Woodlawn Cemetery is one of the largest cemeteries in New York City and a designated National Historic Landmark. Located south of Woodlawn Heights, Bronx, it has the character of a rural cemetery. It is notable in part as the final resting place of some well-known figures.

Woodlawn Cemetery opened during the Civil War in 1863, in what was then an undeveloped part of Yonkers, Westchester County, that was annexed to New York City in 1874. A stone-mounted plaque marks the site of a Revolutionary War-era redoubt constructed by the Continental Army in 1776 to protect its retreat from Manhattan to Westchester. It is located on a high point in the southeastern section of the cemetery, near Gun Hill Road.

Locale and grounds

thumb|left|Jerome Avenue gate

The Cemetery covers more than 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.

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.

Burials moved to Woodlawn

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

  • Rutgers Street church graves were 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, 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 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.

The fictional cemetery of the Synagogue in Brooklyn in the film Once Upon a Time in America is actually located here, renamed "Riverdale Cemetery".

Notable burials

thumb|247x247px|Pupin's burial site in Woodlawn Cemetery

Numerous notable persons have been interred at Woodlawn Cemetery including: Chief Justice of the United States Charles Evans Hughes; influential New York urban planner and builder Robert Moses; former Congressman Vito Marcantonio; actress Cicely Tyson; actor Harry Carey; Olympic champion swimmer Gertrude Ederle; aviation pioneer Harriet Quimby; performer, playwright and producer George M. Cohan; gangster Bumpy Johnson; authors Nellie Bly, Countee Cullen, Clarence Day, Damon Runyon, E.L. Doctorow, Herman Melville, and Dorothy Parker; musicians Irving Berlin, Miles Davis, Felix Pappalardi, Duke Ellington, Ace Frehley, W. C. Handy, Fritz Kreisler, Pigmeat Markham, King Oliver, and Max Roach; singers Celia Cruz and Florence Mills; Film director Otto Preminger; husband and wife magicians Alexander Herrmann and Adelaide Herrmann; sportswriter Grantland Rice; gunfighter and US marshal Bat Masterson; developer of the Rolfing body therapy and noted female biochemist Ida Rolf; and, businessmen such as shipping magnate Archibald Gracie, cosmetics manufacturer Richard Hudnut, America's first self-made millionaire woman Madam C. J. Walker, department store founder Rowland Hussey Macy, and variety store mogul F. W. Woolworth. A large number of New York brewers (e.g., the Haffens of Haffen Brewing Company) are interred there on "Brewer's Row", along with a dozen other brewing scions and their families. Serbian-American electrical engineer, physicist, inventor, professor at Columbia University Mihajlo Pupin

Conservancy

The Woodlawn Conservancy is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization associated with Woodlawn Cemetery. It began as the Friends of Woodlawn in 1999. It enhances the mission of Woodlawn through fundraising, educational opportunities and outreach with other non-profits. In 2021, over 40 stones were conserved in a joint effort between the Woodlawn Conservancy, the Friends of the Rye African-American Cemetery, World Monuments Fund, and the Jay Heritage Center. The preservation effort was launched to coincide with the new federal Juneteenth celebration.

<div align=center><gallery heights="180px" widths="180px">

File:Anna_Bliss_Titanic_Memorial_April_2012.jpg|Annie Bliss Titanic memorial

File:Richard_Hudnut_Monument_November_2008.jpg|Richard Hudnut Monument

File:Van_Cortlandt_Mausoleum_Frieze_2012.jpg|The Gift of Knowledge, by B. Zuckermann, sculpture in Van Cortlandt Mausoleum

File:Celia Cruz mausoleum.jpg|Celia Cruz's mausoleum

File:Sarcophagus_With_Angel_January_2012.jpg|Sarcophagus with angel

File:Enigmatic_Statue_2012.jpg|Déshabillé statue

File:Reisinger_Circle_of_Classical_Columns_February_2009.jpg|Reisinger Monument

File:Ensign_Nathan_Piccirilli_Monument_November_2011.jpg|Nathan Piccirilli Monument

File:Clarence Day Monument 1000.jpg|The monument of Clarence Day

File:Joe King Oliver Gravesite.jpg|Joe "King" Oliver's grave

File:Linden_Tree,_Woodlawn_Cemetery,_Bronx,_NY_-_September_16,_2012.jpg|Linden Tree

File:White_Oak_Tree,_Woodlawn_Cemetery,_Bronx,_NY_-_September_16,_2012.jpg|White Oak Tree

File:F W Woolworth Woodlawn jeh.JPG|Woolworth's tomb

File:Olive Thomas Pickford Mausoleum 2009.jpg|Olive Thomas's mausoleum

</gallery></div>

See also

  • List of burial places of justices of the Supreme Court of the United States
  • List of cemeteries in New York
  • List of cemeteries in the United States
  • List of mausolea
  • List of National Historic Landmarks in New York City
  • List of New York City Landmarks
  • National Register of Historic Places listings in the Bronx
  • Rural Cemetery Act

References

  • Woodlawn Official Page
  • Photographs of graves of famous persons in Woodlawn
  • Woodlawn Cemetery Records are held by the Drawings and Archives Department of the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University
  • Streeter, Edward, "Story of Woodlawn Cemetery", a publication of Woodlawn Cemetery; at Internment.net