Gravesend Cemetery

I had two days off a few weeks ago for Shavuot (I love my job) and after spending most of the first day securing tickets for Shakespeare in the Park, I wanted to squeeze in an adventure before the normal workweek resumed. Like most things I stumble upon, I'm not sure how I even found out about Gravesend Cemetery, but once I did I knew I needed to see it as soon as possible.

Gravesend was one of the six original towns in Kings County in colonial New York, and is located in south-central Brooklyn, just north of Coney Island. It's a bit of a trek by subway, but a majority of the ride is on an elevated track which is always more interesting than staying underground. At one point we passed by another enormous cemetery that I hadn't known about (Washington Cemetery), so I added that to my list — I actually tried to visit it on the way back, but it was already closed for the day.

The good thing about living somewhere that has always been as densely populated as New York City has is that all of those people eventually die and have to go somewhere, which means an abundance of cemeteries for me to explore. I'm still stumbling upon graveyards in Manhattan that I didn't know about, and it's a tiny, 13-mile long island. Add in the four other (much) larger boroughs and I doubt I'll ever see them all, no matter how long I live here.

Dating back to 1643, Gravesend Cemetery has been labeled the "oldest cemetery owned by New York City," by some but I can't find substantial evidence to entirely back that claim. Either way, it's a very old cemetery by US standards and certainly one of the best-named that I've ever seen.

The cemetery is tiny, and open "by appointment only," but I was pleased to discover that the surrounding fence has openings large enough to easily stick a camera through or your head, if you're into that. The arching, iron gate spelling out "Gravesend Cemetery" is worth the trip alone, and an adjoining cemetery maintained by the Van Sicklen family also has a beautiful arched entryway.

There is nothing too remarkable in the tombstone department, as far as I could see, and it's not nearly as densely packed or as crumbling as some city cemeteries I've been to. One of the creepier/better moments of my trip was spotting a (partially) black cat weaving in and out of the headstones — at one point he/she noticed me, stopped and stared for an uncomfortable amount of time, and then went on his/her way. I seem to have a knack lately for seeing black cats in especially creepy and abandoned places, which would probably worry some people — but I'm the girl that delights in using her days off to explore centuries-old graveyards, so my creep-barometer might just be skewed a bit differently than most.