Greenwood Cemetery

Heather & I live one street over from Greenwood Cemetery. Nearly 500 acres (and over 1/2 million graves) that I had still to explore! We booked a 2 hour tour on their trolley bus and joined about a dozen people on a grey day to see and hear about some of the famous people buried there and learn more about how it's a historical site in relation to the American Civil War and the Battle of Brooklyn.

General Custer posed for this monument on Battle Hill, the tallest point in Brooklyn!

The statue of Minerva had some historical significance in the way it was planned and positioned to be raising her hand right across to the Statue of Liberty. A monument to a battle that the Americans lost and the impressive tour guide told us is not part of school history as they don't teach kids about battles the US lost.

They run three tours tours that visit different graves with only the Battle Hill repeated so I would definitely go again or at least have a walk through with Heather at some point in the near future.
Some of the famous graves we visited, with accompanying story, included Leonard Bernstein, Henry Chadwick (baseball founder), Samuel Morse, the Tiffany family, Henry Steinway and Bill the Butcher & Boss Tweed (I need to rewatch Gangs of New York).

Some of the architecture of the headstones and tombs was amazing.

Inventor of the hot dog!

As we got off the bus to see the above one I walked right into this one:

Creepy

One of the best ones was saved to last, amazing detail.

So probably not somewhere that most visitors to New York think of going considering even setting foot in Brooklyn is something that is relatively new to most tourists but a definite recommendation for any New York City trip!

Two thumbs up.