Tag: Cemetery

Architecture
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02/11/13 1:00am

Where Los Angeles is Buried – At Evergreen Memorial Park and Crematorium

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Arts & Culture, Los Angeles
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Untapped Cities - At Evergreen Memorial Park and Crematorium

A map of Los Angeles from approximately 1849

There are certain things every city needs; a hospital, a fire station, a local government, and a place to bury their dead. On a hot, dry August day in 1877, Mayor Frederick A. MacDougal of Los Angeles officially established Evergreen Memorial Park, in what is now known as Boyle Heights, as the first official and sanctioned cemetery in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles was still a rural, dry, brutal place in 1877. Only 27 years prior, as part of the Compromise of 1850, California was admitted into the United States as a free state, therefore stopping the expansion of slavery into the west. The Great California Gold Rush in the mid 1850s brought over 300,000 new settlers into the state. The influx of people coming to grab their share of gold and land led to a sort of lawlessness not just between settlers, but between settlers and the Native Americans who had called this land home for generations. Between 1850 and 1860, the California government paid nearly 1.5 million dollars to militias to “protect” their citizens from these Native Americans.

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Architecture
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05/15/12 8:40am

Ava Vanderbilt’s Final Resting Place in Woodlawn Cemetery

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New York
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Woodlawn Cemetery is nearly half the size of Central Park, and has the population of a small city Рof dead people. Located at the northern terminus of the #4 line, it offers miles of twisting, tree lined paths that wind over hills and through meadows, passing architecture by the likes of McKim Mead & White, Cass Gilbert and Carr̬re and Hastings. These architectural monuments are the centerpieces of the landscape. One of the most magnificent in the cemetery is the Belmont Mausoleum, the final resting place of Alva Erskine and Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont.

Opened in 1863, Woodlawn Cemetery is comprised of over 400 acres of rolling hills, circular paths and mausoleums meant to evoke miniature gothic cathedrals, Grecian temples and Egyptian tombs (one was once complete with reeds, water and sand – it was later removed). Woodlawn was born of the “rural cemetery” movement. In the mid 19th century reformers decided that the city had reached a population and density that made cemeteries within Manhattan a public safety hazard. In 1847 the New York Legislature passed the Rural Cemetery Act paving the way for dozens of cemeteries to be built outside the city, in what would later become New York’s outer boroughs. Diverging from the churchyard style cemeteries that preceded them, these new rural cemeteries were rolling manicured landscapes designed to be an attractive place for prominent citizens to build their last resting places.

New York’s wealthiest citizens built these mausoleums with style and grandeur that matched the 5th Avenue mansions they spent their living years in. Now, nearly a century later, these magnificent monuments are in need of restoration. Some of the cemetery’s residents set up trusts before their death to care for the mausoleums in perpetuity. Others, it would seem, simply assumed that their friends and family (even if they had no children) would continue to care for their final resting place. However, many have been left without funds to pay for basic maintenance such as leaking roofs or masonry deterioration. Belmont Mausoleum is one of monuments at Woodlawn that do not have caretakers.

The Belmont Mausoleum was built in 1908 by Alva Belmont, born Alva Erskine Smith in Mobile, Alabama in 1853. Alva’s first marriage was to Williams Kissam Vanderbilt who she, in a shocking move for the period, divorced and then shortly thereafter remarried Oliver Belmont. The Belmont mausoleum was built by the architecture firm Hunt & Hunt, architects Alva had commissioned to build a number of her grand houses. Alva’s controversial and fascinating life (which included fighting vehemently for women’s suffrage) is well documented in the entertaining, Fortune’s Children  by Arthur T. Vanderbilt, one of the descendants of the Vanderbilt family.

It was ornate mausoleums like the Belmont’s that drew enormous crowds in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Cemeteries like Woodlawn were popular destinations for casual recreation; visitors came for family outings, carriage rides or architectural walks. Since then visitor-ship has fallen sharply – people no longer visit these cemeteries in the same numbers they once did.

Few people think to head to a cemetery for a springtime day trip, and drawing visitors back to these cemeteries is a challenge. You can’t extol their great diversity of programs or their endless potential for new uses; cemeteries are traditionally thought of as gloomy, somber places. But these cemeteries are much more than that – each measuring hundreds of acres, they represent a huge amount of open space right in New York City. Their works of art and architecture deserve to be seen by today’s visitor and the cemeteries as a whole have much to offer to the 21st century urbanite. To get to Woodlawn you take the #4 line to its end, emerging in the northern reaches of the Bronx passing historic gate houses that usher you into the landscaped lawns of the cemetery. A tour on the day I visited took us past many of the most spectacular monuments, but on your own it would be easy to get lost wandering through the circular paths, finding yourself in front of enormous weeping beach trees or spectacular stained glass windows.

A grant from Partners  in  Preservation  would pay for the Mausoleum to clean the outside and return the cross that has fallen off to the top of the building. Not only would the renovation of the Belmont Mausoleum save a beautiful monument, it would be a step in a larger process to restore the hundreds of monuments in Woodlawn Cemetery and revive the cemetery as a destination for visitors to appreciate the spectacular art, sculpture and architecture that abounds there.

Click  here  to vote for the Belmont Mausoleum at Woodlawn Cemetery.  Follow Untapped Cities on  Twitter  and  Facebook. Get  in  touch with the author  @mayaborgenicht.

Untapped Cities is an official blog ambassador for  Partners  in  Preservation  , a community-based initiative by  American Express  and the  National Trust for Historic  Preservation  to raise awareness of the importance of historic places. Stay up-to-date with Untapped’s coverage of all 40 sites by following our  Partners  in  Preservation  category.

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Architecture
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03/13/12 12:44pm

The Treasures of the Père Lachaise Cemetery: Part I

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Paris
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Exploring Paris’s cemeteries–(Montmartre, Montparnasse, Passy, Père Lachaise, and Picpus)–can be a rewarding task. Artists, statesmen, and industrialists abound in these cities of the dead. Additionally, memorials, historical relics, and works of art make such trips all the more fascinating. With enough time, Paris’ cemeteries will reveal their treasures to any visitors. Given that most visitors are on a strict schedule, a cemetery map will save valuable time when  conducting a tour of the cemetery’s highlights. However, most maps only point to the general area in which the tomb is located. This leads to aimless wandering and frustration which can be minimized with prior knowledge of a tomb’s design. Therefore, I hope that these articles will serve as a useful tool for visitors to Paris’ cemeteries as well as  a guide to those interested in learning more about some of the most famous and interesting sites in Paris.

Père Lachaise was established in 1804 and is located at  16, rue du Repos. It was named after Père Franà§ois de la Chaise, the confessor to Louis XIV, who lived on the site. Unfortunately, the cemetery was not an  immediate  success. Parisians were wary of being buried in a new cemetery, especially one not consecrated by the church. In order to remedy this situation, the cemetery managed to secure the remains of La Fontaine and Molière and  transferred  them to the cemetery in 1804. Another public relations move  occurred  in 1817, when the remains of Pierre Abélard and Héloà¯se were also transferred to the cemetery. They were interred under a canopy made from fragments of the Abbey of Nogent-sur-Seine. Also of note are the Holocaust memorials, the  Mur des Fédérés (Communards’ Wall), the lipstick stained tomb of Oscar Wilde, and Jim Morrison’s grave.

Père Lachaise’s  famous residents:

Pierre Abélard, the French philosopher, and Héloà¯se d’Argenteuil, the French abbess and scholar, who had an affair:

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Architecture
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12/15/11 9:21am

The treasures of the Montparnasse Cemetery

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Paris
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Exploring Paris’s cemeteries–(Montmartre,  Montparnasse,  Passy,  Père Lachaise, and  Picpus)–can be a rewarding task. Artists, statesmen, and industrialists abound in these cities of the dead. Additionally, memorials, historical relics, and works of art make such trips all the more fascinating. With enough time, Paris’ cemeteries will reveal their treasures to any visitors. Given that most visitors are on a strict schedule, a cemetery map will save valuable time when  conducting a tour of the cemetery’s highlights. However, most maps only point to the general area in which the tomb is located. This leads to aimless wandering and frustration which can be minimized with prior knowledge of a tomb’s design. Therefore, I hope that these articles will serve as a useful tool for visitors to Paris’ cemeteries as well as  a guide to those interested in learning more about some of the most famous and interesting sites in Paris.


Cimetière de Montparnasse was established in 1824, and is located at 3, Boulevard Edouard Quinet. There are more than 300,000 people buried in over 35,000 tombs. It is still an active cemetery with more than 1,000 new burials every year.

The cemetery’s architecture and monuments:

The entrance to the cemetery:

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Architecture
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11/28/11 8:30am

Les Cimetières de Paris | The treasures of the Passy Cemetery

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Paris
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Exploring Paris’s cemeteries–(Montmartre,  Montparnasse,  Passy,  Père Lachaise, and  Picpus)–can be a rewarding task. Artists, statesmen, and industrialists abound in these cities of the dead. Additionally, memorials, historical relics, and works of art make such trips all the more fascinating. With enough time, Paris’ cemeteries will reveal their treasures to any visitors. Given that most visitors are on a strict schedule, a cemetery map will save valuable time when  conducting a tour of the cemetery’s highlights. However, most maps only point to the general area in which the tomb is located. This leads to aimless wandering and frustration which can be minimized with prior knowledge of a tomb’s design. Therefore, I hope that these articles will serve as a useful tool for visitors to Paris’ cemeteries as well as  a guide to those interested in learning more about some of the most famous and interesting sites in Paris.


Cimetière de Passy was established in 1820, and is located at  2, Rue du Commandant Schœlsing, just a few blocks away from the Trocadero. It may be the smallest of Paris’s major cemeteries, but with  2,600 graves it is also the most  densely  populated. Of note is the sculptural group honoring soldiers killed during World War II on its outer wall, the 1934 pavilion/visitor’s center designed by Berger, and the three 1935 bas-reliefs by Janthial that adorn that building.

The cemetery’s architecture and monuments:

The Second World War memorial sculptural group on the  cemetery’s  outer wall:

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Architecture
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10/21/11 11:11am

IN PICTURES: OHNY – The Green-Wood Cemetery Open House

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Guides, New York
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Gravestone in Green-Wood Cemetary

Since 2003, Openhousenewyork (OHNY) has facilitated free-access to architectural gems throughout the city. The Green-Wood cemetary, located on 25th Street and 5th Avenue in Brooklyn, is no exception. For the first time in the cemetary’s history, visitors were allowed to enter select tombs, the Historic Chapel and catacombs this past weekend. With the assistance of knowledgeable tour guides, guests were able to understand the history to be uncovered within the national landmark.

The Historical Chapel

Prominent Statue Outside of a Mausolea

View of the Endless Rows of Tombstones

Green-Wood cemetery is visited by an estimated half a million locals and tourists a year. The grounds offer astounding views of the Statue of Liberty, the Manhattan skyline and the New York Harbor. The vast 478 acres is the home to 560,000 deceased who include Civil War veterans, Leonard Bernstein, Boss Tweed, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Samuel Morse. Many visit the cemetery to admire the above-ground burials in the catacombs. The catacombs consist of 30 vaults. And, in many cases, one family owns each vault.

Morgan Family Catacomb

Tour attendee admiring the catacombs

The Hicks Catacomb

The Green-Wood Historic Fund facilitates the preservation of the ground. The organization aims to advance public knowledge of the cemetery’s historic and cultural spaces. With its unique history in a verdant setting, the Green-Wood cemetery is worth a future visit. While there also visit nearby Sunset Park for some incredible hidden food and cultural gems.

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