Green-Wood Cemetery is Brooklyn’s most historic cemetery. From New York Tribune founder Horace Greeley, to famed composer Leonard Bernstein, there is a tombstone representing just about anyone’s interests. Sounds creepy, sure. Who would go visit a cemetery, especially to visit the gravesites of people you’ve never met. The Green-Wood Cemetery isn’t just a cemetery though. For Brooklyn, it’s a landmark.
Each week the cemetery hosts trolley tours, taking you through the gravesites and showing you some of the biggest spectacles in burial places. On weekends they host more focused tours, with themes like Eminent Irish and Baseball Greats. Green-Wood’s Historic Chapel serves as a draw for many events. Some of these events have included book readings and trivia nights.
Memorial Day stands up to its name each year as the cemetery honors musicians who are buried there. The ISO Symphonic Band, led by the ISO’s inimitable founder and conductor Brian P. Worsdale, pays homage to the likes of Fred Ebb, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, Leonard Bernstein, and many of the graveyards other permanent residents. The ISO Symphonic Band was founded in 1995 as a way of sponsoring the musically inclined students through out the city.
The first battle of the American Revolution was fought on land that is now a part of Green-Wood cemetery. In honor and celebration of those fallen soldiers, the cemetery hosts a day filled with free commemorative ceremonies and trolley tours, annually. As a special, and extremely historical, tribute there is even a war re-enactment that takes place in the meadow at the Gothic Arch.
Historical lesson, music in the summer, or just a little creep factor, no matter your reasoning for coming down to the cemetery you’ll leave with more than you came. Maybe you can even take home a few spirits even.