Green-Wood Cemetery is a cemetery in western Brooklyn, New York City, United States. Founded in 1838 as a rural cemetery, it has 570,000 interments , including many politicians, soldiers, artists, and business figures. The cemetery occupies a site with varied topography created by glacial moraines, particularly the Harbor Hill Moraine. The landscape design by David Bates Douglass incorporates rolling hills and lakes, including Brooklyn's highest natural point at Battle Hill. Green-Wood also includes four gates and several shelters designed by Richard Upjohn and a chapel designed by Warren and Wetmore. There are elaborate monuments to some of the dead.
Green-Wood Cemetery was established at a time of rapid urbanization when churchyards in the then-separate cities of Brooklyn and New York City were becoming overcrowded. Described as "Brooklyn's first public park by default long before Prospect Park was created", Green-Wood Cemetery was so popular that it inspired competitions to design nearby parks. The cemetery had reached its final size by 1863, though landscaping and building construction continued through the 19th century. More facilities were added during the 20th century, including a new receiving tomb in 1909, a chapel in 1913, and a crematorium in the 1950s. The cemetery was nearing capacity by the 1990s, prompting its operators to begin hosting events such as concerts and tours to attract visitors.
Green-Wood Cemetery is a nonprofit cemetery and conducts burials and cremations. The cemetery is open for public visitation and hosts hundreds of annual events. The Green-Wood Historic Fund, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit institution, helps organize preservation and programs. Over the years, there has been commentary on Green-Wood's bucolic nature. The cemetery is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a National Historic Landmark, and two of its gates, its visitor center at the Weir Greenhouse, and its chapel are New York City designated landmarks.
Description Green-Wood Cemetery is a nonsectarian cemetery occupying in western Brooklyn within what is now New York City, United States. 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. The cemetery is bounded on all sides by urban development, including industrial shops, apartment buildings, and houses. The neighborhood of Greenwood Heights abuts the cemetery to the northwest and north.; Other neighborhoods near Green-Wood Cemetery include Sunset Park to the southwest, Park Slope to the northeast, Windsor Terrace to the east, and Kensington to the south. Green-Wood was inspired by Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, which at the time retained the primarily axial formality of Alexandre Théodore Brongniart's original design, and by Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where a cemetery in a naturalistic park-like landscape in the English manner was first established.Moylan, Richard J. "Green-Wood Cemetery" in , pp. 557–558 Landscaping and circulation David Bates Douglass, Green-Wood's landscape architect, mostly kept the cemetery's natural landscaping intact. The cemetery has been expanded several times; most of these regions have been landscaped to resemble the original plot. The area along Fort Hamilton Parkway to the south, which was acquired last, is known as the flats. The flats have more gently curving paths and roads compared with the rest of the cemetery. Green-Wood's National Historic Landmark (NHL) designation report divides the grounds into three geological sections: Douglass's original landscape to the north and center; the flats to the south; and even newer areas created through subsequent infilling of landscape features. An elaborate iron fence surrounds the cemetery.
The site is characterized by varied topography created by glacial moraines, particularly the Harbor Hill Moraine. The geology of the landscape includes glacial till, which is highly varied in composition. The landscape includes rolling hills and dales along with several ponds. Many of the landscape features are named after terms that evoke a naturalistic scene, such as Camellia Path, Halcyon Lake, Oaken Bluff, Sylvan Cliff, and Vista Hill. Among the cemetery's natural features is Battle Hill ( Gowan's Heights), the highest point in Brooklyn at approximately above sea level; the hill is named after a skirmish that took place there on August 27, 1776, during the Battle of Long Island. Visible from the cemetery's high topography are locales such as the Statue of Liberty (within New York Harbor) and New Jersey to the west, Manhattan to the north, Jamaica Bay and the Rockaways to the east, and Coney Island and Staten Island to the south.
The cemetery is commonly cited as having 7,000 trees, though news articles from 1954 described Green-Wood as containing 30,000 trees. Plaques on these trees, and on "memorial benches" throughout the grounds, can be purchased by families of the deceased. A New York Daily News article from 1999 cited the cemetery as having 65,000 plantings, including both shrubs and trees. The landscape also includes over 150 fungus species.
Douglass laid out the road and path systems, namely 59 avenues, 4 formal walks, and 180 walkways. The roads are variously cited as stretching about , or . The footpaths extend approximately or . Originally, the roads were paved in gravel and loose stone, and several of the roads formed a serpentine route called "The Tour", which passed by the major mausoleums. Much of Douglass's plan is still in place with its original plantings and curving-road systems. The original street names and cast-iron perimeter fence have been retained, but many of the roads have been paved in asphalt. Other roads and paths have been removed to make way for gravesites. Though vehicles are allowed on the cemetery's roads, bicycles are generally banned,; ; aside from special events such as tours and races. Between 34th and 36th streets, a stone bridge (dating from 1860) carries Fifth Avenue above cemetery grounds.
Graves , Green-Wood Cemetery contains 570,000 gravesites, which are referred to as in-ground burial sites. There are multiple types of graves, including single and double graves. Approximately a third of the interments are in parcels with one grave, or in public lots around the cemetery's perimeter. Tombstones in these lots tended not to be anchored to the ground. Farther inside the cemetery are private tracts with multiple graves, which tend to be more expensive than single-grave sites and public lots. Private tracts, both for single and multiple burials, can be individually consecrated if that process is required for the deceased's faith. Several family members may be buried atop each other in three tiers up to deep. At these locations, up to six decedents (three cremated and three buried) may be stacked in a single plot. Green-Wood also allows green burials throughout its grounds (see ), many of which are concentrated in a tract called Cedar Dell.
When the cemetery opened, parcels measured across; this comprised a area for the grave itself and a buffer on all sides for the installation of protective enclosures. These enclosures, which included fences and rails, were gradually removed in the 20th century. Later parcels are significantly smaller, at across. Groups such as churches could be allocated specific plots for their members. Parcels could be reclaimed by the cemetery if they have not been used for an interment for 75 years. , the costs of single graves started at over $20,000, while mausoleums were significantly more expensive. As at other New York state cemeteries, 10% of interments' cost is put into a maintenance fund for the cemetery.
Gravediggers oversee at least one new interment daily ; they mostly use mechanical equipment to dig graves, but children's graves or parcels in constrained sites are still dug by hand. Due to the cemetery's variable geology, gravediggers are required to undergo a 40-day trial period before being hired, and they must be physically able to dig out a grave by hand within four hours. By the 21st century, there was a small number of gravediggers, owing to decreases in both the number of burials and the area available for new burials. Bodies are seldom disinterred due to the difficulty of doing so.
Mass graves There are several mass graves and communal burial sites at Green-Wood, where tens to hundreds of people may be buried. Among these are the Freedom Lots, seven parcels at the cemetery's southwest corner where the remains of 1,300 African Americans are interred. Also at Green-Wood is a mass grave for 103 unidentified victims of the 1876 Brooklyn Theatre fire;; this site, leased by the New York City government, has a obelisk. The cemetery contains a common grave with the unidentified remains of victims of the 1960 New York mid-air collision, adjacent to a memorial for the victims.; ; Another grave contains some unidentified remains relocated from Washington Square Park in Manhattan. There is also a soldiers' lot, which houses the remains of 1,000 American Civil War soldiers relocated from elsewhere in the cemetery.
Memorials The New Yorker wrote in 2025 that the cemetery had about a quarter-million memorial structures, including about 500 mausoleums in addition to smaller graveside monuments. The cemetery's 2006 NHL designation report cites the grounds as having 106,000 memorials, including 790 mausoleums. Another source from 1999 cites figures of 10 shared "community mausoleums", along with 650 privately-built mausoleums. The community mausoleums are subdivided into crypts of multiple sizes. Graves and associated memorial structures are generally maintained by families of decedents. Historically, if families failed to keep graves and memorials clean, they received warnings from cemetery officials, but by the 21st century, people could sponsor strangers' monuments.
Monuments and mausoleums in the cemetery are designed in several styles, including the Victorian, Classical, Egyptian, Gothic, and Romanesque. Monuments fall into four categories: those honoring events or professions; those with architectural significance; those whose graves contain people of historical significance; and "monuments of sculptural interest". The Brooklyn Eagle wrote in 1896 that many graveside memorials had design features such as gold lettering and elaborate plaques. Memorials use materials such as bronze, brownstone, cast zinc, granite, limestone, marble, terracotta, and yellow sandstone. Many memorials—and other structures in the cemetery—carry decorative elements with Christian iconography or motifs alluding to the United States' growth as a relatively young country. Frequently used motifs include angels, baseballs, clasped hands, empty beds, hourglasses, horses, and owls, alongs stained glass windows.
Mausoleums Green-Wood's more elaborate mausoleums include William Niblo's Grand Gothic mausoleum, Abiel Abbot Low's tomb, and the Lispenard family's Norman-style mausoleum. The Steinway family's mausoleum, designed in a classical style, can fit 136 bodies. A mausoleum for restaurateur Charles Feltman is designed in the style of a temple. Another mausoleum, built in granite for John William Mackay, has its own chapel and a heating system. A granite mausoleum, near 39th Street, was erected by US congressman Henry C. Miner for his family. The cemetery has a small number of white bronze mausoleums, though these were no longer manufactured after World War I and were subjects of vandalism.