@ sixes & sevens

I found Joy in a cemetery ...

I found Joy in a cemetery
Originally uploaded by sixes & sevens

... Literally: my art library colleague Joy Kestenbaum, in New Union Field Cemetery in Queens. Joy, it turns out, has made a lifelong studies of the cemeteries of New York with a particular (and personal) interest in the Jewish fields. We compared notes and visits, and I learned about Jewish mortuary sculpture in New York City.

It's an unofficial ritual of mine to visit a cemetery for either Memorial Day or Labor Day, or both, or any other holiday when I have time on my hands. Today I decided to tackle the Borough of Cemeteries, Queens, starting with the Evergreens near the Broadway Junction subway station and then swinging around to those on Cypress Avenue and Cypress Hills Avenue. (In the interest of accuracy, Evergreen is in both Queens and Brooklyn -- though I can't see any distinction on the ground between the two).

I optimistically thought I could do all these and maybe move on to a few more. What I neglected to take into account was the beautifully sunny and warm day; the amount of walking within cemeteries I'd do; and the long distances between cemetery entrances (if you find them). What I did discover was the Jewish Cemetery District, as it were, once a agglomeration of individual synagogal plots and now a loosely confederated set of cemeteries: Knollwood Park, Mount Judah, Old and New Mount Carmel, Union Field and New Union Field, Mount Neboh, Machipelah, Hungarian, Shearith Israel, Salem Fields, Maimonides and Mount Hope.

I haven't edited my flickr photographs particularly. What I have done is left their exact locations vague, in deference to the cemetery authorities (some of whom forbid photography -- oops!) and to preserve in whatever way these glorious monuments. More than a few of the porcelain enamel portraits had been broken or removed and the stained glass in the mausoleums destroyed. I confess to having skipped over sections with newer monuments, which tend to be rather boringly uniform (probably by fiat).

One suprise, from a photographic point of view, were the stained glass windows, which came out perfectly clear when shot through the windows in the mausoleum doors.

The other surprise (and it was more for lack of prior research) was the grave of Harry Houdini (né Weiss or Weisz).

I'm pretty certain I'll be doing this again in Ogden, Utah, when I head out there in July. I have some forebears to locate there.

Day of the Dead

FOR SEVERAL WEEKS it has been my intention to visit a cemetery on November the first, the Day of the Dead. Apart from the all too obvious reasons for the date and place, it's not as peculiar a past-time as it might seem.

There was a time when you could find me nearly every Memorial Day in one cemetery or another. Foreign travel seems always to include at least one cemetery visit: Damascus, Tehran (Behest-e Zahra), Paris (Père Lachaise),and most recently Buenos Aires (La Recoleta). I'm looking forward to seeing the City of the Dead in Cairo on this next trip. And so too closer to home: Last fall I wandered through Woodlawn in the Bronx at sunset. One of the many attractions of doing family genealogy has been walking the grave sites of my forebears.

But my motivation this time was neither wanderlust, family pride nor morbidness. For I had a specific mission. My goal was to visit the remains of Allan Chapman, my mentor and predecessor at the Goldwater Library, at The Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

And my choice of date? In life Allan loved Mexico. He studied for his master's degree in anthropology in Mexico City. Every year he would head to Oaxaca for several weeks to kick back. At work he put his personal passion for Mexico into building an impressive collection of books on Mexican art and manuscripts. And of all the holidays celebrated in Mexico, El Día de los Muertos is probably the most festive.

So I left work early Wednesday afternoon and headed for Green-Wood. I had checked online for the location within the columbarium (I love that word) -- even though I left the printout on my desk at work. Never mind: I was pretty sure of the location number: 44023. After the hour on the subway, I marched up the walk, under the gates, and off to the columbarium. There I discovered that the number was meaningless: nothing was marked. I wandered about looking for a directory or a human being in authority. Failing this, I looked at every single name, dozens upon dozens. Not a single Chapman.

I was not going to fail. I marched back to the cemetery office: Closed. When I asked the guard, I learned there was a computer available to check on locations. It hadn't done me any good so far, but I figured I'd double check my number anyway. Of course, the program was completely different. You could pinpoint location and get a printout too. And when you hit the Zoom button: X marks the spot. Once more to the columbarium, holding up the very schematic map, orienting the compass points and matching up the layout. So the one I'm looking for must be ... the one up there with no inscription.

Now what? Was that really the right location? All I could think to do was check whether the inscription to its right was on the same general place on my map. And in the end the computer confirmed it.

I had to smile. I had come out to visit Allan and perhaps take a photograph -- even though a sign indicated it was forbidden. But of a featureless plaque? Allan was a private man and a genuinely modest person. Is this his way of staying modest even in death? Maybe so.

Descanse en paz, Allan.

Columbarium photo source : Calacas photo source