GREEN-WOOD CEMETERY | INDEX OF NAMES | INDEX OF SUBJECTS | CHAPTERS | AUTHOR'S NOTES

CHAPTER INTRODUCTIONS
Introduction
Chapter One: Welcome to Green-Wood Cemetery
Chapter Two: The Early Years (1838-1860)
Chapter Three: The Civil War Era (1861-1865)
Chapter Four: The Post-Civil War Period (1866-1875)

I have provided the full Introduction from the book below. Please follow the links in the chapter list to read introductory sentences from each of the sections in that chapter.

INTRODUCTION

Introduction Everybody loves a great story, and Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery has many of New York’s great stories to tell. Everyone who was anybody in nineteenth century New York wanted to be buried there, and they were. As The New York Times succinctly put it in 1866, "It is the ambition of the New Yorker to live upon Fifth Avenue, to take his airings in the [Central] Park, and to sleep with his fathers in Green-Wood." They came by the thousands and the hundreds of thousands, first as tourists, then as permanent residents: Civil War generals, murder victims, victims of mass tragedies, inventors, artists, the famous, and the infamous. And they have continued to come to Green-Wood for over a century and a half now, bringing their lively stories and dark secrets with them. This book, by telling those stories, resurrects a vital part of New York’s past.

Today, New Yorkers are close enough to nineteenth century New York to be enchanted by it. Every day they see street names, statues, and buildings that survive from that era. And New Yorkers are passionate about their history. Walt Whitman predicted more than a century ago that "there will come a time here in Brooklyn and all over America, when nothing will be of more interest than authentic reminiscences of the past." That time has come, and book-buyers have made best-sellers of many books about old New York, including such classics as Time and Again, The Great Bridge, and When Brooklyn Was the World, and the more recent Low Life, The Alienist, and The Waterworks.

No place today has a greater connection to, and more to say about, nineteenth century New York than Green-Wood Cemetery. This book is about Green-Wood Cemetery, its birth, its evolution, and the factors that make it such a special place. But the story of this cemetery is about more than its roads, its trees, and its monuments. It is also about the people who have chosen it as their final resting place; without them, there would be no cemetery. The men and women who shaped New York are buried there, and Green-Wood provides a unique window to their stories. Green-Wood Cemetery is a means of presenting the very best, both in narrative and illustration, of New York’s past.

Green-Wood Cemetery is, in its own right, an extraordinary place. It and Niagara Falls were the great tourist attractions of nineteenth century America. Green-Wood, which developed an unparalleled national reputation and influence, is important in the development of America’s rural cemeteries, public parks, and planned communities. Its grounds are a remarkable survivor of nineteenth century landscape design. The buildings and structures within its borders are a unique collection of architectural styles. Its funeral monuments, many of them notable works of art, have fascinating tales associated with them.

Green-Wood’s story is further enriched by the most spellbinding tales of some of the almost 600,000 people who are interred there. Hundreds of books are devoted to individuals who are buried at Green-Wood Cemetery, and material from many of those books has been used for this work.

But Green-Wood’s glory is not limited to a bygone era. Though much of this book reclaims the history of a "lost New York," Green-Wood continues to attract the famous and the infamous: Seafarers Union president Paul Hall, renowned musician Leonard Bernstein, controversial Southampton Diet Doctor Stephen Berger, and artist/Warhol protégé Jean Michel Basquiat are but a few recent arrivals. And Green-Wood continues to be a popular tourist attraction. The New York Times, Daily News, and television’s 48 Hours recently featured reports on its delights. The public continues to respond to its call. Virtually every weekend, from early spring to late fall, groups tour this remarkable place and hear its stories. A wide range of organizations, from architectural students to senior citizens, from Civil War buffs to social clubs, from the Brooklyn Center for the Urban Environment to the Brooklyn Historical Society to the Municipal Arts Society, sponsor tours of Green-Wood's grounds.

This is a book about New York’s animated and lively past; it is not a book of cemetery walking tours. Though this book discusses Green-Wood Cemetery, and addresses changing attitudes toward death, it is really about lives. It is about the noteworthy and absorbing individuals for whom Green-Wood is a final resting place, the men and women who made New York the great city that it is, and their funny, outrageous, tragic, triumphal, creative, scandalous, murderous, and heroic lives. The great visual delights of this gem, its parklike beauty, its trees and ponds, its sculpture and buildings by the leading artists and architects of their time, are featured in this book, as well as some of the great art that the people who reside at Green-Wood created during their lives. This book is for everyone who enjoys a good story about New York, its people, and their legacy.