Restoration & Beautification

Just a few weeks ago I led a tour of Green-Wood Cemetery for the Woodhaven Historical Society. At one of the stops on the tour, a very nice woman asked me if I knew of a monument at Green-Wood that had a flag pole.

I was cruising around the cemetery yesterday, leading a tour on our trolley, when we came across this scene. There were Domenick Lanzi, our master ironworker, and his assistant, Vincent Joseph, installing my cast iron gate. Now, it really isn't mine, at least not anymore.

It has been a mystery we’ve been trying to solve for some time now. We knew that the grave of Louis Moreau Gottschalk, America’s first internationally-acclaimed classical composer and pianist, had been adorned, soon after his death, with a marble angel. We had photographs of it--from the 19th century, even from as late as 1930 or so.

 I thought the snow storm we had a few weeks ago was pretty severe. With all that wet snow, many wonderful trees lost limbs. Discussing that storm with our Superintendent of the Grounds, Art Presson, a few days after it struck, we marveled at the fact that all of the falling limbs then had somehow not damaged any monuments.

Well, I guess Nature giveth and Nature taketh away.

We do have a great collection of trees at Green-Wood Cemetery--an expert from the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens recently described our trees as the best collection of mature trees in New York City. We have about 7,000 trees--some just getting started, some more than a century old.

This angel, in front of a tomb near Fort Hamilton Parkway, recently lost its head. Fortunately, Frank Morelli, our supervisor in charge of the Green-Wood Restoration Program, found it in a nearby urn. And its now back in place. Here it is, clamped, waiting for the adhesive to set.

Art Presson, Green-Wood Cemetery's superintendent of the grounds, is a jack of all trades. Trained as a horiculturist, he designs gardens and plantings. He is in charge of the grounds crew, figuring out what has to be done and assigning workers to do it. He is responsible for selecting sites for new trees and determining which diseased trees must be cut down.

From its earliest years, the grounds of the Green-Wood Cemetery have been graced by cast iron signs marking its streets and paths. Unfortunately, even cast iron doesn't always last forever. Some of the original signs have been crushed under falling trees and branches. Others have been run over by carriages and cars.

Christmas Day, 2009. Snow covers the cemetery, bringing great serenity.

Green-Wood Cemetery's main entrance, at 25th Street and Fifth Avenue, is adorned by spectacular brownstone arches. Designed by Richard Upjohn (the architect of Trinity Church at the head of Wall Street in Manhattan and the first president of the American Institute of Architects) and his son, Richard M.