Lakeview Cemetery (Cleveland, Ohio)
Ms. Jukes recommends this cemetery: “This is the cemetery I grew up with. Naturally, I’m biased, but it IS famous and beautiful. Eliot Ness and John D Rockefeller are buried here, along with the enormously tasteful AND reverent (martyred President) Garfield Monument. A friend of mine, from a prominent family, was named to the board and created an outdoor sculpture garden of it. It’s HUGE.”
Franklin Castle (Cleveland, Ohio)
Chrissy writes to tell me of the infamous Franklin Castle. It’s an eerie looking place that is allegedly haunted (Ghosts Of The Prairie), and where they found a room full of baby skeletons.
Wood County Historical Museum (Bowling Green, Ohio)
Why stop in Bowling Green? Why, to see the fingers of Mary Bach, of course! Roadside America explains what it’s all about: “… their prized display — three human fingers in a jar. The fingers belonged to Mary Bach, who was murdered. The knife used to sever the fingers, and the noose used to hang the man who severed them, are proudly presented alongside the popular Tater Tot-like appendages. ‘Those fingers built this museum,’ the curator boasts.” (Special thanks to Kathy Harrington for sending me the Roadside America link.)
Sleepy Hollow Cemetery & Old Dutch Burying Ground (Sleepy Hollow, New York)
Come along with the Comtesse to visit the olde Dutch Burying Ground and the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery and see the grave of Washington Irving. Surely Ichabod would approve?
Mount Hope Cemetery (Rochester, New York)
Karen sends the following recommendation:
“Check out Mt. Hope Cemetery if you’re ever in Rochester, NY. It is a very large and beautiful cemetery with a number of notable residents and some very interesting grave markers. If I remember correctly, there are guided tours every weekend during the summer and fall, including when the leaves start to change color.” Indeed, the Friends of Mount Hope Cemetery offer free tours every Sunday afternoon at 2 and 3 pm from May to October. Special tours are also offered throughout the tour season.
George Eastman House (Rochester, New York)
John recommends this site: “Rochester is the home of Kodak, and one morbid local spot is the George Eastman house. George shot himself in the bedroom of his mansion. It’s a beautiful place, now used mostly to highlight photographic and film arts.”
Roosevelt Island (New York City, New York)
There are lots of interesting things on Roosevelt Island – especially the ruins of an old castle-like Smallpox Hospital (Renwick Hospital), a bacteriology laboratory, and an asylum. (Thanks to Kathleen for the suggestion.)
North Brother Island (New York City, New York)
From urbanlens: “At first it seems the island is nothing but an oasis greenery in the East River. Then you notice the buildings and smokestacks poking through the mess of vines and trees. These are the remains of a complex of buildings that once housed unfortunate victims of the most hideous contagious diseases of the 19th and 20th centuries, including tuberculosis, typhoid fever and smallpox. When these diseases were tamed, the island found a new use as a home for troubled and drug-addicted youth, but the program proved unsuccessful and funding for it vanished. After the program closed in the 1950s, the island was abandoned, and quickly claimed again by nature. Today the island is an informal sanctuary for birds. One must be cautious of the nests of eggs hidden on the ground in the dense growth covering the island. The birds have a truly fascinating home- an unpopulated island in the middle of New York City. An island once home to the infamous Typhoid Mary, an island that bore witness to a horrifying nautical disaster – the wreck of the General Slocum, and an island that occasionally has harbored escaped convicts from nearby Riker’s Island.” (Thanks to Kathleen for the suggestion.)
The Jekyll and Hyde Club (New York City, New York)
Recommended by Burleyque: “The Jekyll and Hyde Club in New York is aimed at kids, but its still very morbid, decorated with rotting skeletons, specimens, framed anatomical and insect drawings, talking gargoyles, ghostly widows, TVs playing old b&w scary movies and a bar on every floor for adults to ‘get into the spirit’ (and they’re watched over by deceased bartender ‘Max Gorey’ : “He served Dr. Jekyll and his companions for years, mixing such potent drinks as the ‘Cerebral Hemorrhage’ and the ‘Spine Smasher’. Max perished in an unfortunate blender accident. In the words of club member Lucifer Garrotte, ‘Max was a good bartender, but he was a great Daiquiri.'” It’s the kind of sick place I’d take my kids if I had any, and I’d take my friends kids just to try and corrupt them.”
Apparently the same company has a couple of other bars in the city and a dance club.
Green-Wood Cemetery (New York City, New York)
From Wikipedia: “Green-Wood Cemetery was founded in 1838 as a rural cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, several blocks west of Prospect Park. In the New York Times it was said to be the “ambition of the New Yorker to live upon the Fifth Avenue, to take his airings in the Central Park, and to sleep with his fathers in Green-Wood”. Inspired by Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where a cemetery in a naturalistic park-like landscape in the English manner was first established, Green-Wood was able to take advantage of the varied topography provided by glacial moraines. The cemetery was the idea of Henry Evelyn Pierrepoint, a Brooklyn social leader. It was a popular tourist attraction in the 1850s and was the place most famous New Yorkers who died during the second half of the nineteenth century were buried. It is still an operating cemetery with approximately 600,000 graves. The rolling hills and dales, several ponds and an on-site chapel provide an environment that still draws visitors. On weekends cars are allowed on cemetery grounds. There are several famous monuments located there, including a statue of DeWitt Clinton and a Civil War Memorial. During the Civil War, Green-Wood Cemetery created the “Soldiers’ Lot” for free veterans’ burials.” Suggested by Kathleen.