Cemetery Tourism
History, Beauty and Quiet All in One Place, With No Entry Fee.
I recently went out of my way to locate and visit the grave of Hugo R. Ensslin, an obscure bartender and cocktail book author from the early 20th century. I got in my car early one Monday morning, picked up my friend Martin, and drove north to the Gate of Heaven cemetery in Westchester County, New York. Between the driving back, the searching for the gravesite, and lunch (Frank Pepe’s in Yonkers), the excursion took up most of the day.
This was not an unusual activity for me. My wife Mary Kate and I frequently visit cemeteries for enjoyment, particularly if people of note are buried there. Two recent examples. We went to Asheville, North Carolina, the other weekend. While there, we visited a cemetery where the writers Thomas Wolfe and William Sydney Porter (better known as O. Henry) are residents. Last month, I flew to Milan and went to a cemetery where the families that created Campari and Fernet-Branca were laid to rest.
That Westchester visit didn’t end with Ensslin. Gate of Heaven was the final stop for many a notable figure, including a few NYC mayors, some actors and at least one baseball great. Babe Ruth is the most visited grave. It’s a peculiar monument. The tall headstone depicts Christ blessing young George Herman Ruth. Perhaps Jesus is telling the little Bambino to go out there in the world and Play Ball, I don’t know. The ground around it is littered with baseballs, gloves, hates, bats and a tiny nativity scene, a leftover from Christmas.
Other burial sites include film star James Cagney and Anna Held (1872-1918), the Polish singing star that showman Florenz Ziegfeld brought over to the U.S., made a star, made his mistress and ultimately dropped. Her memorial is anonymously Grecian in design. Jimmy Walker (1881-1946), the playboy mayor of 1920s New York, lies alone under a plane granite marker. And poor Sal Mineo (1939-1976), Oscar-nominated star of “Rebel Without a Cause,” lies alongside his brother and parents under a small flat stone that is flush with the ground. Someone visits him, however, because the stone is adorned with a bouquet of fake flowers and a small trophy, chained to the ground, reading “2-time Oscar nominee. Italian legend.”