478 acres of Victorian garden cemetery that was the second most visited attraction in America after Niagara Falls in the 1860s. Free, and a flock of green parakeets lives on the gate.
Why a cemetery was a tourist attraction
Green-Wood opened in 1838, before any public park existed in New York. It was a rural cemetery in the new fashion — landscaped hills, ponds, winding carriage drives, planted like an English park — and New Yorkers, who had nowhere else green to go, treated it as one. By the 1860s it was drawing half a million visitors a year, second only to Niagara Falls among American attractions.
Its popularity is a direct cause of Central Park and Prospect Park existing. The argument that New York needed proper public parks was made explicitly by pointing at how many people were spending their Sundays in a graveyard in Brooklyn.
Who is in it
Around 570,000 people, including a remarkable concentration of nineteenth-century New York.
Leonard Bernstein, buried with a copy of Mahler’s Fifth on his chest. Jean-Michel Basquiat, whose grave is usually covered in offerings. Louis Comfort Tiffany, whose family mausoleum is unsurprisingly good. Samuel Morse. Horace Greeley. Boss Tweed. Elias Howe, who invented the sewing machine, buried with his dog. Charles Ebbets of Ebbets Field. Henry Chadwick, who invented the box score, under a monument with stone baseballs.
The Civil War Soldiers’ Monument on Battle Hill marks the highest natural point in Brooklyn, 216 feet, with a view over the harbour to Manhattan. The Battle of Long Island was fought across this ground in August 1776 and the Americans lost it.
The gate
Richard Upjohn’s brownstone Gothic gate at 25th Street is one of the great pieces of Gothic Revival in America. In the 1970s a flock of monk parakeets — escaped, or released from a broken crate at JFK, depending which version you believe — established themselves in the pinnacles and have nested there ever since. They are green, they are extremely noisy, and they survive Brooklyn winters without difficulty.
Visiting
Free, open daily, and it is enormous — 478 acres with twenty miles of paths. Get a map at the gate or you will get lost, which is not the worst outcome but does cost you an hour.
Guided trolley tours run at weekends, and the cemetery has a serious cultural programme: concerts in the catacombs, night tours, art installations and a good talks series. Those are ticketed.
Dogs are not allowed. Cycling is permitted on the roads.
More Other Places
Coney Island
A wooden roller coaster from 1927 that is a designated landmark and still runs, a boardwalk, a free beach and the hot dog contest. Forty minutes on the subway.
The Oculus
A four-billion-dollar train station shaped like a bird leaving a hand, which is either the most beautiful transit hall in America or the most expensive shopping mall. Free.
Bronx Zoo
265 acres, around 6,000 animals, and the zoo that led the shift from cages to habitats. Pay what you wish on Wednesdays.