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Forgotten New York is a program of the Greater Astoria Historical Society, a non-profit organization supported by the Long Island City community.
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ADAM ALLYN, COMEDIAN, Trinity Church Cemetery
July 24, 2014Trinity Church Cemetery, at Broadway and Wall Street, is one of Manhattan’s oldest cemeteries. (The oldest may be the First Shearith Jewish Cemetery on St. James Place just south of Chatham Square.) The first mention of this space as a burial ground was in 1673, over twenty years before the first Trinity Church was built [...]
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MARBLE CEMETERIES, East Village
July 13, 2014Aimlessly meandering through the East Village during the spring (2014) wondering what was going to happen next, I noticed that I was on lower 2nd Avenue near East Houston Street, and I realized I hadn’t gotten a good photo of the New York Marble Cemetery gate and entranceway. It’s one of the more obscure alleyways [...]
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WASHINGTON CEMETERY, Borough Park — Midwood
May 20, 2014While Green-Wood and perhaps Evergreens get all the Brooklyn cemetery publicity, there’s another one smack in the center of the borough that’s fairly unnoticed, except if you are looking out the window of the F train en route to Coney Island or toward Manhattan. Washington Cemetery has been in Kings County since the mid-1850s, and [...]
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HERMAN ARMOUR, Woodlawn Cemetery
December 26, 2013Herman Armour (1837-1901) was the co-founder of the Armour Meatpaking Co. with his brother Philip in 1867, which still bears the Armour name. Armour introduced canned meat, brought the assembly line practice to the meatpacking industry and pioneered the use of refrigerated railcars in shipping; for a time, Armour was the world’s largest meat processor [...]
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ALEXANDER ARCHIPENKO, Woodlawn Cemetery
December 26, 2013Alexander Archipenko (born May 30, 1887, Kiev, Ukraine [then Russian Empire]—died February 25, 1964, New York, New York, U.S.), Ukrainian-American artist best known for his original, Cubist-inspired sculptural style. After studying in Kiev, in 1908 Archipenko briefly attended the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, but he quickly abandoned formal studies to become part of more radical circles, especially the Cubist movement. He began to [...]
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HERBERT BRENON, Woodlawn Cemetery
December 26, 2013Here’s the unusual castellate Herbert Brenon mausoleum in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, which, unusually, features a clock which no longer tells the time, which Brenon hasn’t needed to know since his death, in any case. Brenon (1880-1958), born in Dublin, was a film director in the Golden Age of Silents in the 1910s and [...]
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PROSPECT CEMETERY 2004
August 15, 2013FNY has been a friend of Prospect Cemetery and its caretaker Cate Ludlam since the Dawn of Forgottening in 1998. This is a photo from FNY’s April 2004 Prospect Cemetery/King Manor tour, the first of two (the second was in April 2012). The cemetery is on 159th Street south of Archer Avenue in Jamaica. It [...]
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ST. PAUL’S CHAPEL CHURCHYARD, Financial District
July 31, 2013I haven’t spent a lot of time in the St. Paul’s Chapel churchyard, between Broadway and Church, Vesey and Fulton Streets, in back of the oldest remaining building church in Manhattan (1766). In part, that’s because Trinity Cemetery a few blocks to the south has more superstars in it, like Robert Fulton and Alexander Hamilton. However, [...]
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TRINITY TOMBSTONE, Financial District
June 29, 2013I think humanity is alone in the universe, which for me doesn’t cause anomie, just disappointment. At age 55 I already feel cheated that half of things are over with, and the great nothingness that existed before my birth is getting closer. Most people are more or less comfortable with it, since they have children [...]
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SCENES FROM FORGOTTENTOUR #65 — Calvary Cemetery
May 10, 2013May 4th, 2013 continued the lengthy string of ForgottenTour sunny weather that had begun in 2012, as over 35 ForgottenFans were treated to pleasant 60-degree conditions for a walk in Calvary Cemetery, Queens. We stopped at about two dozen memorials, enjoyed terrific views of the Manhattan skyline and the Kosciuszko Bridge (which is slated for [...]
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THE MARBLE CEMETERIES, East Village
May 3, 2013East Second Street boasts two small, well-maintained cemeteries, one visible from the street, one hidden from view. New York Marble Cemetery, organized in 1830, and New York City Marble Cemetery, from 1832, are not two locations of the same cemetery, but separate organizations! New York Marble Cemetery is located within the block bounded by the [...]
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ANCIENT FLATBUSH
February 1, 2013Two institutions that between them total 594 years stand across the street from each other in Flatbush. The Flatbush Reformed Church was founded in 1654, its current church building was constructed beginning in 1796, and the oldest stone in its cemetery goes back to 1754. Erasmus Hall, meanwhile, was founded in 1786, with its present [...]
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R.I.P. EDWARD I. KOCH
January 30, 2013Former Mayor Ed Koch, who is profiled in a new documentary film coming out the first week in February, has, in a rather unusual move, already installed a tombstone at a burial plot he purchased in uptown Trinity Cemetery, Broadway and West 155th Street. Some have articulated some surprise at this, but I don’t think [...]
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BRINCKERHOFF CEMETERY, Fresh Meadows
January 10, 2013On 182nd Street just north of 73rd Avenue you will see what appears to be a weedy, empty lot, with ivy and ancient trees. This, though, is the cemetery of one of the farming families in the area, the Brinckerhoffs; there are 76 plots here dating from between 1736 and 1872. The tombstones have been [...]
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FORGOTTENTOUR #60 RECAP: GREEN-WOOD
October 25, 2012Tour #60 was FNY’s 4th trip into Green-Wood Cemetery, concentrating this time on the cemetery’s central and southwest sections. As with all the tours thus far in 2012, the weather was bright and sunny, albeit a little cool for early October with the mercury around 50 degrees. In fact the weather has occasionally been TOO [...]
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NATIONAL CEMETERY
May 26, 2012There are a total of seventeen cemeteries in Cypress Hills on either side of the Brooklyn-Queens border. It’s a hilly area, where thousands of years ago a glacier was stopped cold, depositing debris in its advance, accounting for the hills of Staten Island and the middle of Brooklyn, Queens and on into Long Island. I’ve [...]
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ABE LINCOLN’S FAVORITE ACTOR
April 28, 2012James H. Hackett (1800-1871), whom Abraham Lincoln called his favorite actor, reposes at Prospect Cemetery in Jamaica, Queens, under a fallen monument. The Prospect Cemetery Association hopes to restore it soon. Actor Peter Riegert (Animal House, Local Hero, Sopranos) has made a short Kickstarter film about the largely forgotten entertainment figure and the now-reviving cemetery in [...]
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CALVARY CEMETERY
December 11, 2011In the mid-19th Century Manhattan was getting so crowded (by 1845 the island was fully built up south of about 42nd Street) that it was running out of cemetery space. The two largest cemeteries had been developed by Trinity Cemetery, in the churchyard adjacent to its ancient Broadway and Wall Street location, and uptown in [...]
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FORGOTTENTOUR 49: GREEN-WOOD CEMETERY
October 19, 2011Green-Wood Cemetery, in Brooklyn between the neighborhoods of Park Slope, Sunset Park, Windsor Terrace and Kensington, has proven to be a Forgotten favorite — this was the 3rd such Green-Wood tour in the series which here attains its 49th entry. The cemetery, instituted in 1838, is so vast that it’s impossible to do the same [...]
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MOORE-JACKSON CEMETERY
December 15, 2008Queens is dotted with minuscule cemeteries, some still existing, some as dead as the people who were buried within, whose remains are blown in the breeze now. Corona used to have a small cemetery on Alstyne Avenue that is long forgotten. TheBunn Cemetery on 46th Avenue and 165th Street in Flushing was recently rededicated after being cemented [...]
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Flushing’s Lost Cemetery – MARTIN’S FIELD
June 24, 2007When I moved to Flushing in 1993, Martin’s Field, 46th Avenue and 164th-165th Streets, was just another playground: a desultory concrete space, with broken swings and a curious weedy green space in the back. I had no idea then that Martin’s Field was in fact a cemetery, and it took one man’s persistence and vision [...]
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ForgottenTour 29, Green-Wood Cemetery Part 2, Brooklyn
April 13, 2007Well, your webmaster finally made the team picture after 29 ForgottenTours. Can you spot where I am?* As usual, despite sunny weather predicted all week, ForgottenTour Day turned out cloudy, chance of showers. At least on 2007′s Green-Wood Cemetery tour, I didn’t have any hecklers, like I did on the 2006 tour! 30 ForgottenFans and I investigated [...]
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ForgottenTour 28, Juniper Valley-Middle Village, Queens
April 1, 2007April 1, 2007, didn’t fool 48 ForgottenFans…second-most ever on a ForgottenTour (the prize goes to the 56 who turned up for Tour 14 in Dumbo, October 2003)…who turned up for FNY’s jaunt through Middle Village and Juniper Park. We were aided by FNY Correspondent Christina, the Queen of Queens, and Bob Holden, President of the Juniper Park Civic Association. [...]
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FLUSHING CEMETERY
January 14, 2007Whenever I lead a ForgottenTour through a cemetery (like Green-Wood Cemetery, Tour 24) I always tell people to peek in the windows of the mausolea. More often than not, you’ll get the ring in the Cracker Jack box — a gorgeous stained-glass panel depicting a religious scene…most of the time, but not always. The fascinating [...]
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Forgotten Tour 24, Green-Wood Cemetery Part 1, Brooklyn
April 8, 2006Forgotten Fans wave with Minerva In what was undoubtedly the best weather ever for a ForgottenTour (sunny and 68) forty Forgotten fans (and one heckler!) converged on Brooklyn’s Green-Wood cemetery, a peaceful respite since 1838 as one of the first ‘rural cemteries’ or burial parks in America. Previously burials had been done in churches or in [...]
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The Faces of MOUNT ZION
July 10, 2004Maurice and 54th Avenues, Mt. Zion Cemetery with a waste disposal plant overlooking it. In the 1850s, NYC decided it didn’t want its dead anymore. Rising real estate costs and an ever-expanding urban frontier led NYC to pass a law prohibiting any more burials in Manhattan in 1852. Churches and synagogues, which had begun to [...]
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Forgotten Tour 15, Jamaica’s Prospect Cemetery and King Mansion, Queens
March 21, 2004March 21st, 2004: About thirty Forgotten Fans met in (extremely) windy Jamaica, Queens and toured a 4-acre, 350-year old cemetery and an over 250-year old mansion in the geographic center of Queens. Cate Ludlam, president of the Prospect Cemetery Association, shows off a hand-lettered tombstone from 1728. Cate has been involved with the cemetery, in which is interred [...]
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Forever BRONXITES
February 5, 2002ST. PETER’S CEMETERY St. Peter’s Episcopal Church on 2500 Westchester Avenue is a venerable church, but the actual building is not that elderly, as far as churches go…it was built in 1855 in a Gothic Revival style (making it look rather older than it really is) by Leopold Eidlitz. Ah, then why are there some [...]
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THE DEAD POOL. A ship graveyard adjoins an actual one in Rossville, SI
October 29, 2001One of the eeriest places in the five boroughs, the entire Northeast, or perhaps the entire country, is in the borderland where New York City peters out, leaving New Jersey ahead and the hustle & bustle of the city behind. This is the place where the souls of 17th and 18th century patriots wander in [...]
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Who IS buried at GRANT’S TOMB?
November 11, 2000It’s not who you think. The last resting place of the 18th President, Ulysses S. Grant, and his wife on Riverside Drive on the Upper West Side has been the subject of NYC’s most infamous, and silliest, riddle over the years. The correct answer is that nobody is buried under the monument…Grant and his wife [...]
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ICHABOD SLEEPS HERE
October 30, 2000Was Ichabod Crane, the scrawny schoolteacher who met the Headless Horseman in Washington Irving’s classic “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” a real person? Of course he was, and he rests in peace in Staten Island. Or rather, his namesake does. This isn’t the Ichabod Crane of fantasy and fiction, but rather, an army major who [...]
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HAPPY DEATHDAY, Mr. Lawrence – Queens’ hidden cemeteries
October 29, 2000Queens has an abundance of small, out-of-the-way, ancient cemeteries, many of which go back to the 1700s, some of which are barely suspected by neighbors. Ancient burial grounds are alngside two-family homes, in parks and even UNDER a lot of places they wouldn’t be expected. LAWRENCE FAMILY BURIAL GROUND, Astoria Though the historical marker [...]
Categorized in: Cemeteries Tagged with: Astoria Cambria Heights Fresh Meadows Glendale Long Island City Middle Village Queens
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THE ALLEYS OF UPPER MANHATTAN
August 27, 1999North of Fourteenth Street, Manhattan is pretty uniform, with only Broadway and Central Park interrupting the gridiron of streets between 14th Street and 110th. Still, there are a few obscure dead ends to be found on the Upper East Side, Upper West Side and Washington Heights. Henderson Place Henderson Place has its very own Landmark [...]
Categorized in: Alleys Cemeteries Tagged with: Harlem Manhattan Upper West Side Washington Heights Yorkville
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STATEN ISLAND CEMETERIES – Burial Grounds of Richmond
April 12, 1999The hidden cemeteries of Staten Island are more valuable today then they ever were, because as Staten Island continues to be swallowed by urban sprawl and green patches are getting harder and harder to find, these cemeteries will forever provide oases of quite contemplation. You begin to see how small we are in the grand [...]
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SYLVAN, the cemetery at the end of the Island
March 7, 1999If it’s possible, Sylvan Cemetery, at the end of Victory Boulevard in Staten Island in the small town of Travis, had been in even worse shape than Prospect Cemetery was in 1999, when I first photographed each. In 1999 most of the headstones in Sylvan had been knocked over. As in Prospect Cemetery, overgrown weeds [...]
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PROSPECT CEMETERY
February 27, 1999Prospect Cemetery in Jamaica is probably the oldest cemetery in Queens, and perhaps the entire city. Old records show that it dates to 1668. The cemetery can boast 53 Revolutionary War veterans, 43 Civil War veterans, three Spanish-American War veterans, and many interments of prominent Long Island families such as the Lefferts. Prospect was designated [...]
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DEAD RECKONING — hidden cemeteries around town
January 2, 1999Scattered throughout New York City are several small cemeteries. In the 1800s, a law was passed that prohibited further cemetery construction on the island of Manhattan, owing to the city’s rapid growth. Subsequently, many cemeteries began to appear in western Queens, which was close to the city. However, remnants and vestiges of several old cemeteries [...]
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