What Lies Beneath: 7 Magnificent Finds in Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery
1. A Burial Innovation
Can a cemetery house innovative design? At Green-Wood it can! When it was founded 1838, there was a general societal fear of being buried alive. To combat this, Green-Wood established what is believed to be the first site in the United States to have above ground burial. Stranger still, there were a number of patents flying around our city and all of the country at the time for innovative coffin design. For example, some had ladders and a primitive easy button. If you found yourself buried in one and still very much alive, you could hit the button that would trigger a ladder to pop out, and you could climb your way back to the land of the living!
In addition to these secrets, Green-Wood is simply an exceedingly beautiful place for a weekend stroll. With the arrival of Fall, take in its beautiful landscape with a hefty dose of New York City history around every turn.
Next, check out 12 of NYC’s Largest Cemeteries by Number of Interments