Good Night Irene . . .

Well, with 7,000 trees, many of which hang over monuments and tombs, it could have been a lot worse. Here are a few photographs, taken by Assistant Superintendent Danny Rodgriguez yesterday and today, of fallen trees. Danny reports that there also was some damage to monuments.   UPDATE: Here’s one more, taken by Vice President … Read more

Hurricane Irene Rains On Our Parade

This Sunday was to have been our big Battle of Brooklyn commemoration. A great Battle of Brooklyn trolley tour with Barnet Schecter, author of The Battle for New York (now out of print–but I bought about 30 copies that I had hoped to sell) and yours truly has been sold out for weeks. Then re-enactors … Read more

WWII Ears of the Army at Green-Wood

I was poking around the Internet earlier this week, looking for something to buy for our Green-Wood Historic Fund Collections, when I hit pay dirt with this photograph and bought it: This is a wire photo; here’s the caption attached to it that explains what you see above: The monuments in the background of the … Read more

Gravestones For Those Who Served

The Green-Wood Historic Fund’s Civil War Project began in May, 2003. Since then, volunteers have obtained more than 2,000 gravestones for veterans who lie in unmarked graves. More than 1,300 of those gravestones have so far been installed by cemetery workers across Green-Wood’s grounds. The veterans administration offers a variety of monuments: flat bronze, marble, … Read more

Restoration Before and After Photos

Intro text here… Before photos are on the left-hand side, after photos on the right. Click on an image to expand — you can then toggle between the expanded before and after images using your left/right arrow keys. Caption here   Caption here   Caption here   Caption here   Caption here   Caption here … Read more

Green-Wood: A Unique Outdoor Classroom

Green-Wood is many things to many people. For some, it is a place of history. To others, it is a bird-watcher’s paradise. To still others, it is an arboretum; others think of it as a garden. And others think of it as a great big classroom. Last week, a guest artist and two instructors from … Read more

Coincidence? Or Something More?

We have a new Historic Fund volunteer–Patty. She was interested in doing something, and, it turned out, she is quite the genealogical researcher. Once I learned that, I suggested that she might do follow-up research on the biographies of some of our Civil War veterans, looking for census entries, obituaries, and more, to improve their … Read more

Pierrepont Family Memorial, Almost 160 Years Later

Fifteen years ago, at the end of a Green-Wood tour that I was leading, a gentleman approached me, pulled out a photograph of a drawing, and asked me if there was a monument at Green-Wood that looked like that. I immediately recognized it as the Pierrepont Family Memorial. It turned out that the man with … Read more

“Dean of Industrial Design” Honored With Stamp

Walter Dorwin Teague (1883-1960) was one of the giants of 20th century industrial design. Over a long career, he designed several popular art deco cameras for Eastman Kodak,  art deco radios, lamps, and even World’s Fair pavilions. In 1927, Teague opened one of the first industrial design firms in the nation. During the 1930s, his … Read more