If I had only known! As I was leaving a tour of the cemetery was starting. There were lots of people getting on the trolleys and all I was thinking about was getting inside. It was in the high 30's this morning and very windy! Here are the trolleys and the entrance gate. This was the best shot that I got of the gates since it was heavily guarded and I wasn't sure what their policy was towards wayward photographers.
This is one of the chapels on the site. It is small but quite lovely with beautiful stained glass windows. There was a service going on while I was there so I didn't do too much poking around. I felt like I was trespassing in this place. It is a sacred place for many people and I was just there to take some photographs. Luckily there weren't too many antics of hiding from people though I did duck behind some trees once and drop to the ground when a patrol went by.
I think it is pretty normal to see angels without heads or hands, probably vandals? The memorial in this picture had lost its head and hands but they were in the little grave, so they were taken off by a conscientious vandal or a maintenance person who wanted to try to keep things tidy?
Green-Wood Cemetery was site of a iconic Revolutionary War battle (called not very creatively Battle Hill) during the Battle for Long Island. This statue of Minerva was placed at the highest point in Brooklyn and was designed to make eye contact with the Statue of Liberty. There was a recent uproar when developers tried to build some condos that would block her view. After the community protest, the building's plans were changed. There are also memorials to the Revolutionary War at this point. The history combined with the view of Lower Manhattan make it a very meaningful place.
This is Minerva's view of the Statue of Liberty.
This was probably the best funereal shot I got all morning. This statue looked like it was melting and given the amount of acid rain, it kind of is. I love the shroud of green and the other statue in the background.
View of Downtown Manhattan's skyline from within the cemetery. Residential and Industrial Brooklyn surrounds the cemetery and while it is very quiet, areas like this one with houses and large buildings in the distance are common. I happen to like the fringes where the different parts of Brooklyn collide.
This is a rather large hill that you encounter when you enter from the Hamilton Parkway entrance. It was very green and one of the few places in the cemetery that they had already moved all of leaves. I was happy for the uphill walk given how cold it was. We've had 5 days under 40 degrees. While that is totally normal for January it's rather abnormal for November. Once I got walking though I warmed right up.
I wasn't sure what the policies were towards random photographers so I skirted the security guard at the entrance and stuck to the walking amongst the headstones. In some areas there were a lot of people and other areas were very quite. While it is a historical cemetery, it is still a working cemetery so there were fresh graves, grave digging equipment, and maintenance equipment around.
It was also not a very good place to shoot. The light was weird (it was between noon and 1 pm) and the ground was mostly covered with brown leaves giving a monochromatic feel to the place. You don't get the naturalistic park-like (read English country side) feel from my pictures. I also only walked about 1/4 of it. I look forward to exploring the place when the leaves are gone.
I sometimes forget the historical significance of our area, there is a lot of history here. We live just north of Green-Wood Cemetery, the site of Battle Hill during the revolutionary war. In some ways it's a typical old cemetery with Gothic angles, large ornate mausoleums, and large sprawling trees. In other ways, its historical significance during the revolutionary war, the number of famous people buried there, the architectural history, it is not. Perhaps the most poignant aspect of the place is an area called the plateau where you have an unobstructed view of lower Manhattan.
It's hard to convey the way that 9/11 peppers everyday life in NYC, partially because you see monuments and partially because the skyline is missing something. Being in places like Green-Wood Cemetery bring that hurtling back.
After I walked through about a quarter of the place, I exited through the main entrance and walked home down 5th Ave. I had never been on that stretch of 5th, it was dirty but filled with shops, old restaurants and new trendy things like wine bars and modern, out of place buildings.
1 comment:
Those aren't trolleys. They are buses painted funny.
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