Death's Eternal Logistics
I spent several hours on Sunday afternoon in what has to be the most charming cemetery in New York City. If I didn’t know what I was looking for, I would have missed its arched iron gate, tucked into 2nd Avenue just north of East 2nd Street, where the East Village meets the Lower East Side. Once through, I walked a short brick-lined alley into something that looks more Middle-earth than Manhattan: a half-acre plot of bright green grass, lined by a 12-foot marble wall.It was warm and sunny. A few locals had come to the secluded spot to picnic, sunbathe and read. A gray-haired woman was sitting under a tree, painting the scene from a wooden easel. I walked past them and joined a group sitting in green plastic chairs. We were there for the owners’ meeting.
The New York Marble Cemetery (not to be confused, as I did on Sunday, with the larger and showier New York City Marble Cemetery, on the other side of 2nd Avenue) was built in 1830. It has 156 underground barrel vaults, holding the remains of more than 2,000 people. There are no garish tombstones; the vaults are marked with plain stone tablets nestled in the surrounding wall. One of my ancestors — Benjamin Wright, who was chief engineer of the Erie Canal and died in 1842 — bought, and now lies in, vault 83. That makes me an owner, and it means that I have the right to go in the vault, for free, whenever my time comes. The cemetery has thousands of owners. I counted 18 at the meeting.
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