail, and while it’s primarily a Catholic burial place, it has a section for others, too. One of its most famous residents may be the 19th-century voodoo priestess Marie Laveau, whose remains are believed to be in the Glapion tomb, and occult offerings are left there in her honor. Guided tours are available through Save Our Cemeteries, but visitors are welcome to wander through every day except Mardi Gras.
Source: Hilary Davidson, CNN.