Woodlawn Cemetery | |
Location | Webster Avenue and East 233rd Street Woodlawn, Bronx, The Bronx |
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Coordinates | 40°53′21″N73°52′24″W / 40.88917°N 73.87333°W |
Website | thewoodlawncemetery |
NRHP reference No. | 11000563 |
NYSRHP No. | 00501.001264 |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | June 23, 2011 |
Designated NHL | June 23, 2011 |
Designated NYSRHP | June 23, 2011 |
Woodlawn Cemetery is one of the largest cemeteries in New York City and a designated National Historic Landmark. Located south of Woodlawn Heights, Bronx, New York City, [1] it has the character of a rural cemetery. Woodlawn Cemetery opened during the Civil War in 1863, [2] in what was then Yonkers, in an area that was annexed to New York City in 1874. [3] It is notable in part as the final resting place of some well-known figures.
The Cemetery covers more than 400 acres (160 ha) [2] and is the resting place for more than 300,000 people. Built on rolling hills, its tree-lined roads lead to some unique memorials, some designed by famous American architects: McKim, Mead & White, John Russell Pope, James Gamble Rogers, Cass Gilbert, Carrère and Hastings, Sir Edwin Lutyens, Beatrix Jones Farrand, and John La Farge. The cemetery contains seven Commonwealth war graves – six British and Canadian servicemen of World War I and an airman of the Royal Canadian Air Force of World War II. [4] 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. [5]
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. [6]
Woodlawn was the destination for many human remains disinterred from cemeteries in more densely populated parts of New York City: [7]
The fictional cemetery of the Synagogue in Brooklyn in the film Once Upon a Time in America is actually located here, renamed "Riverdale Cemetery". [10]
Numerous notable persons have been interred at Woodlawn Cemetery including: Chief Justice of the United States Charles Evans Hughes; influential New York urban planner and builder Robert Moses; actress Cicely Tyson; Olympic champion swimmer Gertrude Ederle; aviation pioneer Harriet Quimby; performer, playwright and producer George M. Cohan; gangster Bumpy Johnson; authors Nellie Bly, Countee Cullen, Clarence Day, Damon Runyon, E.L. Doctorow, Herman Melville, and Dorothy Parker; [11] musicians Irving Berlin, Miles Davis, Felix Pappalardi, Duke Ellington, W. C. Handy, Fritz Kreisler, Pigmeat Markham, King Oliver, and Max Roach; singers Celia Cruz and Florence Mills; Film director Otto Preminger; husband and wife magicians Alexander Herrmann and Adelaide Herrmann; sportswriter Grantland Rice; gunfighter and US marshal Bat Masterson; developer of the Rolfing body therapy and noted female biochemist Ida Rolf; and, businessmen such as shipping magnate Archibald Gracie, cosmetics manufacturer Richard Hudnut, America's first self-made millionaire woman Madam C. J. Walker, department store founder Rowland Hussey Macy, [12] [13] and variety store mogul F. W. Woolworth. A large number of New York brewers (e.g., the Haffens of Haffen Brewing Company) are interred there on "Brewer's Row", [14] along with a dozen other brewing scions and their families. [15]
The Woodlawn Conservancy is a 501(c)(3) associated with Woodlawn Cemetery. It began as the Friends of Woodlawn in 1999. [16] It enhances the mission of Woodlawn through fundraising, educational opportunities and outreach with other non-profits. In 2021, over 40 stones were conserved in a joint effort between the Woodlawn Conservancy, the Friends of the Rye African-American Cemetery, World Monuments Fund, and the Jay Heritage Center. [17] The preservation effort was launched to coincide with the new federal Juneteenth celebration.
Green-Wood Cemetery is a 478-acre (193 ha) cemetery in the western portion of Brooklyn, New York City. The cemetery is located between South Slope/Greenwood Heights, Park Slope, Windsor Terrace, Borough Park, Kensington, and Sunset Park, and lies several blocks southwest of Prospect Park. Its boundaries include, among other streets, 20th Street to the northeast, Fifth Avenue to the northwest, 36th and 37th Streets to the southwest, Fort Hamilton Parkway to the south, and McDonald Avenue to the east.
Henry Rutgers was a United States Revolutionary War hero and philanthropist from New York City. Rutgers University was named after him, and he donated a bond which placed the college on sound financial footing. He also gave a bell that is still in use.
Hollywood Cemetery is a historic rural cemetery located at 412 South Cherry Street in the Oregon Hill neighborhood of Richmond, Virginia. It was established in 1847 and designed by the landscape architect John Notman. It is 135-acres in size and overlooks the James River. It is one of three places in the United States that contains the burials of two U.S. Presidents, the others being Arlington National Cemetery and United First Parish Church.
The Congressional Cemetery, officially Washington Parish Burial Ground, is a historic and active cemetery located at 1801 E Street, S.E., in Washington, D.C., on the west bank of the Anacostia River. It is the only American "cemetery of national memory" founded before the Civil War. Over 65,000 individuals are buried or memorialized at the cemetery, including many who helped form the nation and Washington, D.C., in the early 19th century.
Westminster Hall and Burying Ground is a graveyard and former church located at 519 West Fayette Street in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. It is currently part of the grounds of the University of Maryland's School of Law. It occupies the southeast corner of West Fayette and North Greene Street on the west side of downtown Baltimore. It sits across from the Baltimore VA hospital and is the burial site of Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) and several politicians and military officials. The complex was declared a national historic district in 1974.
The Albany Rural Cemetery was established October 7, 1844, in Menands, New York, United States, just outside the city of Albany, New York. It is renowned as one of the most beautiful, pastoral cemeteries in the U.S., at over 400 acres (1.6 km2). Many historical American figures are buried there.
Woodlawn Cemetery is the name of several cemeteries, including:
Laurel Hill Cemetery, also called Laurel Hill East to distinguish it from the affiliated West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cynwyd, is a historic rural cemetery in the East Falls neighborhood of Philadelphia. Founded in 1836, it was the second major rural cemetery in the United States after Mount Auburn Cemetery in Boston, Massachusetts.
Woodlawn National Cemetery is a United States National Cemetery within Woodlawn Cemetery, which is in the city of Elmira, in Chemung County, New York. Administered by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, it encompasses 10.5 acres (4.2 ha), and as of 2021, had over 11,000 interred remains.
Trinity-St. Paul's Episcopal Church in New Rochelle in Westchester County, New York was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2006. It is located at the northwest corner of Huguenot Street and Division Street. This church represents the body of the majority group of New Rochelle's founding Huguenot French Calvinistic congregation that conformed to the liturgy of the established Church of England in June 1709. King George III gave Trinity its first charter in 1762. After the American Revolutionary War, Trinity became a parish of the Protestant Episcopal Church of America.
Oakwood Cemetery is a nonsectarian rural cemetery in northeastern Troy, New York, United States. It operates under the direction of the Troy Cemetery Association, a non-profit board of directors that deals strictly with the operation of the cemetery. It was established in 1848 in response to the growing rural cemetery movement in New England and went into service in 1850. The cemetery was designed by architect John C. Sidney and underwent its greatest development in the late 19th century under superintendent John Boetcher, who incorporated rare foliage and a clear landscape design strategy. Oakwood was the fourth rural cemetery opened in New York and its governing body was the first rural cemetery association created in the state.
The Bronx Borough Courthouse, commonly referred to as the Old Bronx Borough Courthouse, is a building in the Melrose neighborhood of the Bronx, New York City. The courthouse was built between 1905 and 1914 near Boston Road, Third Avenue, St. Anns Avenue, and 161st Street. The 161st Street station of the New York City Subway's IRT Third Avenue elevated was in front of the courthouse. For two decades it housed the Supreme, Surrogate's, and County Courts of the borough until the larger Bronx County Courthouse was built in 1934. The Bronx Branch of the New York City Criminal Court remained here until 1977 when the city formally sealed the doors. It is a National Register of Historic Places listing and a New York City Landmark.
The Haffen Building is a New York City landmark constructed in 1901–1902 in the neighborhood of Mott Haven, Bronx, New York. The building is located at 2804 Third Avenue, also addressed as 507 Willis Avenue, in the middle of a triangular block between 148th Street, 147th Street, Third Avenue, and Willis Avenue, within the Hub business district. It was inspired by the economic growth and upper middle-class status that was prevalent in the area during the period. When constructed, the Third Avenue and Second Avenue elevated train lines stopped at 149th Street, a station in front of it.
Haffen Brewery, later J&M Haffen Brewing Company, and incorporated as Haffen Brewing Company in 1900, operated in Bronx, New York from 1856 until 1917. Owned by Matthias Haffen, (1814–1891), who came to the United States from Bavaria in 1831, it was a "landmark" on old Melrose Avenue between 151st Street and 152nd Street. The Haffen Building, a seven-story Beaux-Arts architecture style office building by architect Michael J. Garvin was built for him in 1901 to 1902. He married Catherine (Hays) Haffen (1823–1888), an emigrant from Limerick, Ireland, in 1840. They had six children.
Michael John Garvin, also known as Michael J. Garvin and M. J. Garvin (1861–1918), was an American architect from The Bronx, New York. A graduate of Manhattan College, he served as the first Building Commissioner of the borough (1897–1903) and its first Under Sheriff. With the placement of the influential IRT Third Avenue Elevated train, Garvin was immersed in designing many surrounding structures during the borough's increasing growth at the turn of the 20th century. Of his architectural contributions the Haffen Building; the Fire House, Hook and Ladder 17; and the Bronx Borough Courthouse have all become New York City landmarks while the latter a US National Historic Place.
Louis Francis Haffen was an American engineer and politician who was the first Bronx Borough President. He was elected four times and was known as the "Father of the Bronx." He was a member of the Democratic Party.
The Admiral David Glasgow Farragut Gravesite is the final resting place of David Glasgow Farragut (1801–1870), the first rear admiral, vice admiral, and four-star admiral of the United States Navy. He was most well known for his order to "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead." The granite and marble monument resembling a mast marks not only his burial site, but that of his wife, son and daughter-in-law. It was listed as a National Historic Landmark on the National Register of Historic Places on October 16, 2012. It is located in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, itself a National Historic Landmark. It is the only surviving place of high quality with a direct association to Farragut's life.
The West Farms Soldiers Cemetery, at 2103 Bryant Avenue and 180th Street in the West Farms section of the Bronx in New York City, is the oldest public veterans' burial ground in the borough. The cemetery contains the remains of 40 US veterans including 2 from the War of 1812, 35 from the Civil War, 2 from the Spanish-American War, and 2 from the First World War. The cemetery is a New York City landmark, designated by the Landmarks Preservation Commission on August 2, 1967.