Extra Credit #1 Cemetery Visits

This photo was taken by Jay Mcarthey when he, Sharif Shadi, Abdul Norman, and I went to this cemetery on 2nd street between 2nd and 1st avenue. Reading Lina’s blog has lead to my interest in the condition of the tombstones. Unfortunately I did not take pictures of just the tombstones because I did not think that this topic would come up. The New York City Marble Cemetery seemed well cared for; the woman there did not allow us to enter so we were rushing to take the pictures and leave. In the time spent there before she noticed, I observed that the tombstones actually seemed to be in good condition. There was someone mowing the lawn and the woman who seemed to have authority was busy with something that seemed garden related.

Looking past the excessive close ups on myself; you can see the man in the white shirt mowing the lawn to the right. You can see that the there is a lot of space between the tombstones. While this may seem insignificant it provides a comfort to me from the perspective of someone that has a family member buried there. Jay had an interesting comment when we arrived, “I don’t wanna walk on the grass and be walking all over dead bodies… that’s creepy.” Truthfully this realization did not nearly have the same affect on me as it did Jay. I was aware that I would be walking over dead bodies, which did not bother me. Despite this, when he said that it occurred to me that several people may be offended by our walking over their loved ones. I know that I would not want a bunch of teenagers walking on my loved ones, especially after paying thousands of dollars on putting them there. When we found out that the cemetery was private, this was the main thought in my mind (aside from my extra credit) so we all hastily took the pictures and exited.

The next cemetery was merely a block away; however it was a chain of the aforementioned cemetery. Unfortunately this one was closed so we were not able to enter. This was located right next to the Provenzano Lanza Funeral Home (view culminating project for details). Although I could not enter it I took the liberty of going around to at least try to get a look at the inside. There were very poor angles to view the tablets of ackknowledgement (since there were no tombstones due to the age), however just by seeing the texture and condition of them, the walls, and the grass around it, one can infer that the cemetery was not very well cared for anymore. While, according to the plaque, it is a landmark, it is still unfortunate that it is not cared for as well as it can be.