Green-Wood Cemetery was founded in 1838 as a rural cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, it was granted National Historic Landmark status in 2006 by the U.S. Department of the Interior.

It is several blocks west of Prospect Park. In The New York Times it was said to be the "ambition of the New Yorker to live upon the Fifth Avenue, to take his airings in the Central Park, and to sleep with his fathers in Green-Wood". Inspired by Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where a cemetery in a naturalistic park-like landscape in the English manner was first established, Green-Wood was able to take advantage of the varied topography provided by glacial moraines. Battle Hill, the highest point in Brooklyn, is on cemetery grounds.

The cemetery was the idea of Henry Evelyn Pierrepoint, a Brooklyn social leader. It was a popular tourist attraction in the 1850s and was the place most famous New Yorkers who died during the second half of the nineteenth century were buried. It is still an operating cemetery with approximately 600,000 graves spread out over 478 acres (191 ha). The rolling hills and dales, several ponds and an on-site chapel provide an environment that still draws visitors. On weekends cars are allowed on cemetery grounds. There are several famous monuments located there, including a statue of DeWitt Clinton and a Civil War Memorial. During the Civil War, Green-Wood Cemetery created the "Soldiers' Lot" for free veterans' burials.

Hall of Fame

Since its founding in 1838, the Green-Wood Cemetery has interred 560,000 people. Here are a few of the most famous, our own Hall of Fame.

	Julius Walker Adams, Civil War colonel, engineer who designed preliminary plans for the Brooklyn Bridge
	Albert Anastasia, mobster
	Jean Michel Basquiat, graffiti artist, Andy Warhol protege
	Henry Ward Beecher, abolitionist, religious leader, subject of scandal
	Leonard Bernstein, music giant: composer, conductor, and teacher
	Harvey Burdell, murder victim
	George Catlin, painter of Indians
	Henry Chadwick, "Father of Baseball"
	Kate Claxton, actress on stage during the Brooklyn Theater fire
	De Witt Clinton, force behind the Erie Canal, political leader
	Abraham Duryee, Civil War general
	Charles Ebbets, Brooklyn Dodgers' owner
	Molly Fancher, psychic
	Joey Gallo, mobster nicknamed "Crazy Joe"
	Henry George, political and economic reformer
	Louis Moreau Gottschalk, America's first great composer
	Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune
	Henry Halleck, General in command of all Union forces during the Civil War
	William Surrey Hart, cowboy actor
	Laura Keene, actress on stage at Ford's Theatre when President Lincoln was shot
	Ward McAllister, New York's social arbiter
	Susan Smith McKinney-Steward, first black woman doctor in New York State
	Lola Montez, independent woman famed for her affairs and her Spider Dance
	Frank Morgan, actor, best known for his role as the Wizard in "The Wizard of Oz"
	Napoleon Sarony, photographer to the stars
	George Tilyou, proprietor of Coney Island's Steeplechase Park
	Juan Trippe, founder of Pan American Air Airways
	"Boss" Tweed, political boss of New York City
	Lester Walleck, actor

 http://www.wirednewyork.com/brooklyn/greenwood_cemetery/default.htm

CEMETERY HOURS OF OPERATION

VISITING HOURS

The Cemetery is open to visitors daily weather permitting.

Main entrance - 5th Avenue & 25th Street - 8 AM - 5 PM daily