A few years ago, my sister visited me on her birthday. I came up with a last minute surprise for her. I gave my brother-in-law directions and we wound up at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. My sister was shocked and appalled! She could not comprehend why I would take her to a cemetery on her birthday. Now we laugh about it, but back then it was not so funny.

I have a love for old cemeteries. There is Green-Wood and then there is the rest. Its greatness plays on three levels:

1. Landscape: Green-Wood’s rolling hills of 478 acres opened in 1838. There you will find some of the oldest and most magnificent trees in New York.

2. Art and Architecture: Before the Metropolitan Museum of Art existed, people came to Green-Wood to admire the statuary and mausoleums. Daniel Chester French, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and Louis Comfort Tiffany have works on view here, just to name a few.

3. Famous People: If I taught a history class, I would bring my students here to visit the graves of politicians, artists, entertainers, inventors, Civil War soldiers, and baseball legends.

After our tour of Green-Wood, we will take a short subway ride to the Sunset Park neighborhood, Brooklyn’s Chinatown, for some dim sum. If you have never eaten dim sum, it is Chinese dumplings and other kinds of small dishes. We sit at large round tables while the waitstaff push around food carts filled with a variety of dim sum. Instead of reading a menu, you point at the dishes you want to try. Make sure to pass them around the table so everyone gets a taste!

Photo by Mojoaxel.
Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

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