Life Among the Dead at Green-Wood Cemetery [Wild Talk Short]

Green-Wood Cemetery, in the middle of Brooklyn, feels unexpectedly wild. The 478 acres are alive with big old trees, flowers, bees, fungus, birds, wild and feral animals. Yes, it's also full of dead people — the “permanent residents” of Green-Wood, as they refer to them, comprise a Who’s Who of 19th century New York: famous actresses and Civil War generals, industrialists, businessmen, developers. There's Boss Tweed, there's Samuel Morris, inventor of the Morse code. But a visit to Green-Wood makes it clear that this cemetery is for the living. It's not just a burial ground. It's a breeding ground. A place of birth and renewal and life and excitement.

Join Wild Talk producer Matt Dellinger as he strolls among the graves with Joseph Charap, Green-Wood’s Director of Horticulture, and Sara Evans, the Manager of Horticulture Operations and Projects. The interviews were recorded last Spring, in April 2021, as vaccinations were first made widely available, the first time it seemed possible to imagine the worst of the coronavirus pandemic was behind us. 

“I don't think it's hokey to think of the cemetery as a place where you can think about life. And I think that the whole point. It was conceived that way, to have these large living organisms be in a place in which the dead were buried, it's showing, like, not in a subtle way, the continuity of life.” -Joseph Charap, Director of Horticulture