Green-Wood Cemetery

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  • Green-Wood Cemetery's President is Richard J. Moylen
  • The Green-Wood Cemetery is one of the first rural cemeteries in the nation.
  • It was founded in 1838 by notable New Yorkers who thought it was necessary to build a cemetery in Brooklyn because Manhattan had overcrowded churchyards.
  • Green-Wood Cemetery has 478 acres of land filled with approximately 7000 trees and 560,000 graves.
  • It became more popular after the transfer of DeWitt Clinton’s body from Albany.
  • It even inspired a competition to design a “Central Park” for NYC.
  • Before this cemetery even existed, it was the site of an important battle of American history: The Battle of Long Island.
  • Since the creation of the Green-Wood Cemetery in 1838, it has been open for 178 years (- Present 2016).
  • Green-Wood Cemetery was damaged by vandalism and Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
    • The vandalism on August 21, 2012 was one of the worst cases encountered in Green-Wood. Individual(s) was said to have jumped the fence and damage about 50 monuments and memorials.
    • Hurricane Sandy destroyed or seriously damaged about 300 trees, and damaged 210 gravestones and 2 mausoleums.
  • Also in 2012, Green-Wood Cemetery became the new home of Civic Virtue after much effort and controversy.
  • Another sculpture, the Angel of Music made by Giancarlo Biagi and Jill Burkee, was revealed and memorialized Louis Moreau Gottschalk, America’s first matinee idol and international music superstar.
  • The Historic Fund’s Civil War Project, an effort to identify and remember Civil War veterans buried at Green-Wood, was born of the enthusiasm felt at the rededication ceremony of Civil War Soldiers' Monument.[1] These early graves have either sunk into the soil, been damaged, or have their markers erased.
  1. ^ "Civil War Project".