Tour of the NY Marble Cemetery

NEW YORK MARBLE CEMETERY TOUR

© Liza Bear - lizajbear@yahoo.com

The Cemetery is usually closed, but here's a chance to take a look.

The Gates

Enter from 2nd Avenue between 2nd and 3rd Streets through the 1908 wrought iron gate. It marks a walkway that is one hundred feet long leading to the interior of the block.

At the end of the entrance alley, an 1854 gate with cast iron decoration opens into the cemetery proper. Both gates were restored in 2001.

The Walls

As you pass through the inner gate, the South Wall is on the left. The walls of the cemetery are made from Tuckahoe marble and stone. This relatively soft material and the mortar are rapidly disintegrating from time, acid rain, and air pollution.

The walls and the underground vaults were built in 1830 when the whole interior of the block was excavated.

Vault owners, neighbors, and guests enjoy a day when the Cemetery is open.

The disintegrating North Wall had temporary external braces installed in the spring of 2000 to prevent further major collapses.

150 feet of the North Wall need to be rebuilt with an improved foundation.

The West Wall is completely gone. The East and South Walls need to have the mortar repointed and some stone replaced.

Photo by Steven Carbajal, July 2008
(Scroll left and right to see the entire panorama.)

The Tablets

At the left is a column of three family tablets in unusually fine condition: Thaddeus Phelps & Verdine Ellsworth, Benjamin & Charles deForest, & Alexander C. Jackson.

The Jackson story is one of the saddest. In the cemetery's first year, Alexander and three of his young children died days apart of scarlet fever.

The positions of the tablets act as a guide in locating the associated underground vaults. The cemetery has no headstones or monuments. The tablets cannot be restored or replaced until the walls are sound. Photo © Liza Bear - lizajbear@yahoo.com

Entering a Vault

Pairs of vaults share a common entry shaft.

After digging by hand to expose the fieldstone cap, it must be lifted off to gain access. On the right, a workman is opening one of the slate doors to a vault.

Some vault doors have locks. This is the key to Vault 113, originally purchased by Charles Mowatt.
(Photo courtesy of Ruth Ward.)

See the floor plan and cross section for more details of the vaults.