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Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC I'm Alison Stewart. In the crowded and noisy New York City environment, there are 478 acres of bucolic green space where you can truly be alone. With only the sound of the wind and the trees breaking the silence, well, sort of alone because the space's 570,000 permanent residents are not that chatty, unless you're a medium. It is, of course, Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. It opened in 1838, as one of the first rural cemeteries in the country. By 1860 it was one of the nation's most popular [unintelligible 00:00:43] attractions, second only to Niagara Falls.

It's now a national historic landmark, and today half a million people visit each year. It has great views of the harbor, boasts beautiful planted gardens, and if you enter at Fifth Avenue and 25th street and walk through the gothic stone archway, you'll be greeted by a raucous sound you don't hear in many other places.

[birds chirping]

Alison Stewart: Oh, those are monk parakeets who nest in the spire of the cemetery's main entrance arch. The story of Green-Wood is told in a new book of photographs and essays. It's called Brooklyn Arcadia: Art, History, and Nature. We're joined by its author, writer and photographer, Andrew Garn. Andrew, nice to meet you.

Andrew Garn: Hi, Alison. It's such a treat to be here.

Alison Stewart: Also joining us is Allison Meier. She's a writer who has contributed essays to Brooklyn Arcadia, and she's the author most recently of the book Grave, which looks at how burial sites have transformed over time. She leads tours at Green-Wood Cemetery as well. Allison, welcome to the studio.

Allison Meier: Hey, thanks for having us.

Alison Stewart: Allison, what was happening in the United States in the 1800s around burials?

Allison Meier: Briefly, and we can see it in Manhattan and Brooklyn really well, in the 19th century, burial grounds were becoming increasingly crowded. Think about how many people have been buried there since the colonial era and they were considered a health hazard too, thinking about epidemics recently, people were afraid that all these decomposing corpses were going to get them sick, which is very understandable. As you mentioned, the rural cemetery movement started with Mount Auburn in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Then Green-Wood is our first example of that, where people are rethinking burial grounds as these bucolic, green, garden-like spaces.

Alison Stewart: Hey, listeners, want to get you in on this. If you have a question about Green-Wood Cemetery, something you've always wondered about, you can give us a call, 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. You can text us at that number, or you can join us on air, or maybe you're a regular visitor to Green-Wood and want to share what makes it a special place for you. The number is 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC, or you can reach out on social media @AllOfItWNYC. Andrew, as I said, it opened in 1838, that's before Brooklyn became a part of New York City, before the subway, before the Brooklyn Bridge.

Andrew Garn: Before the street grid.

Alison Stewart: Oh, gosh, how did it attract so many people? How did they get there?

Andrew Garn: How did it start out? Well, it was happenstance that Henry Pierrepont also designed the grid for Brooklyn. That was his job. He knew to put aside a bunch of acres and he and a bunch of investors plotted out the cemetery long ago. He knew there was going to be a need for this. When they plotted out the cemetery, there was nothing there, there were no houses. There are actually some original trees from before the cemetery opened.

Alison Stewart: Allison, would you just tell us a little bit more about Henry Pierrepont.

Allison Meier: I believe also, he was a ferry mogul, so not coincidentally had a great idea to bring people to Brooklyn before the Brooklyn Bridge and thus get them to Green-Wood Cemetery. I love leading tours that go to his family burial plots because it's on this gorgeous-- if you helped to plan the cemetery, you get one of the most beautiful spots. It's this beautiful hill where there's a gothic style, I think it's called a catafalque, where it's open space. Right now with all the fall colors coming in, really nice spot to be up. Pierrepont was really pivotal in getting Green-Wood to be part of Brooklyn and part of his vision of Brooklyn is this major city before, as Andrew mentioned, it was part of the city.

Alison Stewart: Andrew, the book has hundreds of photographs, covers all aspects of Green-Wood seasons, structures, flora, what did you know you wanted to photograph for sure? One or two things you knew you had to include in the book and what one or two things that you knew you wanted to write about in the book? It's like picking your favorite child, I understand that.

Andrew Garn: I go there for so many different reasons. I go there as a birdwatcher, I go there just to look at the architecture, I go to peep into the vaults and to see the animals that scurry around. If I had to pick two things, I would say the architecture and the birds, but then there's the trees also. The trees are just magnificent and they have about 8000 of them, and I think around 800 species. It's a Level III or Level II arboretum and that takes a lot to get to that level because it is so diverse. The plant life there is amazing.

Alison Stewart: Anne calling in from Brooklyn. Anne, thanks for calling All Of It.

Anne: Hi, how are you?

Alison Stewart: I'm great. You're on the air.

Anne: I'm calling because Green-Wood Cemetery has been part of my life my whole entire life because my father birdwatched there from when he was young. He was part of a group of people who used to birdwatch there, and people obviously continue to do that. Many, many years ago, he involved the Audubon Society to protect the ponds because the cemetery had started filling in. There were many more ponds before now. Now I think they're only like three or four big ponds- [crosstalk]

Andrew Garn: There used to be eight.

Anne: -and there were anymore.

Andrew Garn: They're all glacial and there were eight glacial ponds.

Alison Stewart: Allison, there's some people who have never been to Green-Wood. How would you describe it, if you had to describe it to someone who's like, "What is this they're talking about, this Green-Wood Cemetery?"

Allison Meier: It's a good question for me, because I'm from Oklahoma, and our cemeteries do not look like that. I just happened to move a block away from Green-Wood when I moved to New York in 2009 and it just astounded me because it's this very undulating landscape, winding paths, as Andrew mentioned, so many trees, birds, and it really does feel like you're escaping the city, and that's really part of its design.

It's a very Victorian cemetery, lots of soaring monuments like Andrew really beautifully photographed in his book. It's really at this point in time, when we get to the 20th century, our cemeteries become much more flat, orderly, lawn style. This is a moment where we're moving from that colonial era dense churchyard to really something very different. If you haven't been there and you're in the New York City area, now's a great time to visit in fall.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Vincent on line one. Hi, Vincent. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Vincent: Hi [unintelligible 00:0 7:16]

Alison Stewart: Thanks.

Vincent: My whole dad's side of the family is buried in Green-Wood, and my grandfather bought the plot in the early, early, early 1900s [unintelligible 00:07:29] 25 people, so there's actually space for myself [unintelligible 00:07:34] from Brooklyn [unintelligible 00:07:40] New Jersey now, but it's just [unintelligible 00:07:44]

Alison Stewart: Vincent, thank you. It was a little hard to hear. He said his family is from Brooklyn, they bought the plot years and years and years ago. Actually, you're getting a few questions Allison. Are burials ongoing there?

Allison Meier: Yes, burials are ongoing at Green-Wood. I think, sure, many people listening have a close personal connection with it, because so many people in New York City and the surrounding area have been buried there, going back to the late 1830s to now, also columbarium for ashes. It's one of our city's few crematories too, so even people not buried there are also cared for in death.

I think people dedicate trees there now to people who might not be buried there as a way to remember them. It definitely has a deep connection and ongoing one including to the pandemic recently, a lot of people were being cremated there and interred there. I think it's especially meaningful to think about it now.

Alison Stewart: Andrew, did you get to go to some of the off limits parts of Green-Wood to take photos?

Andrew Garn: Yes.

Alison Stewart: Oh, tell us where.

Andrew Garn: I got to go into some of the vaults and mausoleums, and that was very special because there's big, big keys. I couldn't even hold the keys myself actually, they were so big. That was quite a treat, because they're mostly off limits except for Open House New York, I guess, they do open them up sometime--

Allison Meier: The catacombs events too.

Andrew Garn: Of course, the catacombs are actually almost a public space at this point because they have concerts there all year round. That's a great space. That's one of my favorite places. There's just so much and every time I've been there, I find something new. It's just a pleasure.

Alison Stewart: I want to make sure, Allison, people understand the language, you have been talking about mausoleums, vaults, catacombs. Could you explain the difference?

Allison Meier: I realized as somebody that thinks about cemeteries a lot, that not everyone's talking about columbariums and ossuaries every day, but mausoleums, as Andrew was describing, these are really a big part of Green-Wood, where you will have a small stone structure, house-like space and you go in and then people are either interred in crypts on the wall or on the floor. What I like about Andrew's book too is he actually put in some blueprints of those mausoleums, if people are curious, like, what does that design look like? You can see the photograph of it and then see a blueprint and really see how they're put together. Because you're right, they're not things people think about often.

Andrew Garn: Also, the mausoleums are really meant to look like massive temples, a lot of them, they're Greek revival, and from a distance, you don't realize the scale until you get up close. They are miniature. I guess the difference between a mausoleum and a vault is, a vault is built into a hillside and a mausoleum is a freestanding structure that has a roof and four sides.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Nicole calling in from Brooklyn. Hi, Nicole. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Nicole: Oh, hi. I just have this very distinct memory. I grew up in Brooklyn in Bay Ridge, my grandmother, she's been gone a long time, but I remember when I was a kid she would say, "Ooh, you got to have a lot of money to get buried at Green-Wood." Is it actually possible for people to get a plot there now or is it just like my grandma Rose used to say, really hard?

Allison Meier: There used to be public lots, but I don't think there are any more public lots. Now either you buy a plot, which is a bit pricey, but back in the day, I think on the outskirts of the cemetery near the fencing, you could get a fairly inexpensive burial site.

Alison Stewart: We're discussing the book Brooklyn Arcadia: Art, History, and the Nature at Majestic Green-Wood. My guests are Andrew Garn, the author and photographer. Also joining us is Allison Meier, a writer, journalist, and tour guide, and the author of Grave. We'll take more of your calls and your texts after a quick break. This is All Of It.

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Alison Stewart: You are listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My guests in studio are Andrew Garn. His book is Brooklyn Arcadia: Art, History, and Nature at Majestic Green-Wood. Also joining us is Allison Meier, a writer, journalist, tour guide, author of Grave. She also wrote one of the essays in the book. We're getting so many texts. Let me read a couple.

Green-Wood is my favorite green space in the city, I spent a lot of time there during the pandemic, laying in the long grass and feeling the spirits of the people who endured other global pandemics around me. It helped me ground myself and realize this too will come to an end. Someone else texted, "Green-Wood was an oasis of calm during the worst of the pandemic when Prospect Park was everyone's living room. I wrote a toy theater show called Buried Alive that explores the 19th-century fear that I would love to perform there." Let's get into the performances. What kind of performances happen at the cemetery now?

Allison Meier: I think it's interesting, Green-Wood has been at the forefront of rethinking what a 21st-century cemetery can be because going back to that idea of the rural cemetery movement, there was the spirit of respectful recreation. From the beginning, people went there for picnics and strolls and carriage rides, things even now we might think are weird to have a picnic there. Green-Wood now hosts film screenings, concerts, they're doing an event next week called Nightfall, which will have lectures. I'm giving one of them. [crosstalk]

There are circus acts, I believe, and music, and I think that some people might be like, "Why would you do that in a cemetery?" It does really go back to thinking that all these cemeteries were meant to be places that people would come and have collective experiences while they're alive. Also as someone really eloquently put there, really connect with the dead too, that they're present. They're not just someone we put in the ground, that we can have this ongoing relationship with them.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Jerry on line four. Hi, Jerry. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Jerry: Hi. I'm calling to find out whether the cemetery had restrictions on, aside from money, on who could be buried there along racial or national origins, ethnicity lines as they did at one time at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge.

Allison Meier: As I write and say often, permanency is a privilege and all the divisions of life, even if we'd like to think about death as this great leveler, often translate into the cemetery, and there was segregation in 19th-century cemeteries in New York City. Andrew mentioned the public lots. You can walk through Green-Wood and see, I believe they call them the freedom plots now, where many people from Weeksville, which is that historic 19th-century Black town in Brooklyn, were interred. It's separate from the rest of the cemetery. Even though Green-Wood was not founded by a church, it was being guided by white Protestant men in the 19th century, and so there were those divisions.

Andrew Garn: It was for profit.

Allison Meier: It's not being run by a church, there's definitely different goals there. I think that that's always really important to recognize in a place like this, especially when we're talking about how it represents the city because definitely how people have been represented in death has been very unequal often.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Ben, who is from Park Slope, but Ben, tell us where you are.

Ben: I'm standing in Green-Wood Cemetery right now. I was on a walk listening to the radio and I decided to enter at the 25 Street entrance and I took a look at the Parakeets, but I wanted to thank you for having this segment because I've walked through the cemetery many times, but I feel like this is the first time I'm really walking through with a more curious eye. I happen to be standing in what looks to be the Levitt family plot right now, which has a big giant monument in the center, has all these gravestones pointing towards it, very Stonehenge in its design and I wouldn't have never came up here and explored it before. Thank you

Alison Stewart: Ben, thank you for calling in. Andrew, how did you decide on the cover image for your book?

Andrew Garn: It was tough.

Alison Stewart: Tell us what it is.

Andrew Garn: This is a view, not quite, it's going up towards Battle Hill, and this is Battle Avenue, I think, yes. I just wanted to get this all encompassing shot that had the monuments, it had the front gate. The cover had to have the front gate. I was pushing for a dusk shot with a very purpley sky, but I think the publishers decided that was too scary, too cemetery, too hardcore cemetery, so I had to find something dusky, and this works. I did so many variations and angles trying to line up all of the monuments perfectly and just get the little cherub man holding the cross in the frame.

I think it works pretty well, plus you have pictures of people coming in and it gives it a scale. That's the important thing about Green-Wood, it's all about the people. I devoted a whole chapter to the people because it's such a lively place for a cemetery, that sounds like a contradiction, but it really is.

Alison Stewart: What do you mean lively?

Andrew Garn: It's life-affirming. The minute you walk in and you walk under the gates and you hear the monk parakeets, as you mentioned, you're like, "This isn't really like most cemeteries I've ever been to." It's just almost joyful. I always think when I'm there, whether it's a very busy Sunday, a perfect afternoon, it's never crowded. Even in the dead of winter or a freezing cold day, you feel a connection to everything that's there.

Alison Stewart: Listeners, if you want to call in, if you have a question about Green-Wood Cemetery, our number's 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. You can call in or text. Justine is calling I think from Astoria. Hi, Justine. Thanks for calling in.

Justine: Thank you. Thank you for taking my call. Love your show.

Alison Stewart: Thanks.

Justine: I grew up near the cemetery in Borough Park and so did my father. My mother grew up on the other side of the cemetery. He used to walk her home when they were dating, and one night he got on bended knee right by the cemetery, and they were together for 62 years.

Alison Stewart: That's a lovely story.

Justine: I know.

Alison Stewart: That's a lovely story. Thank you. We got a text that says, "I'm a regular visitor to Green-Wood, as I do a lot of birding there. This gravestone between Sylvan Water and Spruce Ave I think has always intrigued me. It's of the Fila logo without any information on who's buried under it. Do the authors know anything about this?"

Allison Meier: Wait, what logo?

Andrew Garn: What's the Fila?

Alison Stewart: F-I-L-A logo, Fila.

Andrew Garn: The shoe? The Fila shoe?

Alison Stewart: That's what I'm thinking.

Allison Meier: Oh, no, I worry this is a sports thing and I don't know.

[laughter]

Andrew Garn: I don't. I've never seen that.

Allison Meier: There is a really great-- I think if people want to know a little bit about tombstone symbols to decipher, I think Andrew, you do have a section of your book related to symbolism.

Alison Stewart: Oh, yes.

Allison Meier: An iconography, and you have some gorgeous photos of ivy, which is a symbol of eternity, clasped hands, which are showing a close bond people had that wasn't broken by death.

Alison Stewart: I bet sheaves of wheat.

Allison Meier: Yes, exactly, which is a symbol usually for someone who lived until it was their time to meet the reaper, so to speak. Some of them are a little bit ominous, but it is a cemetery. Oh, and Andrew's flipping through the book now. There's a--

Andrew Garn: The downturned torch, which means life extinguished. The symbols are fantastic and you could spend years trying to identify them and interpret them.

Alison Stewart: Allison, you write, to view trees in a cemetery to remember that there's a slower timeline of nature constantly growing, dying, and rejuvenating. What is the history behind tree planting?

Allison Meier: I think a cemetery as a landscape is really interesting. Actually the head of horticulture at Green-Wood, Joe Charap, is always really thoughtful in talking about this and what they're planning now and thinking about how the trees were planted in the past at Green-Wood, which often was sometimes even for symbolism. You plant an evergreen tree, it's a symbol of eternal life, but maybe that's not the best tree for the climate that we have now.

They're currently doing a lot of different plantings at Green-Wood and I'm actually leading a tree walk next weekend, great trees of Green-Wood, where we're going to look at some of the older trees like a rare surviving American elm, a tulip tree, which is that great old New York tree, but then also they have this experimental American chestnut area where they're trying out planting-- Some people might know this, but with the chestnut blight, we lost millions of chestnut trees. They have little saplings that are part of a scientific experiment to--

Andrew: I think they're hybridized with Chinese chestnuts.

Allison Meier: Yes. I always like to point it out because it's a very active landscape.

Alison Stewart: If people are interested in some people they might recognize at Green-Wood, Andrew, who might they recognize? Who's Graves?

Andrew: Well, of course there's Boss Tweed, of course there's Leonard Bernstein, I think, of course, Jean-Michel Basquiat. It's funny because he's buried in-- you would almost never find his tombstone unless you were really looking for it. You know who I love, is Leon Golub and Nancy Spero. I just stumbled onto their tombstone and it looked like it had been graffitied on the back, but in fact, it was their drawings that were etched into it. Leon Golub, he's one of my favorite artists. He's great. The Tiffanys are buried there.

Allison Meier: Oh, yes. You have in your book an index of some of the more famous ones.

Andrew: Yes.

Allison Meier: I feel like I'm discovering people all the time. I did a Language of Flowers walk last weekend and we visited the grave of [unintelligible 00:22:20] who was this 19th century woman novelist and has a tombstone with a book and a feather [unintelligible 00:22:27] on it. I'd never had seen it before and I probably never would've found her grave except she published a Language of Flowers book and I discovered her whole story. It just was so cool to see a 19th century woman author being memorialized in that way. It's something I had never seen before.

Alison Stewart: You do have a chapter in here, Andrew, about taking pictures at night. For you as a photographer, what did that offer you creatively?

Andrew: Well, you have to photograph a cemetery at night, because it's too beautiful. If you see all these colors of the trees in the spring and the fall, you need to have nighttime. You need to have ominousness, and you need to have a little horror mixed in, just a little bit.

Alison Stewart: It's spooky season.

Andrew: Yes, exactly.

Allison Meier: I love the winter photos you took too with the snow. Those are some of my favorite in the book.

Andrew: Yes, mine too, actually, because it was amazing.

Alison Stewart: Got a great text. "I'm an environmental educator at Green-Wood and love teaching kids about this incredible resource. It's a really important park in New York City. It has green infrastructure. We offer art, history, architecture, and environmental program, and kids always leave amazed at the great time they've had in a cemetery.

Allison Meier: Yes, cemeteries are great for kids.

Alison Stewart: The name of the book is Brooklyn Arcadia: Art, History, and Nature at Majestic Green-Wood. My guests have been Andrew Garns. Beautiful book. Thank you for taking these pictures and sharing with us, as well as Allison Meier. Thank you, Allison.

Allison Meier: Thanks so much.

Andrew: Thank you.

Alison Stewart: That is All Of It for this week. All Of It is produced by Andrea Duncan-Mao, Kate Hinds, Jordan Lauf, Simon Close, Zach Gottehrer-Cohen, L. Malik Anderson, and Luke Green. Megan Ryan is the head of Live Radio. Our engineers are Juliana Fonda, Jason Isaac, and Matt Miranda today. If you missed any of our segments, catch up by listening to our podcast. I'm Alison Stewart, I appreciate you listening, and I appreciate you. I will meet you back here next time.

 

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