Overview & visitor information
The Green-Wood Cemetery was founded in 1838 as one of America's early rural cemeteries. Its 478 acres of hills, valleys, ponds and winding roads offered a landscaped alternative to crowded churchyards and became a celebrated public destination before New York had built its great urban parks.
Thousands of monuments range from modest stones to elaborate mausoleums, recording the lives of artists, politicians, soldiers, industrialists and generations of New Yorkers. Richard Upjohn's Gothic Revival entrance frames the principal approach, while more than 8,000 trees form an accredited arboretum supporting birds and other urban wildlife.
Battle Hill, Brooklyn's natural high point, formed part of the landscape contested during the 1776 Battle of Brooklyn. The bronze Minerva monument looks toward the Statue of Liberty from its summit, joining Revolutionary history, harbor geography and funerary art within a cemetery that remains active as well as historically protected.
