It really is hard for me to go anywhere and not find something that’s related to Green-Wood. I just got back from ten days in Savannah, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina. Really a great time of year to visit those cities–a chance to extend the warm weather a bit before being engulfed in a New York … Read more
Today is the 150th anniversary of the birth of Charlie Ebbets, former owner of the beloved Brooklyn Dodgers. Charlie put his name on Ebbets Field, the legendary home park of the Dodgers that was at Bedford Avenue and Sullivan Place. It opened in 1913. I saw a game there, many years ago. It was torn … Read more
Today was our sixth annual performance of this wonderful site specific performance. Since 2004, Martha Bowers, director of Dance Theatre Etc., has choreographed a dance and music event across Green-Wood’s hills as part of openhousenewyork (a free annual event throughout New York City featuring architecture). Martha does wonders every year, recruiting a cast, tweaking the … Read more
I recently found myself at an Association for Gravestone Studies convention in Schenectady with a few hours of free time, and decided to head over to the New York State Museum in Albany for a visit. Headed in–quite an exhibition on the September 11 attack–video of a fireman who lost all of his fellows, a … Read more
I recently got another e-mail from Bob McAvoy. I’ve never met Bob, but I’ve certainly gotten a lot of e-mails from him. Bob’s passion is Civil War veterans from New Jersey. Sometimes I think that 7 years is a long time for me to have spent so far searching for Civil War soldiers. But then … Read more
During the first weekend of June, I headed off to the Civil War Preservation Trust’s annual convention in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. A great organization–saving battlefield land, hallowed ground, holding its yearly event in the mecca of Civil War towns. Brought along my t-shirt–the one I had made a few years ago when I led a trip … Read more
I was reading an article in The New York Times today: “No Casual Fans At World Series of Baseball Trivia.” The article was about the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), which has a membership of 6,000 baseball geeks, and its annual convention. Midway in the article, in a discussion about the aging of its … Read more
I was doing some research recently, helping a New York Times reporter with an article, and thought it would be interesting to find out how the frequency of burials at Green-Wood has changed over the cemetery’s history. Though Green-Wood was chartered by New York State on April 18, 1838, is was more than two years … Read more
Well, we did know that Edwin Bennett was interred at Green-Wood and had served in the Civil War. His obituary in The New York Times told us that much. But we couldn’t find the details of his service. That’s where Sue Ramsey, a truly remarkable researcher, came in. Sue, who lives out in California, loves … Read more
A few weeks ago, in preparing for a tour of Civil War Conderates who are interred at Green-Wood, I came across the story of Gilbert Elliott (1843-1895). It is really quite a remarkable tale: Gilbert, with some training in boat building and some experience as a law clerk, enlisted in 1862 in the 17th North … Read more