cemetery mary statue moves massachusetts

Some people lucky enough to own plots in New York City are selling them on Craigslist. Plot prices are rising and in-ground burials at certain cemeteries, such as Trinity Cemetery in Manhattan, are no longer allowed. Indeed, nearly every cemetery in New York City suffers from the problem of decreasing space for a number of dead thatwill continue to rise relentlessly. What he did not say was that the cost of a single grave plot in Green-Wood starts at $19,000. Richman said there was no limit to what the cemetery could do, whether by rearranging the grounds to make space for new arrivals or by talking with developers and trustees to rearrange the cemetery’s vision to cater to new customers. “An eternal rest in which they intended to occupy the same kind of space they demanded in life.”.

According to the article, the cemetery was going to run out of space any day. After covering various old paths or roads with new bodies, he laboured over old maps, trying to find small spaces where new plots could be dug.

In a 2009 New York Times article, the cemetery’s researcher Kestutis Demereckas told writer Michael Wilson how he found space for new graves at Green-Wood. It looked too planned, like a new concrete condo in Brooklyn on a block of old brownstones.

But, if you looked closer, you could see there used to be a road where these grave markers now stood. “But how sweet and peaceful will be their slumbers!” he wrote, “How calmly will they rest in their silent mansions, till the night, the moonless night of death is passed.”ĭuring the tour, we passed Lot 44606, a benign stretch of ground dotted with burial markers. Walt Whitman, reporting for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, toured Green-Wood and remarked on its beauty. Photograph: Mary Altaffer/APĪt the time, it might not have seemed like a problem. Death for New York’s richest came at a high price – in terms of both money and space.īrooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery was founded in 1838 and is now running out of space for burials. Tombs became like houses, with wrought-iron fences and benches set in small gardens. It is redolent of wealth.Long-dead New Yorkers plotted an eternal rest in which they intended to occupy the same kind of space they demanded in life. Trees tower and curve and throw long spiralling shadows over tombs and headstones. I spent a few hours touring the grounds of Green-Wood with Jeff Richman, the cemetery’s historian. Soon, New York City – and Queens especially, where more than double the number of people who live above ground are buried below it – was home to many sprawling cemeteries. Green-Wood Cemetery was founded in New York City in 1838, and in 1847, New York state passed the Rural Cemetery Act, which allowed churches and other entities to buy up tax-exempt land. Though Mount Auburn owed a debt to European cemeteries built with similar intent, it was the first of its kind in the US, and soon a rural and garden cemetery movement took hold.

Cemetery mary statue moves massachusetts