Manhattan’s Art of the Dead | Hyperallergic

by Allison Meier | Hyperallergic

Photo: Alision Meier | Hyperallergic

When Trinity Church ran out of space and burials were banned south of Canal Street, the parish established Trinity Cemetery in Washington Heights in 1842 (the mausoleum was added in the 20th century). The cemetery was designed by James Renwick, Jr., the famed architect of such buildings as St. Patrick’s Cathedral and the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and it includes four blocks between 153rd and 155th streets from Amsterdam Avenue to Riverside Drive, part of which sits on a rocky hill that swoops down towards the Hudson, mausoleums of wealthy families like the Astors and gravestones for people like Charles Dicken’s son Alfred Tennyson Dickens set over and into its slope. A beautiful bridge designed by Calvert Vaux, the co-designer of Central Park, once linked the east and west sections of the cemetery until it was destroyed in 1911 to make way for the construction of the chapel, but some of Vaux’s landscaping and retaining wall remain. Much like Green-Wood Cemetery and Woodlawn that were established in the mid-19th century, this new Trinity Cemetery was meant to be a peaceful park with a little more romance than the sober churchyards downtown.

Read more: Manhattan’s Art of the Dead via Hyperallergic

Related: Trinity Church Cemetery Portfolio

See Tourists Step Through Time in Trinity Cemetery from Tahiat Mahboob on Vimeo below.

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