Best Halloween Is Coming, Yo

On Saturday I returned to Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery after a five year absence. Alpha and I were trying to get on a Haunted Walking Tour of the Cemetery, but it was sold out and so we just walked around on our own. I mean, it's a cemetery. It's full of tombstones and crypts and monuments. You don't really need a tour guide pointing out the dead stuff to you. 

Let's just roll through the photos and every now and then I'll have something to say or I won't.

Little Andrew, Big Monument.

A row of hedges on the west side of the cemetery. On the left, in the distance, maaaybe that's where a friend of mine lives. Okay, really I have friends in that building. But they weren't home. I called to check.

Pall Mall.

Pumpkin.

Pond.

We came across this highly photographable cross.

My photograph.

Equally photographable lying tombstones.

Family mausoleums abound. -ed.

It is a spooky thing, to look inside a mausoleum. Or crypt. Or whatever it might be properly called.

But sometimes they are not so creepy inside. (Although other times they very much are. But there isn't any light to photograph them by).

Back to statues and stuff.

We were looking for the grave of Bill the Butcher. On the internet there was a picture of how it was right by this distinctive tree just off a road through the cemetery. Looked and looked for that tree and that tombstone. Then we were like, "OH, there it is."(Sometimes distinctive trees become distinctive stumps)

33! 33 when he died, a famous gangster later immortalized by Daniel Day Lewis. And a very fine set of last words, "Goodbye boys. I die a true American."

Here's the grave of Boss Tweed and family.

Squint and you can see Latin that says "Always prepared" or "Never unprepared."

Another not spooky crypt.

Went to the Roosevelt Family plot!

All the tombstones were in a circle. Pretty cool, right?

Second tombstone from the right is Alice Roosevelt's, Teddy's first wife. The day of her death inspired the best sad journal entry you'll ever see. He never got over the loss. He had one daughter with her, also named Alice, but her half-siblings (from TR's second marriage) always called her "Sister" so as to not upset Father.

Gotta get the shot!

"Rest, Spirit, Rest"

Grave of Jean Michel Basquiat.

Seasonal decorations.

Impressive and unique tombstone.

Toombstone.

 Now check out this Mormony obelisk! Beehive? Handclasp? What's going on here?

CA Nothnick, first Mormon buried in Brooklyn?

Lots of Mason stuff all over.

Pffft! HA! Sorry!

Now look at this Scout! (or WWI soldier, it turns out). What a likeness!

Oh wait, I forgot to tell you. I died.

'

Just kidding! I didn't. (....or did I?)

After a few good hours made our way for the Out.

Past the new and standard and cramped Contemporary Wing of the cemetery.

And strolled on over to Melody Lanes.

To visit a Snack Bar that's one of my favorite restaurants in the city.

Enough Curly Fries to feed a family of 4 for $3.

And if you're in a mood for some blast-from-the-past 2008 photos, check out my post from my first trip to Green-Wood, back when I didn't realize the name was hyphenated.