New York Marble Cemetery
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| New York Marble Cemetery | |
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| U.S. National Register of Historic Places | |
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| Location: | 41 1/2 Second AvenueManhattan, New York City, New York, USA |
| Coordinates: | Coordinates: |
| Built/Founded: | 1830 |
| Architect: | Perkins Nichols |
| Added to NRHP: | September 17, 1980[1] |
| NRHP Reference#: | 80004475[2] |
| Governing body: | Private cemetery |
The New York Marble Cemetery (0.5 acres) is a cemetery located in the interior of the block bound by East 2nd and 3rd Streets, Second Avenue, and the Bowery in the East Village, Manhattan, New York City. It should not be confused with the nearby New York City Marble Cemetery which is entirely separate and established one year later.
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[edit] History
The cemetery property was purchased on July 13, 1830, as a commercial undertaking of Perkins Nichols, and is the city's oldest nonsectarian cemetery. It was built on what was then the northern edge of residential development, in compliance with recent public health legislation which had outlawed earthen burials. It is entered from Second Avenue through a narrow passageway with an iron gate. The grounds contain 156 underground family vaults the size of small rooms underneath a grass lawn. They are made of Tuckahoe marble, without monuments or markers, laid out in a grid of six columns by 26 rows. [3]
Access to each pair of barrel vaults is by the removal of a stone slab set well below the grade of the lawn. Marble tablets mounted in the long north and south walls give the names of the original vault owners - though not the names of burials - and indicate the precise location of each corresponding underground vault.
The cemetery is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and was designated a New York City Landmark in 1969[4]. Some 2100 burials are recorded in the Cemetery's written registers, most from prominent professional and merchant families in New York City.
[edit] Visiting the Cemetery
The entrance is behind two metal gates on Second Avenue. It is open to the public on only a few specific days of the year.
[edit] Notable burials
- Gurdon Buck, pioneer plastic surgeon
- Aaron Clark, Whig mayor
- Luman Reed American art patron
- James Tallmadge, Congressman and NYU President
- Benjamin Wright, Chief Engineer for the Erie Canal
- Theodore Gordon, sage of the Neversink River & angler par excellance
[edit] References
- ^ National Register Information System. National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service (2007-01-23).
- ^ New York County listings at the National Register of Historic Places
- ^ "Marble Walls, Roomy, But No Place to Live; Descendants Inherit a Cemetery Filled With History, but in Disrepair", New York Times, May 22, 2000. Retrieved on 2008-03-28. "The cemetery was founded in 1830, after outbreaks of yellow fever led residents to fear burying their dead in coffins just a few feet below ground."
- ^ Dolkart, Andrew S. & Postal, Matthew A.; Guide to New York City Landmarks, 3rd Edition; New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission; John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2004. ISBN 0-471-36900-4; p.56.
[edit] Further reading
- Charles Burr Todd, In Olde New York: Sketches of Old Times and Places in Both the State and the City, New York : The Grafton Press, 1907, page 29.
- Anne Wright Brown, New York Marble Cemetery Interments, 1830-1937, Rhinebeck: Kinship Press, 1999. ISBN 1-56012-157-2.
[edit] External links
- Official Site
- Notable burials at New York Marble Cemetery at Find A Grave
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