History Lesson at Cypress Hills Cemetery by Lisa L. Colangelo - NY Daily News

Read original...

Bearing flowers, Naomi King went on a Black History Month tour of Cypress Hills Cemetery last week.

Myeisha Nixon stared at the elaborate gravestone for jazz great Eubie Blake as she listened to a brief lecture about his numerous accomplishments.

"It's fun and exciting to learn about new things," said the bubbly 10-year-old as she walked through Cypress Hills Cemetery last week to hear about the famous African-Americans buried on its sprawling grounds.

But the unusual setting made the trip a little more exciting - and eerie, she admitted.

"They can stack graves on top of each other!" she exclaimed, her eyes widening, when she learned that coffins in family plots are sometimes stacked.

The group of Brooklyn youngsters went on the tour as part of a Black History Month celebration organized by Assemblyman Darryl Towns (D-Brooklyn) and Cypress Hills Cemetery.

The cemetery has embarked on a campaign to celebrate its famous permanent residents, which include a number of African-American trailblazers.

Baseball legend Jackie Robinson is buried there, along with writer and historian Arturo Schomburg and Charlotte Ray, the first female African-American lawyer in the nation.

Taliayah Rios, 11, and Marianny Rodriguez, 10, left flowers at the gravesites of Charlotte Ray and Wallace Turnage, a slave whose thrilling story of escape was detailed in the book "A Slave No More."

"I thought it would be really creepy to come here," said Marianny. "But it's fun and interesting."

Towns said he was amazed to discover the rich history in Cypress Hills, a 210 acre site that straddles Brooklyn and Queens.

"I had lived in the community for over 40 years and never knew the treasures we had in Cypress Hills," said Towns.

"When youngsters see that these heroes chose this as their final resting place, it might make them take a second look at our community and remember it deserves respect. It's not a place where you litter and graffiti."

Stephen Duer and Allan Smith, co-authors of a book about the cemetery, served as tour guides answering questions along the route.

Some of the kids were captivated by the colorful, heartbreaking memorials and headstones for infants.

"We're a monument-loving society," said Duer. "In my opinion, every stone in a cemetery is a monument to a life lived and has a story to tell."

Cypress Hills Cemetery in Queens Touting Itself as Final Resting Place for Many Black Celebrities by Lisa L. Colangelo - NY Daily News

Read original...

Flags adorn graves at Cypress Hills Cemetery.

A graveyard might seem an unlikely place to celebrate the illustrious lives of local heroes.

But the operators of Cypress Hills Cemetery say its picturesque and sprawling grounds - the final resting place for more than a dozen prominent African-Americans - is the perfect destination for the commemoration of Black History Month.

There are baseball legend Jackie Robinson, renowned musician and composer Eubie Blake, as well as writer and historian Arturo Schomburg.

But the cemetery also the final resting place of lesser-known 19th-century trailblazers, such as James McCune Smith, an abolitionist who was also the first African-American to obtain a medical degree in the United States, and Charlotte Ray, the first female African-American lawyer in the nation.

"These are some very important people who have really contributed to the history of America," said Patrick Russo, office manager at Cypress Hills Cemetery, which straddles the Brooklyn-Queens border.

Cemetery officials are planning to celebrate this rich history and raise awareness with a new colorful map and booklet that highlights its famous denizens.

It comes on the heels of a book published last year that provides an in-depth look at the cemetery, its history and unique monuments.

"Green-Wood and Woodlawn are viewed as the big boys of the cemetery world, but there are so many others not as well-known," said Stephen Duer, one of the authors of "Images of America: Cypress Hills Cemetery."

The cemetery is also unique because unlike many other burial grounds where African-Americans graves are found on designated lots, they are scattered through its 210 acres.

Duer and co-author Allan Smith worked with cemetery officials to identify more than 75 notable people of all backgrounds.

"That's only through some surface research," said Duer. "It's like a treasure hunt."

Another notable African-American buried at Cypress Hills is Wallace Turnage, a former slave whose path to freedom was detailed in the recent book "A Slave No More" by David Blight, a Yale University professor.

In September, cemetery officials joined historians and family members to honor McCune Smith with a new headstone. Some of his descendants had learned about their historic connection only in recent years.

Greta Blau, who is white, discovered her ancestry when she learned about McCune Smith during a African-American studies class at Hunter College. His was a familiar name included in a family Bible.

"I am so proud to have that kind of legacy," said Antoinette Martignoni, Blau's 92-year-old grandmother who is the great-granddaughter of McCune Smith. "Imagine sharing those genes! It's been very exciting."

Russo said he hopes more people see Cypress Hills, and all cemeteries, as places for learning.

"They are a great educational tool for Black History Month and the rest of the year," said Russo. "There are so many important people here and in every cemetery. You just have to investigate."

Cypress Hills cemetery is at 833 Jamaica Ave. For more information on the cemetery and its publications, call (718) 277-2900 or check its website at www.cypresshillscemetery.org.

Book Review: ‘Cypress Hills Cemetery’ Tells Stories, Reveals Secrets by Linda J. Wilson - Queens Gazette

Read original...

Cypress Hills Cemetery
By Stephen C. Duer and
Allan B. Smith
ISBN: 9780738573434
128 pages
Arcadia Publishing
On Sale: September 6













A book with the word “Cemetery” in its title can be counted on to scare some people off. In the case ofCypress Hills Cemetery, by Stephen C. Duer, whose passion for cemeteries led him to create Cemetery Nation, which explores all aspects of this intriguing subject, and Allen B. Smith, a retired architect, local historian, trustee of the Queens Historical Society and a restorer of the Wyckoff-Snediker family cemetery in Woodhaven, that would be unfortunate, because its 128 pages are packed with information, not only about the founding and history of the first rural cemetery in Greater New York to be organized under the Rural Cemetery Act of 1847, but also about the meaning of every tree and plant, and the import of every statue and symbol found on the tombstones and monuments that adorn Cypress Hills’ 209 rolling acres that even today command magnificent views of Jamaica Bay and the Atlantic Ocean beyond.

While Cypress Hills Cemetery’s main entrance, and hence its post office address, is in Brooklyn, at 833 Jamaica Ave., most of the cemetery proper lies in adjoining Glendale in Queens, and that borough proudly claims it. In seven chapters, Inception and Development, Magnificent Man-Made Monuments, Mysterious Markings and Secret Symbols, Names That Echo from the Past, Memorials and Honors Earned, Fellowship and Immortality and Today and Tomorrow, Duer and Smith tell the story of how the cemetery grew with the borough, expanding to hold a 3.5-acre National Cemetery section with the graves of 7,000 Union soldiers and 239 Confederate prisoners and an oak tree that stands as a living memorial to President James A. Garfield, shot July 2, 1881 and died September 19 of that same year. A Mount of Victory plot holds among others the grave of one Isaac Daniels, who fought in both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. Other notables whose remains rest in Cypress Hills include actress Mae West, musician Eubie Blake and Major League baseball player Jackie Robinson.

The first person interred in Cypress Hills shortly after it opened was one David Corey, died Dec. 9, 1848, aged 11 months and 11 days. Many other children’s graves dot the landscape, some succumbing to the infectious diseases that raged for most of the 19th and early 20th centuries, and others who died by other means, including Gavin Cato, whose death in a car accident brought about the Crown Heights riots of 1991 and Nixmary Brown, beaten to death by her stepfather in 2006 after years of abuse at his hands and those of her mother.

Duer and Smith explain why cypress trees are a favorite of cemetery landscapers and that oak trees in cemeteries “stand for life everlasting and can symbolize power, authority and victory” while weeping willows indicate sadness, grief and perpetual mourning. Chapter Three, Mysterious Markings and Secret Symbols, is a mustread for anyone who has ever wondered about the significance of the carpenter’s square and compass of the Freemasons, chains with broken links, hands pointing upward and palm branches, the last named appearing on Christian and Jewish graves, among many other symbols of lives lived and the hopes for the deceased expressed in stone by those they left behind. Cypress Hills also holds two buildings known as Abbeys that hold crypts, and a number of mausoleums. Duer and Smith include an explanation of the derivation of the word “mausoleum” that is well worth perusing the book to discover.

Cypress Hills Cemetery has moved into the new century with many of the problems facing burial grounds everywhere, especially the deterioration of many of the oldest markers and increasingly crowded space. It has addressed several of these with new sections holding graves marked by in-ground bronze markers and young trees planted along the cemetery’s drives and avenues with silver plaques denoting to whom they are dedicated. Sitting benches can be dedicated to a deceased loved one and the cemetery has invested considerable time and funds in sculpture and ornamental art.


Cypress Hills Cemetery is an entertaining and informative read. Aside from getting the name of the local architect who designed the cemetery’s third administration building incorrect (it’s Gerald Caliendo), and the fact that, like many of the other books in the Arcadia Publishing Images of America series, the subject matter truly demands an index, the book is a worthy addition to the library of anyone interested in local history, especially that of Queens.