Cemetery Tour

I went to a cemetery, it wasn't a tour but it was interesting seeing all those historic graves and the area was nice.

I started doing this on my own back in the mid-80's, long before "Find A Grave" and other such websites. Given my affinity for horror movies, stories, and the like, this is perhaps not surprising. But I enjoyed them for their aesthetic beauty and sense of history. The old Catholic cemeteries around Paterson had photographic cameos adhering to many of the old stones, and I found it fascinating when I was younger to see long-dead immigrants as they looked in 1910, 1920, and so so. But what actually spurred me on to pursue it as a "hobby" was a book I read on Newark crime czar Longie Zwillman in 1985. I knew the cemetery where he was buried, and I decided to find his gravesite, assisted by 2 friends. Although it wasn't an enormous cemetery, it initially proved futile, until one friend, acting like a drug addicted Sherlock Holmes, looked at the photograph of Longie's burial in 1959, and said, "Y'know, his family is walking in from the road, and if you think of how that tree there has grown... Read more

In Buffalo, NY we have Forest Lawn Cemetery that does have historical figures, celebrities and unique markers. They do offer tours and even offer reenactors as guides. I'm not interested in taking a tour but I do look around when I'm visiting relatives there. http://www.forest-lawn.com/page/tours/