Green-Wood Cemetery is a Winter Wonderland!

The foot of snow we had in Brooklyn last week was still evident on the ground this weekend, even though the sky was a cloudless bright blue.  Feeling a little bit of cabin fever, my husband and I decided to take a drive to Green-Wood Cemetery located at 500 25th Street, Brooklyn, New York, to walk along the paths in its 478 spectacular acres.

(all photos will enlarge when clicked on)

The Green-Wood Cemetery website gives a synopsis of it's history:

"Founded in 1838 as one of America’s first rural cemeteries, the Green-Wood Cemetery soon developed an international reputation for its magnificent beauty and became the fashionable place to be buried. By 1860, Green-Wood was attracting 500,000 visitors a year, rivaling Niagara Falls as the country’s greatest tourist attraction. Crowds flocked to Green-Wood to enjoy family outings, carriage rides and sculpture viewing in the finest of first generation American landscapes. Green-Wood’s popularity helped inspire the creation of public parks, including New York City’s Central and Prospect Parks."

The cemetery even offers a year round historic trolley tour every Wednesday and select weekends.

"A magnet for history buffs and bird watchers, Green-Wood is a Revolutionary War historic site (the Battle of Long Island was fought in 1776 across what is now its grounds), a designated site on the Civil War Discovery Trail, and a registered member of the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary System.


On September 27, 2006, Green-Wood was designated a National Historic Landmark by the United States Department of the Interior, which recognized its national significance in art, architecture, landscaping and history.

560,000 people are buried here, including Leonard Bernstein, Boss Tweed, Charles Ebbets, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Horace Greeley, Civil War generals, baseball legends, politicians, artists, entertainers and inventors." 

The grounds are lovely in all four seasons, and I thought it would be nice to take my camera along on my walk and record some of the beautiful winter landscape.

I have blogged about Green-Wood cemetery many times before and those post can be read at this link.

The wild monk parrots that live in Green-Wood were very visible in the trees!  They even have their own blog where the history of how they came to Brooklyn can be read at this link. 

I though the two in the upper right of this mosaic made a romantic heart shape for us for St. Valentine's day!

The cemetery is really a birder's paradise and is proud to be a registered member of the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary System since 1995.  Large flocks of Canadian geese were looking for food the day I was there.

Approximately 3,300 Civil War veterans have been identified at Green-Wood, both Union and Confederate soldiers, through the Green-Wood Historic Fund’s Civil War Project.  My husband and I are proud to be among the hundreds of volunteers who have worked the last six years on this ongoing  project.

As you can see in the mosaic above, as part of the project, many of the Civil War Veterans have had new gravestones ordered from the US Veterans Administration, and they have been installed next to, or in front of, their original gravestones which had become unreadable through time. Quite a few veterans were buried with no gravestone at all, and it has been particularly gratifying to finally identify their grave sites with stone that tell of their service to our country.

The Victorian era memorials and statuary throughout the cemetery are magnificent, and I am particularly fond of taking photographs of the many angels that are in the cemetery.  Someday I will do a blog post with photos of the other varied types of statuary in the cemetery as there are many other interesting memorials to be seen.

Another portion of the cemetery I never tire of  is it's beautiful views!  Green-Wood Cemetery is full of hills and valleys and Battle Hill which is located there is one of the highest points in Brooklyn.  This is a view of the Manhattan skyline that can be seen as I descended Battle Hill.

A close up of the same skyline view framed through a tree.  I guess you now know where I took the photograph that is presently my blog header!

I hope you enjoyed walking along with me on this beautiful Winter day in Green-Wood Cemetery.  It is one of my favorite places to visit!

I am adding this post to Susan at A Southern Daydreamer blog's "Outdoor Wednesday" event.  Please visit Susan today to see her outdoor post and links to all the other blogs participating today.