Whether large or small, urban or suburban, many of us have a favorite cemetery. Perhaps the crown jewel of cemeteries in the US is the National Historical Landmark of Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. Founded in 1838, by the 1860s it had earned an international reputation for its magnificent beauty. This week I talk with Gabrielle Gatto, Manager of Public Programs at Green-Wood Cemetery, who shares the history and current educational programs happening at this gorgeous “necropolis within a metropolis.”

https://www.green-wood.com/

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https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Green-Wood-Cemetery/168452476528119

Transcript:

Hi, I’m Diane Hullett and you’re listening to the Best Life, Best Death Podcast. Today I’ve got a fun guest. Welcome to Gabrielle Gatto. Hi, Diane, thank you so much for having me. So yeah, I am Gabrielle Gatto. I’m the manager of public programs at the Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn. We are sprawling 478 acres, and we just had our 186th birthday.

So cool. So Gabrielle and I met at Endwell and we kind of just found each other and we’re like, oh, we have a lot to talk about. So, you know, there’s the history of cemeteries. There’s how you got into this work. And for those who are listening but not seeing us, I just have to say that we both wore orange.

And so we look really cute together because we’re recording this in January of 2025. And it’s frigid, both in New York and in Colorado, where we’re calling from. So. Yeah, tell us, you know, either way, either tell us about the history of Greenwood or tell us about how you got into this work, either one. I mean, they definitely intertwine.

So yeah, let me just start off by saying Greenwood has always been this huge place of memorialization but also a place to gather, right? So even if you don’t have someone interred, entombed, or inerned here, this is still always And we’ll continue to be a place of ritual memorialization. So. For 186 years folks have taken solace in just the nature and the beauty of the grounds.

It’s a rural cemetery you know, part of the rural cemetery movement. So these are places that have lots of rolling hills, beautiful vistas and really were designed with the landscape and the, the visitor’s experience in mind. And now. We’re really thinking future forward because we’re opening the Welcome Center, which is the old Weir Greenhouse in Brooklyn, so it’s this gorgeous greenhouse that we’ve repurposed to be a place not only for further public programming, but another place for the community to gather, so.

rich history all around and just trying to think about how this place can continue to be a spot for New Yorkers and people all over to come visit. So, whether you have a loved one here or not there’s something for absolutely everybody here. It’s kind of a classic old cemetery. I mean, even more than that.

It’s a beautiful cemetery. If you go on the website for Greenwood Cemetery, the opening shot is this incredible like drone picture of the Gothic arch. What is the Gothic arch? Tell us about it. Oh, it’s absolutely beautiful. So What’s really wonderful about Greenwood is the second you come through the main entrance you are kind of taken back through time of, of the architecture.

You know, this is like gothic revival. It’s, it’s absolutely beautiful. It is also home to many of our beloved monk parakeets. So there are thousands of birds flying around that call the top of the arch their home. We’re happy to have them here. I like to say that they’re our mascots but it’s really beautiful to watch funerals come in that way because it does bring this extra you know, you are entering sacred space.

So, you know, we have four entrances, that’s our main one, but each one, it feels like you’re walking through history because there’s a historical building or architectural piece at the entrance. Incredible, incredible. And so there really is this sense of, as you said, walking into the sacred and then these old.

old tombstones. My dog is causing trouble on this podcast. I may have to kick him out. Well, I mean, better, better than the wonderful critters we have here at Greenwood, Diane. Yeah, I imagine you have a lot of critters there between the racks. We got turtles, we got groundhogs, beautiful migratory birds.

Whenever I get frustrated with an email or something, I’m like, you know what? Walk outside, read contextualized Where you are and it definitely helps me ground myself in some gratitude because I mean it’s it’s I can’t believe that I get to You know walk around a glacial pond and and sit with a turtle or a heron and just kind of recenter Well, it’s an incredible green space in the city and I was reading that it really became almost a model for for other big parks in cities like Central Park, people saw what a success it was and how people love to go there.

And they said, well, how do we set aside more of these green spaces? You also have a tremendous number of trees and you know, wow, incredible, incredible. I think it’s nearly 700 species last I checked. Yeah, you should come here in the spring. There’s cherry blossoms, absolutely beautiful, just natural arches built with all of the flowering trees.

But to go back to what you were kind of just saying too, it reminded me of COVID, Diane. Because as a green space that a lot of New Yorkers had not discovered or experienced before, other than coming to a public program or a funeral service, there was spilling out. Prospect Park is just a few blocks away from one of our entrances.

You know, it was spilling over into Greenwood and there was one weekend where I was training a bunch of volunteers to just help educate the public on rules, regulations, how to navigate the space while, you know, making sure it’s sacred for those that were in active mourning. But we had, you know, instead of like a thousand, we had like four thousand people on one weekend or something and it was, it was pretty wild.

But the one thing people always come back to is, I had no idea that this would be such a place of solace for me. It was my sanctuary during COVID. And that exact phrase I’ve heard so many times and I’m so grateful that, you know, we were able to be another green space during that time. So beautiful. How did you, tell us what your title is at Greenwood and how you came to this role.

I love this story so much, Diane, because it’s, in retrospect, it’s like, oh, of course, but so basically I’m the manager of public programs, but alongside the rest of the public programs team, I, I support curating the death education programs and work as the volunteer manager. Absolute honor and privilege, and the way I got here was I worked for a film festival that screened a film here, and Isn’t that odd?

What do you mean you’re going to a movie in a cemetery? But absolutely done with the utmost respect. Very well curated. And it brings so many people here with us to, to enjoy the cemetery at night. And I thought it was really neat. I vaguely remembered, you know, being three years old coming to some great aunt or uncle’s funeral here, you know old school Brooklyn Italian.

And I just was really taken with the place and the people, and a few years later exactly one week before New York City lockdown, Diane I got a job in, in that very department. So, a little, a little chaotic start, but I had studied at Loyola University New Orleans, a little bit of living with dying studies, but I have to be honest with you, it was only so I could write my thesis on HBO’s Six Feet Under.

What a good choice. Yes, yes. Oh, let’s digress. Let’s digress for a second because Sixth Season was such an interesting show. What was the premise of your dissertation about it? I actually wrote a sixth season as if there were another season, and I wrote from Claire’s perspective, road tripping across America to get to New York, yeah.

Amazing. Amazing. What a fantastic combination of a TV show and then fictionalized furthering those characters. That’s so cool. Okay, for those listeners who don’t know about Six Feet Under, when was it? Fire in the Mouth. The early 2000s? Early 2000s. I do remember, I think it was a little bit a la Sopranos where 2001 After 9 11, they, they worked really hard to integrate storylines and that was a very interesting time for television and disaster and tragedy and grief because you know, we first started really using the internet as an extra space to grieve and, and have a, like, a communal digital space to, to talk about mortality a little bit more.

So I’m really interested in, in that intersection of things as well. Because, you know, I get to see it here physically every day, the way this can be a place to come grieve. And that’s what a lot of our death education programs do, Diane, is provide the space, I think in the perfect space to contextualize it.

See, see more. Well, one more thing about six feet under if people haven’t seen it, it just was such an interesting show. It was about a family owned funeral home, right? And every episode would begin with somebody dying and somebody would die in some all these different kinds of ways. And I would say to my husband, I can barely watch this because I just want to know what’s going to happen.

You know, there was one where a woman was sitting in a bathtub and a cat comes in the bathroom. And knocks her hot rollers, which are on the back of the toilet into the bathtub. And I was just like, I’m watching the cat and I’m watching the hot rollers. I’m like, I can’t watch this. I can’t watch this. I know what’s going to happen.

I can’t watch it. They just did such an incredible job of showing this, this variety of how people ended up at this funeral home. And that would kick off every. Episode. So yeah, I love that. So, so with the programs that you do, like when you say education programs at a cemetery, like you said, people might be thinking what?

So what kinds of things do you do to bring the public there to learn? Yeah, it’s pretty wild. We’re, we’re an ambitious bunch. We have over 300 public programs a year. So we have arts and culture. So think art installations. We have. An amazing artists and residents see program for Dia de los Muertos.

We always have an altar installation and interactive elements and a big family day on November 1st. We have so many different tours walking tours. If you want to wake up at 6am and go birding, you can do that or you could be here at 6pm to get ready to go on the trolley to go to a concert in the catacombs.

Wait, wait, wait. Concert in the catacombs. Stop the press. What’s a concert in the catacombs? Where, where are the catacombs and what, how do you do a concert there? Okay, so Greenwood, in a call, like an answer to the community that, you know, couldn’t didn’t have the means to make their own family mausoleum, but We’re, you know, we’re science and spirituality.

Didn’t really catch up to each other yet. We’re afraid to be buried underground. We created this subterranean catacomb there’s 30 family vaults. And it is just an absolutely gorgeous space, not only architecturally, but acoustic wise, sound wise, and also, it’s the perfect spot to talk about the history of Of the way we do death.

Personalization standards and norms of the time. Talking about, you know, where fear and faith kind of intersected. So yeah, we have Gelsie Bell, we have You know, some experimental musicians in there. We’ve had like, lots of classical musicians as well. It’s a gorgeous space. We even had a comedian that did one hour set on the seven significant losses that he had in just a short three years.

And the way we contextualized that was, you know, here we are with 30 other families, you know, in attendance, you know, posthumously with us. Let’s really think about our mortality. We’re going to invite some laughter into this space, but, you know, we’re all here because we’re all human and we all have to grieve.

So how, how can we cope and how can we do that together in community? Roughly when were the catacombs developed? Like, was that in the turn of the century or the 20s? I want to say 1860s. 1860s? Oh, 1850s. Eighteen. Wow, so pre Civil War. And I read somewhere too that there were important battles fought on this grounds before it.

Yes, the Battle of Brooklyn. Mm hmm. Fascinating. And this one is for all of your, I lovingly call the people that come to our events like Death Ed Heads, just people that are really mortality minded and, and, you know, interested in death literacy. Auguste Renoir, the father of embalming, is interred here as well, so we talk about the history of embalming a lot as well.

Who are some of the other famous people? I’m sure there’s more. Jean Michel Basquiat Leonard Bernstein Susan Smith McKinney Stewart, who’s the first black female doctor in New York State. My absolute all time favorite is Charles Feltman, the inventor of the hot dog, because I just, I love a good New York hot dog, you know?

Does he have a headstone that’s got a hot dog on it in some way? Oh, Diane. Let me tell you what hot dog money could buy you. Huge mausoleum, six gorgeous sculptures of like women adorned in robes, huge angel at the top, stained glass, the whole bit, gorgeous columns. It really, it walking around Greenwood too, Diane, you see just historically so much art and architecture and you know, the way people chose to, you know, have their forever homes presented to.

You know, in perpetuity to generations to come. Yes, isn’t it? It’s so interesting. Oh gosh, I mean this is like, I don’t even know where to go with this. It’s like the intersection of money and choice and death. Like you described that mausoleum. And then I think about the way some cemeteries are doing it now, where it’s like a flat, you know, 12 by 18 piece in the ground so that they can mow over it easily.

Yeah, a flat marker. Flat markers, they’re just completely different. And what does that say about how times have changed and who could afford to do that versus, you know, paupers cemeteries? I mean, it’s just fascinating, isn’t it? It really is. And I always encourage people to like, let, we also have a bunch of tours that cover this, secrets and stones, the symbols that are, you know, all over, all over the gravestones, but.

I always say to people, like, take a look, like, there’s a bigger story there. Sometimes, you know, there’s an obelisk that is slightly taller than the one next to it, and you see that the death date is a year later, and you’re like, oh, you’re trying to one up your neighbor. Interesting. What, you know, why? Was it, you know, just the time in New York where you’re trying to, you know, just show your means, or?

Or were you, you know, flat, flattery, a copy of, you know, the gravestone next door. It makes for a really interesting landscape. And to see it, especially with Manhattan in the background, it is a metropolis and a necropolis. You know, telling a story visually it’s, it’s absolutely stunning. But I feel like you had an actual question that I didn’t answer.

No, this is all great. I, I love the meandering. The The other question I was going to ask about is you also have a knitting class. Tell us about the craft, some kind of crafty class or workshop or gathering. Yeah, so something we’re really proud of is we really champion a lot of our volunteers and their ideas and Me and my team Dr.

Harry Wilde, Daria Mergen, and Teva Boy, I kind of brought this crazy idea. Mary Pat Kline, who is our expert yarns person, said Hey, like, you, you’re a death doula. You like talking about mortality and making people, you know, comfy. I like making people cozy and I like teaching people how to knit and crochet.

What if we combined the two? And it’s been an absolute success. We just had our one year anniversary. We had over 400 crafters join us in 2024. We had a great kickoff with 40 people just, you know, a few weeks ago. And people from all over the country, Diane, have been calling us to say, how can I start it in my own community?

So, we’re so excited that a la other social franchise esque institutions like Death Cafe that this is another avenue for people to engage with these topics, you know, interactively. That’s, that seems like what’s so key about it to me, it’s, it’s making these safe spaces to have a conversation, whether it’s with strangers or a friend or a loved one that you bring, how do you just relax and open this up?

Because this, I mean, this is, you know, preaching to the choir here. This is my thing is, is not talking about it doesn’t help us and not acknowledging it. Before we need to doesn’t make it any smoother. So anything we can do to lighten it up, make it more playful, bring it into the consciousness of individuals and families and communities changes the way we deal with death.

And I think I like to think it’s for the betterment, right? I mean, death is hard. Death is sad. And, you know, I think of that comedian who had seven deaths in a short amount of time. I mean, that’s That’s, that’s a huge impact on the heart and the mind as a, as a human being. And yet silence doesn’t help.

Not finding community around it doesn’t help. So I love that Greenwood is creating these different ways to make community spaces to talk about death. And I love your phrase. What was it? Death. Death. Death and heads. That’s really good. I mean, it’s, it’s so amazing. And these are folks that, you know, then bring their family and friends.

We have seen. You know, kids bring their parents, and parents bring their kids, and high schoolers, like, it is literally 17 year olds to octogenarians that, that come to these programs, and it’s really a testament to how Important intergenerational relationships are and and passing of the torch. And before I go, I want to show you my skill set.

I want to, you know, create something with you that then you can pass down. Speaking of that, there’s a really neat program about teaching young people who want to get into the construction trade about restoration. Tell, tell about that aspect. Yeah, well, I told you that there’s something for everyone here.

Nila has really championed a bunch of different initiatives to get young people in the space to restore some of our most celebrated. Or often overlooked monuments, mausoleums and, you know, there’s, there’s a age range from high school, so there’s a high school internship program, as well as young professionals that are really looking to learn a trade and, and gain a skill set to go out into the workforce shortly after their time with us here, and, I mean, there are Gravestones that because there wasn’t a foundation or just, you know, it’s been 186 years were underground and now they’ve been, you know, resurfaced, cared for, cleaned lovingly and now there’s a whole other story that can be told you know, not only the story of those interred, but the story of these, these folks that, you know, are taking the care for someone that, You know, maybe has no descendants or, or we have no ties to them, but, you know, are equally important as they were in life, they are in death here to us.

I think that’s so interesting because I do think these specialized construction things, number one, they’re hard to learn. Number two, we’re losing an opportunity when we don’t have this kind of apprenticeship for people to learn them. I know, I know a young man who’s learned to be a, a, Stone builder, like a, I’m sorry, a wall builder, like a stone wall builder.

And, and that isn’t something you just sort of go and do. Well, you know, you have to learn it. It’s a craft. And so I think probably restoring these old cemetery headstones is, is, is key. And there aren’t that many places doing it. And yet all over the country, these, you know, headstones need, restoring, Hey, what’s the difference between headstone tombstone?

And I feel like there’s one other. We use the term gravestone here, just all different types of markers, different descriptions for them. Tombstone always just conjures just the historical to mind. But there are all different, it depends, shape, size, you know, where it is in the ground. You know, you’ve heard obelisk, mausoleum.

So we actually have a fun little Greenwood glossary for all of those that. folks can check out on our website. Oh, nice. And while, while we’re saying that, let’s say what your website is. How can people find out more? Yes, please find us at www. green wood. com. So you just want to make sure the hyphen is in between the words green and wood.

com. Beautiful. Well, I appreciate your time so much, Gabrielle. I think it’s a really interesting job you’ve taken. And I really wonder if the big reason that you got the job was your dissertation on Six Feet Under. Like that just seems key. I have to say it is it is my true dream to just make my Uncle Vinny posthumously famous.

I really think that I went to school, I learned some of these things, but it was really his death that was so profound. I saw the lack of death literacy, I saw it more when I got the job here. And I just want to sing people’s song, and he, he died a beautiful, good death. As we say in our field, like, what is the good death?

And, and he got to die the death that, you know, was best termed by him as good. And I want to keep sharing his story, and just It’s, it’s an honor to, to, you know, do some legacy work for him and to be able to do it at an institution and with the platform of this cemetery is an absolute honor and I get to meet people like you.

I have been sending the podcast everywhere. It has been a great comfort and help to me and our Deaf Ed heads also have received links. And love what you have to say and who you bring on. So thank you for doing everything you do. Oh, fantastic. I mean, I, I think it’s just to me, it’s about lifting up the voices of people working in this field to make a positive difference.

So, you know, partly I, I try to work to impact one individual and one family, as do you. And then partly I’m trying to impact a whole conversation at a societal level. Like, how do we do this better? We can. Absolutely. And that’s why, you know, I’ll leave you on this. I’m encouraging people all over the world and the country to go have a conversation in the cemetery, use the landscape.

You know, even if your local cemetery doesn’t have public programming, it still has this historical reference to how we are remembered. And then you could talk about how you want to be remembered and have some beautiful things and some new people to meet and learn from along the way. What a great charge.

Okay, listeners, there’s your call to action. Go have a conversation in the cemetery, any cemetery, a cemetery. I for one, I’m going to put on my bucket list, get myself to New York City, get to Brooklyn and come do some program. Maybe we’d love to have you. Catacombs. I think that sounds amazing. Well, thanks again for your time.

Really appreciate it. Of course. Thank you. You’ve been listening to the Best Life Best Death podcast, and I’m your host, Diane Hullett. Thanks so much for listening.