Green-Wood Cemetery
An Extraordinary Cultural Landscape

by Joseph Bresnan, FAIA

Pages: 30-31

The Green-Wood Cemetery was established in 1838 when the City of Brooklyn, incorporated in 1834, was itself very young. At that time, Kings County was still primarily occupied by farms and undeveloped land dotted by the original towns whose names—Breuckelen, Flatlands, Flatbush, Bushwick, and others—remain familiar today. It was very much a country environment, so that becoming home to New York’s first “rural cemetery” made sense to its inspired creators, including such notable figures as Henry Pierrepont and Edwin Litchfield.