Woodlawn Cemetery (Bronx, New York)

Woodlawn Cemetery
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. National Historic Landmark
Main office building
Location	Webster Avenue and East 233rd Street Woodlawn, The Bronx, The Bronx
Coordinates	40°53′21″N 73°52′24″W / 40.88917°N 73.87333°W / 40.88917; -73.87333Coordinates: 40°53′21″N 73°52′24″W / 40.88917°N 73.87333°W / 40.88917; -73.87333
NRHP Reference #	11000563
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	June 23, 2011
Designated NHL	June 23, 2011

Jerome Avenue gate

Woodlawn Cemetery is one of the largest cemeteries in New York City and is a designated National Historic Landmark. Located in Woodlawn, Bronx, New York City , it has the character of a rural cemetery. Woodlawn Cemetery opened in 1863,^[1] in what was then southern Westchester County, in an area that was later annexed to New York City in 1874.^[2] It is notable in part as the final resting place of some great figures in the American arts, such as authors Countee Cullen and Herman Melville, and musicians Irving Berlin, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, and Max Roach.^[3][4]

Overview

The Cemetery covers more than 400 acres (160 ha)^[1] and is the resting place for more than 300,000 people. It is also the site of the "Annie Bliss Titanic Memorial", dedicated to those who perished in the 1912 maritime disaster. Built on rolling hills, its tree-lined roads lead to some unique memorials, some designed by famous American architects: McKim, Mead & White, John Russell Pope, James Gamble Rogers, Cass Gilbert, Carrère and Hastings, Sir Edwin Lutyens, Beatrix Jones Farrand, and John La Farge. The cemetery contains seven Commonwealth war graves – six British and Canadian servicemen of World War I and an airman of the Royal Canadian Air Force of World War II.^[5] In 2011, Woodlawn Cemetery was designated a National Historic Landmark, since it shows the transition from the rural cemetery popular at the time of its establishment to the more orderly 20th-century cemetery style.^[6]

As of 2007, plot prices at Woodlawn were reported as $200 per square foot, $4,800 for a gravesite for two, and up to $1.5 million for land to build a family mausoleum.^[7]

Burials moved to Woodlawn

Woodlawn was the destination for many human remains disinterred from cemeteries in more densely populated parts of New York City:^[8]

• Rutgers Street church graves were also moved to Woodlawn. Most graves were re-interred with a stated date of December 20, 1866 into the Rutgers Plot, lots 147-170.
• West Farms Dutch Reformed Church, at Boone Avenue and 172nd Street in The Bronx, had most of its graves moved to Woodlawn Cemetery in 1867 and interred in the Rutgers Plot, Lots 214-221.
• Bensonia Cemetery, also known as "Morrisania Cemetery", was originally a Native American burial ground. The graves were moved to Woodlawn Cemetery with a stated date of April 21, 1871 and re-interred into Lot 3. Public School #138, in The Bronx, is now on the site.
• Harlem Church Yard cemetery internees were moved to Woodlawn. Most graves were re-interred with a stated date of August 1, 1871 into the Sycamore Plot, lots 1061-1080.
• Nagle Cemetery remains were moved in November–December 1926 and reinterred in Primrose Plot, Lot 16150. Identities of those interred are apparently unknown.
• The Dyckman-Nagle Burying Ground,^[9] West 212th Street at 9th Avenue, in the Borough of Manhattan, was originally established in 1677 and originally contained 417 plots. In 1905, the remains, with the exception of Staats Morris Dyckman^[10] and his family, were removed. By 1927, the Dyckman graves were finally moved to Woodlawn Cemetery. The former Dutch colonial-era cemetery is now a 207th Street subway train yard.

Notable burials

Image gallery

See also

• List of cemeteries in the United States
• List of mausolea
• List of National Historic Landmarks in New York City
• Rural Cemetery Act

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Woodlawn Cemetery (Bronx) (category)

• Woodlawn Official Page
• Woodlawn at Find a Grave
• Photographs of graves of famous persons in Woodlawn

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