Cemetery of the Evergreens

The Cemetery of the Evergreens, also called Evergreen Cemetery, is a non-denominational rural cemetery[2] along the Cemetery Belt in Brooklyn and Queens, New York. It was incorporated in 1849, not long after the passage of New York's Rural Cemetery Act spurred development of cemeteries outside Manhattan. For a time, it was the busiest cemetery in New York City; in 1929 there were 4,673 interments. Today, the Evergreens is the final resting place of more than 526,000 people.[3]

Evergreens Cemetery
Southern (Bushwick Avenue) entrance
Location1629 Bushwick Ave., Brooklyn, New York
Coordinates40°41′2.0″N 73°54′4.3″W
Area225 acres (91 ha)
Built1849
ArchitectVaux, Calvert; etc
NRHP reference No.07001192[1]
Added to NRHPNovember 15, 2007

The cemetery borders Brooklyn and Queens and covers 225 acres (0.91 km2) of rolling hills and gently sloping meadows. It features several thousand trees and flowering shrubs in a park-like setting. Cypress Hills Cemetery lies to its northeast.

History

The Evergreens was built on the principle of the rural cemetery. Two of the era's most noted landscape architects, Andrew Jackson Downing and Alexander Jackson Davis, were instrumental in the layout of the cemetery grounds.

The Evergreens has a monument to six victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of March 25, 1911 who were unidentified for nearly a century. In 2011, Michael Hirsch, a historian, completed four years of research that identified these victims by name (see § Group monument).[4][5]

There are also seventeen British Commonwealth service personnel buried in the cemetery: thirteen from World War I and four from World War II.[6]

The cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 15, 2007.[1]

Notable burials

Individual graves
Adelaide Hall's grave at Cemetery of the Evergreens

Group monument
  • Triangle Shirtwaist fire – the bodies of six victims of the 1911 fire to be identified were buried under a monument of a kneeling woman. They could not be identified after the inferno because they were burned beyond recognition, and had been buried without names. A century after the tragedy, in 2011, they were identified by historian Michael Hirsch as Maria Giuseppa Lauletti, Max Florin, Concetta Prestifilippo, Josephine Cammarata, Dora Evans, and Fannie Rosen.[5][8]

See also

References
  1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
  2. Linden, Blanche M.G. (2007). Silent City on a Hill: Picturesque Landscapes of Memory and Boston's Mount Auburn Cemetery. Amherst, Massachusetts: University of Massachusetts Press. p. 295. ISBN 978-1-55849-571-5. Retrieved 15 September 2019.
  3. "Cultural Resource Information System (CRIS)". New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Archived from the original (Searchable database) on 2019-04-04. Retrieved 2016-05-01. Note: This includes Kathleen A. Howe (August 2007). "National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Evergreens Cemetery" (PDF). Retrieved 2016-05-01. and Accompanying 26 photographs
  4. Berger, Joseph (February 21, 2011). "100 Years Later, the Roll of the Dead in a Factory Fire Is Complete". New York Times. p. 13. Retrieved 23 April 2017.
  5. "The Fire That Changed Everything". The New York Times. February 22, 2011. Retrieved 2011-11-04.
  6. CWGC Cemetery Report. Breakdown obtained from casualty record.
  7. Schapiro, Rich; Egan-Chin, Debbie (April 11, 2017). "Hunt for Grave of Heroic Titanic Victim Leads Researcher to Brooklyn Cemetery". New York Daily News. Retrieved 11 April 2017.
  8. Berger, Joseph (February 21, 2011). "In Records, Portraits of Lives Cut Short". New York Times. p. A16. Retrieved 23 April 2017.

Further reading
  • Rousmaniere, John. Green Oasis in Brooklyn: The Evergreens Cemetery 1849–2008. (2008) ISBN 978-0-9786899-4-0
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