Woodlawn Cemetery (Bronx)
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Woodlawn Cemetery
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Main office building
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| Location: | Webster Avenue and East 233rd Street The Bronx |
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| Coordinates: | 40°53′21″N 73°52′24″W / 40.88917°N 73.87333°WCoordinates: 40°53′21″N 73°52′24″W / 40.88917°N 73.87333°W |
| NRHP Reference#: | 11000563 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP: | June 23, 2011 |
| Designated NHL: | June 23, 2011 |
Woodlawn Cemetery is one of the largest cemeteries in New York City and is a designated National Historic Landmark.
A rural cemetery located in the Bronx, it opened in 1863,[1] in what was then southern Westchester County, in an area that was annexed to New York City in 1874.
The cemetery covers more than 400 acres (160 ha)[1] and is the resting place for more than 300,000 people. Is is also the site of the Annie Bliss Titanic Memorial, dedicated to those who perished in the 1912 maritime disaster. Built on rolling hills, its tree-lined roads lead to some unique memorials, some designed by McKim Mead & White, John Russell Pope, James Gamble Rogers, Cass Gilbert, Carrère and Hastings, Sir Edwin Lutyens, Beatrix Jones Farrand, and John LaFarge.
The cemetery contains 7 British Commonwealth war graves - 6 officers of the British Army of World War I and an airman of the Royal Canadian Air Force of World War II.[2]
As of 2007, plot prices at Woodlawn were reported as $200 per square foot, $4,800 for a gravesite for two, and up to $1.5 million for land to build a family mausoleum.[3]
In 2011, Woodlawn Cemetery was designated a National Historic Landmark, since it shows the transition from the rural cemetery popular at the time of its establishment to the more orderly 20th-century cemetery style.[4]
Burials moved to Woodlawn
Woodlawn was the destination for many human remains disinterred from cemeteries in more densely populated parts of New York City:[5]
- The Dyckman-Nagle Burying Ground, West 212th Street/9th Avenue Manhattan, was established in 1677 and originally contained 417 plots. In 1905 the remains, with the exception of Staats Long Morris and his family, were removed. By 1927 the Morris graves were moved to Woodlawn Cemetery. The former cemetery is now a subway train yard.
- West Farms Dutch Reformed Church at Boone Avenue and 172nd Street in the Bronx had most of its graves moved to Woodlawn Cemetery.
- Bensonia Cemetery, aka Morrisania Cemetery, was originally a Native American Burial Ground. The graves were moved to Woodlawn Cemetery. PS138, in the Bronx, is now on the site.
- Rutgers Street church graves were moved to Woodlawn Cemetery.
Notable burials
Image gallery
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Titanic memorial
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Richard Hudnut Monument
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Van Cortlandt Frieze
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Sarcophagus with angel
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Dishabille statue
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Reisinger Monument
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Nathan Piccirilli Monument
References
- ^ a b Woodlawn Cemetery website, accessed April 27, 2009
- ^ [1] CWGC Cemetery Report. Breakdown obtained from casualty record.
- ^ Tom Van Riper, America's Most Expensive Cemeteries, Forbes.com, October 26, 2007
- ^ "National Register of Historic Places listings; July 22, 2011". National Park Service. July 22, 2011. Retrieved July 25, 2011.
- ^ Carolee Inskeep (1998), The Graveyard Shift: A Family Historian's Guide to New York City Cemeteries, Ancestry Publishing, ISBN 0-916489-89-2, ISBN 978-0-916489-89-2, page xii
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: |
- Museum Planet Multimedia Tour of Woodlawn Cemetery
- Woodlawn Official Page
- Woodlawn at Findagrave
- Photographs of graves of famous persons in Woodlawn
