Green-Wood is fortunate to have Tony Cucchiara as its archivist. Tony knows what he is doing. He worked at Brooklyn College for years, before retiring from there as professor emeritus. He has taught generations of archivists who work at New York’s leading cultural institutions. He continues to educate budding archivists at Pratt. And for the … Read more
As Green-Wood’s historian, I never know where our next discovery will be coming from. I just know that it will arrive very soon. So it was this past Friday. I was working at Green-Wood, minding my own business. But, it turns out, an e-mail had just come in to our Green-aelogy supervisor, Christina Bickford. Christina, … Read more
The story of the Prentiss brothers of the Civil War is one of the most fascinating tales of that event. It has it all: brothers from a border state, with different loyalties, one going north to fight to preserve the Union, one going south to fight for the Confederacy. Then, after fighting for their cause … Read more
Sue Ramsey has done it again! Sue is one of Green-Wood’s Civil War Project’s wonderful–and tremendously dedicated–volunteer researchers. Retired from the Southern California Gas Company, she has been working her way, since 2005, through the now 5,200 volunteer-researched and written online Civil War biographies (thanks Susan Rudin for your incredible work translating all of this … Read more
On Friday evening, November 1, 1918, a Brooklyn Rapid Transit subway train left the Park Row station in Manhattan, ran east across the East River, then south through Brooklyn. At 6:42 p.m., it crashed near the intersection of Malbone Street, Flatbush and Ocean Avenues; 93 people died and hundreds were injured. It was the deadliest … Read more
There is always another story to be discovered at Green-Wood. I was recently out in section 52, lots 8022-8027–the Bangs Family Lots–looking for a particular gravestone. These lots form a large circle, just feet from the intersection of Locust and Southwood Avenues. Several prominent people are interred in those lots, including Francis N. Bangs (1828-1885), … Read more
After leading tours at Green-Wood for 28 years, I still love to create new ones. One of the virtues of doing new and different tours of Green-Wood: I get to research and learn. So it is with my recent tour, “Sound the Alarm: Green-Wood’s Firemen.” I knew, before I began this research, about several lots … Read more
How is your Green-Wood eye? There have been a few subtle changes out on the grounds in the last couple of weeks. Here’s that story. Come visit and see for yourself! Several features of Green-Wood’s grounds date back to its initial design by engineer David Bates Douglass (1790-1849). A graduate of Yale, class of 1813, … Read more
570,000 people are interred across Green-Wood’s 478 acres. Essential to the cemetery’s business is keeping track of each of these burials–and places for future interments. For each interment, there are likely multiple documents from many archival sets recording relevant information. One of the sets in Green-Wood’s archives is its blueprints. Formerly housed in the cemetery’s … Read more
One of the first monuments a visitor is likely to notice upon coming through Green-Wood’s landmarked brownstone Main Gates is the Brooklyn Theatre Fire Monument. It commemorates the tragedy of the evening of December 5, 1876, when 278 souls were lost after a crowded theatre in downtown Brooklyn caught fire and collapsed. That disaster marked … Read more