World's Greatest Cemeteries

(gentle serene music) - Welcome to Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.

Green-Wood is one of the first rural garden cemeteries in America, early 19th century and amazing place.

I think they get about a quarter of a million visitors per year.

- And she is saluting her sister, the Statue of Liberty in the Harbor.

- Oh my God!

She's right there.

- Well he decides that he's gonna sign up for the Union Army.

- Why?

- He's so inspired.

- As manicured lawn would actually degrade the landscape.

(bright cheerful music) - The world's greatest cemeteries hold more than mortal remains.

They are monuments to landscape, design, horticulture, and history.

In a world where differences are seen as dangerous, it's more important than ever that our history is as inclusive as possible.

I spent years investigating the lives of the dead, finding out all I can about extraordinary people who were outsiders in their own day but still managed to make significant contributions to humankind.

(gentle upbeat music) From motorcycle clubs to hipster hangouts, to reggaeton dancing, Brooklyn, New York is where it's at and what it is.

(gentle music) Brooklyn is also the home of national historic landmark Green-Wood Cemetery.

Green-Wood was founded in 1838 as one of America's first rural garden cemeteries.

478 acres of rolling hills, glacial ponds, old growth trees, and splendid architecture, all on a hilltop with drop dead views of New York Harbor.

My guide is author on cemetery historian, Jeff Richman.

We strapped on our hiking boots and set out to do some exploring.

(dramatic music) Welcome to this beautiful hilltop at Green-Wood Cemetery.

I'm here with Jeff Richman who is the cemetery historian.

What is a cemetery historian?

- A cemetery historian does all sorts of exciting things.

Discovering stories of people who were interred here, paying tribute to those in unmarked graves.

So I get to do a lot of things here.

- Awesome.

We're gonna take a look now at this monument behind us, and then Jeff is gonna show us around to some other cool things.

This guy knows everything, I have not been able to stump him yet.

We'll see.

(both laughing) All right.

Let's take a look.

(tense dramatic music) So tell us about Mr. Pierrepont.

- Mr. Pierrepont is Henry Evelyn Pierrepont, and he has two things going on in his life.

One is, he's fascinated by cemeteries, and so he goes to Europe and checks out what's going on there.

He goes to Mount Auburn, Cambridge, Massachusetts, which I think you're familiar with.

- A little bit, yeah.

- And he checks out what's going on over there.

And at the same time, Brooklyn is just emerging and he gets himself appointed to the commission to lay out the roads.

- [Roberto] So this is now, it's gotta be 1830 to 1833, something like that?

- 35.

- 35.

Got it.

Okay.

- And he purposely doesn't run any roads through this area in the hopes that someday he'll be able to spring into action and carry through his plan to create a Green-Wood Cemetery.

And so, 1837, the panic of 1837, land prices plummet and Henry springs into action.

And that's why he gets this hill here at Green-Wood as an honor.

And they hire Richard Upjohn who did Trinity Church down on Wall Street in Manhattan, who did the arches here, who did the receiving tomb here and to do this open-air cathedral or church in honor of the Pierrepont family.

And so, this is all Pierrepont land here.

- And where did the Pierrepont make their fortune?

- They made their fortune in whiskey.

And so, we see on the other side Hezekiah Pierrepont, and he is running a distillery at the western end of Long Island and he is buying grain from the farmers of Long Island and making it into whiskey.

And he's also developing a suburb called Brooklyn Heights.

(Roberto laughing) And so that was the hot place.

You can take the ferry across, of course, no Brooklyn bridge at the beginning of the 19th century, but you could commute to work from Brooklyn Heights.

And so, he's selling that land and he marries Anna Maria Pierrepont, whose father owns hundreds of thousands of acres and square miles up Northern New York State.

(dramatic music) (jazz music) - The Pierrepont monument was fascinating, but I had a lot of ground to cover.

I went out exploring on my own and found a surprise.

Lift every voice and sing I discovered that famed Harlem Renaissance author James Weldon Johnson is buried right here at Green-Wood.

"Lift every voice and sing till earth and heaven ring.

Ring with the harmonies of liberty."

James's brother, John Rosamond Johnson, composed the music for those words.

That song has become known as the "Black National Anthem."

James and his wife, Grace Nail Johnson were civil rights activists.

He became a leader in the NAACP, US consul to Venezuela and Nicaragua, the first African-American professor at New York University, and later a professor of literature at historically black Fisk University.

Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us (gentle piano music) We're going to move on to another important aspect of running a landmark cemetery, horticulture.

According to National Geographic Magazine, Green-Wood Cemetery has 7,000 trees of more than 700 different species, making it a haven for biodiversity in the concrete jungle.

Worldwide visitors expect destination cemeteries to be gardening showplaces, so the pressure is on the staff to keep the grounds looking fabulous.

I met up with Sara Evans, Manager of Horticulture and Operations, to chat about current trends in lawn management.

- At Green-Wood, we have about 15 gardens.

Most of them are perennial border gardens, so bordering our entrances and our historic buildings.

The one behind me though, is the largest.

It spans over an acre, it's comprised of nearly all native perennials and shrubs.

(gentle music) Previous to this meadow planting, it was long grass, but it posed a high risk to the operations of just being chaining it as lawn.

And now it has created wildlife habitat as well as eliminates and reduces soil erosion, which helps not only be aesthetically more beautiful, but also preserves the mausoleums and the monuments that have been built in to the hill.

So three goals this year for the horticulture department is, one, plant more trees and increase the diversity within our living collection, second is to strengthen our ties within the community and build more partnerships in New York cities, and the third goal is to implement and continue advocating for more climate smart management of our urban grasslands.

(rhythmic music) - Well, right here at Green-Wood Cemetery is the grave of one of my childhood heroes.

His name is Leonard Bernstein.

He was an American composer, and I of course, got to know him through his film "West Side Story."

My mom took me to see "West Side Story" when I was in the fifth grade and it changed my life.

I couldn't believe the guys dancing, and the jets and the sharks, and of course the romance between Tony and Maria.

There was one Puerto Rican girl in my class, and I think I tormented that poor girl 'cause I made her my Maria.

I didn't consult her on this of course.

Anyway, here's the man's grave, Leonard Bernstein, one of America's greatest homegrown composers right here at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

(bright energetic music) (triumphant music) Wow!

This lady knows how to dress.

So who is this?

- This is Minerva.

- The goddess of?

- Goddess of all sorts of things, the culture and the war and all of that.

- Wow.

- And she is saluting her sister, the Statue of Liberty in the Harbor.

- Oh my God!

She's right there.

- Correct.

- [Roberto] That is amazing.

- [Jeff] And so they've got this eye to eye, arm to arm appraised thing going on here.

- Jeff, you're the historian here at Green-Wood, paint me a picture.

What was this like in, what year would this have been put up?

Like, roughly.

- Oh, this was put up in 1920.

- Okay, in 1920, what would we have seen from here?

- You wouldn't have seen any kind of high buildings here.

You would have seen quite a bit less of the skyline.

You would have seen FDR up on this hill with Al Smith.

- Wow.

- Before the dedication.

And so this was a big deal.

You would've seen the work of Charles Higgins.

So Higgins was an Irish immigrant who adopted the history of this country and couldn't figure out why the locals were not into preserving the battlefield, honoring the men who had sacrificed on this hill and all over Brooklyn during the first battle of the American Revolution.

- Is that right?

It wasn't down south somewhere?

- No, no.

It was up here.

So July 4th, 1776, Declaration of Independence, August 27th to six, seven weeks later of 1776, this battle, the largest battle of the American Revolution is fought in Brooklyn, New York.

- [Roberto] No way, is that right?

- [Jeff] And it's the first battle after the Declaration.

Also the first battle where we go toe to toe with the British in the open field.

And so, very important battle.

And this could have very well have ended the American Revolution right here.

- So, just in terms of statuary, do you feel comfortable talking a little bit about that?

Her body armor, her crest, definitely Roman.

And what's the garland for, why is she holding that?

- The garland has to do, I believe, with triumph and heroism.

This is by Frederick Ruckstuhl.

Dated on the back, 1919, unveiled in 1920.

- So we're gonna go and take a look at another one of your favorite spots.

How's that?

- Okay, great.

Sounds good.

- Okay, good.

(dramatic music) (tense music) Well, this is another one of the fascinating sculptures here at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.

Adolfo Apolloni's Valentine Angel.

Let's check it out.

(gentle music) Right now let's take a closer look at these folds.

This is amazing craftsmanship.

Of course we know it's bronze, but somehow it really does look like cloth draped around this figure.

Well, that's Adolfo Apolloni's Valentine Angel.

If you come here to Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, don't get lost like I did.

Make sure you're in near the corner of Vernal Avenue and Hazel path, kind of, sorta.

Anyway, just look up and you'll see her.

And if there are other people around, just follow their noses, they'll be looking up in awe.

(gentle tense music) (gentle piano music) So I'm here with Dominique Jean-Louis from the New-York Historical Society.

She's the historian there.

And she's gonna tell us why we are at Green-Wood Cemetery, looking for a Dr. Thomas Joiner-White.

Why are we, Dominique, at the Gloucester monument.

- So we're at the Gloucester monument because this is a family that's really important to the history of Thomas Joiner-White.

Now the Gloucester family is close to Thomas Joiner-White because he marries their daughter, Emma Gloucester.

Thomas Joiner-White is such an amazing singular figure in pre Civil War New York City.

So he's one of the first physicians, first black physicians in the United States to receive a medical degree from an American college.

He graduates Bowdoin College, their college of medicine in 1849.

- And that's in Maine right?

- In Maine, yes.

He's all the way up in Maine to go to school.

And in fact, that's very common.

Most of the African-Americans who received a higher education degree in this time period are educated up north, in New England.

It's illegal in the South for blacks to be educated, even though the majority of free blacks live in the South.

So he gets his degree in Maine and comes directly down to New York and begins practicing.

He sets up in the fifth ward to around where Tribeca is today, kind of on the west side of the Island of Manhattan, Downtown.

And this would have been about a year after a massive cholera outbreak in New York City.

And so as a physician, his expertise would be sorely needed, especially amongst the African-American community.

So thinking about the kind of work they're doing, they're working as domestics, they're working picking up trash on the street.

This is exactly the community that's most vulnerable to disease.

- I wanna ask you just a little bit more about people like Thomas Joiner-White.

'Cause at one point he and his young wife Emma Gloucester, they had moved to Canada.

- They do.

- Now, what is it about African-Americans and Canada?

This comes up again and again.

- It does.

There's such a long history of Black Americans kind of seeing their respite in Canada.

And this is documented by history, right?

So starting with the American Revolution, the British army says, "Come fight for us and we'll give you your freedom."

- And did they do that?

Did they emancipate, African-Americans?

- Some did.

And when the revolutionary war was lost, some black loyalists did kind of flee to Canada.

They wouldn't have the best reception down here.

It happens again during the war of 1812.

And then of course the British Empire abolishes slavery in the 1830s.

And so, you have on the one hand, the slave trade still alive and well in the United States, and then in the British Empire, this idea of freedom, a lot of African-Americans look around and say, "Maybe it's never gonna happen."

- He decides to do what?

- Well, he decides that he's gonna sign up for the Union Army.

- Why?

- Even though he had moved to Canada, he had decided for another trajectory for his family, he's so inspired by what could be that it was his intention to come back and to fight.

Unfortunately, he falls deathly ill with cholera.

- The very disease that he'd been fighting back in New York.

- Absolutely.

He was trained to fight diseases exactly like this one.

So he knows what's coming.

He knows that he's about to die.

And he writes a letter explaining that he wanted to join up with the Union Army, explains that this is the time, you have to stand up and fight oppression when it's happening.

And he never quite made it.

- I just can't thank you enough.

You have been wonderful.

Just a font of information and enthusiasm.

And this is awesome.

- Thank you so much.

I'm so glad you're sharing this history.

- Absolutely.

The show's gonna come back to New York and probably come back to Green-Wood, we'll be in touch again.

Okay?

- We'd love to have you.

- Thank you so much.

- Thank you so much.

- Let's go.

- Let's do it.

- It's kind of buggy.

- So buggy!

(Roberto laughing) (gentle music) - [Roberto] Cremations are on the rise in many countries around the world.

The USA is no exception.

According to Forbes Magazine, by the year 2040 nearly 40% of Americans will choose this method for dealing with their remains.

As cremations increase, so does the need for places to store the ashes.

This is why cemeteries are building walled structures called columbariums with niches for urns.

(gentle music) Preservation, repairing statues, monuments and buildings is a painstaking expensive task in landmark cemeteries.

I chatted with Neela Wickremesinghe to find out what goes on behind the scenes.

- So the mausoleum behind me is the Chauncey Mausoleum.

It's comprised of white Tuckahoe marble.

Tuckahoe marble is wonderful.

It's a beautiful substrate.

However, it has a tendency to dis-aggregate.

And when we cleaned this mausoleum, a lot of that sugaring or dis-aggregating marble became apparent.

(gentle upbeat music) So you can see that this is an example of an area of the building where we've taken apart some of the building blocks that made up this vinyl.

So when we took off the top ornamentation and we were left with a couple of blocks that were really rough in shape.

So we were able to move those and take measurements to cast new pieces, to go on their spot.

(gentle bright music) Monument conservation is important because places like the Green-Wood Cemetery and cemeteries in general, are important for allowing the public to see the range and depth of funerary architecture of the types of monuments that existed in the past.

So we can, again, continue to create wonderful monuments in the future.

(gentle bright music) And I find myself always thinking about the last time, maybe, that somebody was able to physically touch this monument so high up.

When we're resetting an obelisk or cleaning the top of a mausoleum, someone else had to be where I was one day to put that whole thing together.

And so, it's a constant sort of stream of what happened to create that monument, what time has passed, and now what we're doing right now today to ensure that that monument has a future.

And that's what makes it really a wonderful experience for myself and my crew.

- Yes, that's right.

That's how big this beech tree is.

Does it look like a beech tree?

No.

It just looks like a misshapen mound of leaves, right?

Like someone had dumped a huge pile of leaves.

No, in fact it is a breech tree.

I for one, am amazed that this one trunk is holding up all of those leaves that we saw outside.

(bright music) Beautiful, slightly creepy, chilling, lovely or burial by definition, one of a kind.

(bright music) So this is a pretty modern part of the cemetery Jeff.

And here we have whom?

- Jean-Michel Basquiat.

- A wonderful modern artist, an amazing innovator in our modern era, died way too young.

This is an interesting collection of artifacts.

Tell us about this.

- So, he along with Leonard Bernstein are the most visited, the most asked about people here at the cemetery.

And so on any given day, people will leave all sorts of tokens, whether it's pens or brushes relating to his career.

- Okay.

And what about this?

- [Jeff] That I have no comment on.

(both laughing) - Absolutely not.

So what do you do with all these objects?

Do they build up over time?

- We're actually archiving them- - Okay.

So you move them... - To create a collection of material that people leave here.

- Fantastic.

- And the messages that they leave.

And so- - There's a message here.

- Looking here this says, "The future is female."

And then we have a note here, which is kind of a Basquiatesque drawing.

- Yeah, drawing.

Can I read that?

- Sure.

- It says, "May, August 1st, 2019, from my heart and my hand, Diaspora with love and faith, everything I do, will be in your light."

What does it say?

"I will most definitely recognize your greatness."

- Recognize.

- Oh, that's a beautiful, beautiful sentiment.

Well, I actually I love this idea of making tributes to a great artist.

So these were these two great artists in the cemetery here at Green-Wood.

- Oh, we have a over 400.

- Is that right, they're identified?

- And a dictionary of artists.

And we have an extensive collection of paintings by artists who are buried here.

- Fantastic.

Well, this is super.

We will leave Monsieur Basquiat alone and move on.

- Great.

(gentle piano music) - [Roberto] Join us all season long as we travel to the world's greatest cemeteries, touring masterpieces of landscape, gardens and culture, while reliving dramatic stories about diverse historical figures.

- I will be speaking on behalf of the political arrangements of the working class and secular of free education.

- [Roberto] We'll discover artistic designs, check out stunning vistas, and uncover surprising facts about the past.

(speaking in foreign language) London's Highgate Cemetery.

- So it's a phenomenal ecological embracing of the urban environment.

- [Roberto] Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, Ohio, Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles.

- In spite of whatever she was going through, she gave a hundred thousand percent every time she sang.

- All on "World's Greatest Cemeteries."

So, seriously, a bear?

What is this?

- Right, right.

(both laughing) - And is it Mr.

Beard?

- It is Mr.

Beard.

So William Holbrook Beard was a painter of anthropomorphic scenes.

And so he painted bears dancing around a campfire and bulls and bears attacking each other on Wall Street.

- [Roberto] Oh.

- And so we discovered he was in this unmarked grave here and tried to raise money for this monument, and that didn't go well.

But Dan Ostermiller the sculptor, agreed to donate this.

- Oh wow.

- And so 2002, we extended our very 19th, 20th century sculpture collection into the 21st century.

- Fantastic.

Now it looks like wood, and it couldn't possibly be wood.

- No no.

This is ... (tapping sculpture) - Oh yeah.

Wow.

- This is bronze.

- Amazing.

It's a very nice sculpture piece.

- Yeah, it's got beautiful color in there.

- Yes.

- It kind of changes with the light.

- He looks angry though.

- A little bit, a little bit, but- - Grumpy maybe.

- If you were kind of in the middle of Brooklyn... (Roberto laughing) - Parts, in an undignified position.

- That's right.

(both laughing) Forced to sit there endlessly.

- Forever.

- You might look a little grumpy also.

- Do you get a lot of kids coming up here and rubbing the bears?

- Yes.

We do.

We do.

So we have a active education department and they do children's tours and people come in here with their families also exploring.

And so this would be part of the discovery for many people.

- I think it would be fabulous bringing the grandkids, or your little niece and nephew, and then not mention this.

Just sort of like walk around and to have them say, "Grandpa, grandpa."

What?

What?

The bear.

What bear?

Right behind you!

There's no bear.

Grandpa!"

(both laughing) - Well you can do some kind of theme tour, Civil War, World War I or whatever, and people on the trolley are like, "Ooh.

Look at the bear!"

It doesn't have to be necessarily little ones.

- Little ones.

That's great.

All right.

Well Jeff, it's been a pleasure, man.

- Thank you.

- I really appreciate it.

Green-Wood Cemetery folks, come and visit.

And, unto our next place.

- Great.

(bright music) - Well, that's our visit to Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

Check out our site for more info and links.

If you go, drop me a line and let me know what you thought about the experience.

Until next time.

You can find out more about this episode, just get in touch or tell us about your favorite cemetery or historical figure at worldsgreatestcemeteries.com (gentle music) (logo chiming) (quirky music) (triumphant music)