New York neighborhoods abound with historic haunts. Yet these sites would be meaningless without the people that made them famous. Fortunately, there is a place where we can visit some of the city’s most legendary residents of days past. Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery, situated on 478 acres of rolling hills dotted with trees and interspersed with tranquil lakes, boasts a group of internees that reads like a virtual honor roll of New York history. Established in 1838, it quickly became one of the city’s most popular attractions, drawing more than half a million visitors per year at a time when few public parks existed. While the crowds today are significantly smaller, the cemetery’s appeal remains undiminished. With a map and a list of names that included Bernstein, Tiffany, Morse, and Greeley, my wife and I set out to Green-Wood on a particularly bright summer day to meet some of the people who helped create the New York we now know. Our quest proved unexpectedly arduous, as the cemetery’s size and scope confirmed its status as one of the city’s grandest landmarks.

We entered Green-Wood from the northeast at Ninth Avenue. A lone security guard greeted our arrival with a nod as the silence of a graveyard slowly replaced the din of traffic. The cemetery’s diversity immediately impressed me. Flat burial markers stood as suburbs on the periphery, while imposing crypts and mausoleums rose from the interior like a cityscape in miniature. Although Henry Ward Beecher topped our list, the first notable tomb we discovered belonged to Henry Bergh, founder of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA). After witnessing horrific cruelty toward horses on a diplomatic mission to Russia, Bergh returned to New York determined to compel the city’s inhabitants to treat animals humanely. He established the ASPCA in 1866 and quickly became known as the “Great Meddler” for his efforts to make animal abuse a crime. Bergh’s grave jutted from the hillside, an impressive pyramid-like structure acting as a memorial for a life spent fighting the norms of his day.

Leaving Bergh, we wandered down the hill to Beecher’s plot. An austere grave, I found it difficult to believe that we stood in the presence of someone who, at one time, could have claimed to be the country’s most famous man. As minister of Plymouth Church in Brooklyn Heights, Beecher delivered thunderous sermons that championed women’s suffrage and denounced slavery. His status suffered in the 1870s following accusations that he had an affair with the wife of a friend. Theodore Tilton, husband to the woman in question, subsequently sued Beecher for “alienation of affection”; however, the jury could not reach a verdict, and he emerged with his reputation bruised but not broken. Standing before his grave, I thought it appropriate that Beecher, once so prominent, now laid on an equal level with others long forgotten. We left the minister, much as the thousands who attended his funeral might have done more than a century earlier, with the feeling that death often erases a man’s faults in favor of his more positive qualities.

Unfortunately for the next name on our list, the end did not prove very redeeming. Roaming for some time along paths marked sparsely with faded signs, we finally came across a large familial plot enclosed by a low fence. In the middle stood a tall column that marked the final resting place of William Tweed, the most infamous political boss in New York’s history. During the 1860s, Tweed and his cronies bought, bribed, and stole their way to power. After pilfering today’s equivalent of more than $1 billion in municipal funds, Tweed’s empire collapsed in the early 1870s. A series of articles in The New York Times and a collection of cartoons by Thomas Nast in Harper’s Weekly exposed the extent of his misdeeds and helped land him in jail. Escaping from prison in 1875, Tweed eventually made his way to Spain, only to be caught by officials who recognized him from Nast’s cartoons. He died just a few years later in a jail on Ludlow Street. Today people remember Tweed only for his crimes, even though his most benevolent civic act—securing the land for the Metropolitan Museum of Art—has had a much more lasting impact on New York.

Ambling on, my wife and I realized that Green-Wood’s massive size made it impossible to find all of the graves on our list in one afternoon. Exhausted from our sun-filled trek through the cemetery, we decided to make the Green-Wood chapel the final stop on our tour. Approaching from the rear, I could scarcely imagine why such a beautiful building does not receive more recognition. Small turrets capped each corner, while a tower rose from the middle to crest the chapel like a regal crown. The interior, though humble, suitably reinforced the notion of the building as a place for quiet reflection. We exited the cemetery through its main entrance on 25th Street and Fifth Avenue and passed through the imposing gothic gate determined to make a return trip to Green-Wood. Though our visit was productive, we left having not seen the majority of those on our list, let alone the Battle Hill Monument of Minerva atop Brooklyn’s highest point, where American and British forces clashed in 1776. Despite competition from Central and Prospect Parks, Green-Wood deserves several visits to appreciate its full majesty as one of the city’s most interesting and historic sites.

Additional Information

Green-Wood Cemetery Homepage: http://www.green-wood.com/

ASPCA Homepage: http://www.aspca.org/site/PageServer

The Most Famous Man in America (Henry Ward Beecher biography). Review by Michael Kazin. The New York Times (July 16, 2006).

“Boss Tweed”: The Fellowship of the Ring. Review by Pete Hamill. The New York Times (March 27, 2005).