Landmark Lecture – Brooklyn Arcadia: Art, History and Nature at Majestic Green-Wood

Labor, Literature and Landmarks Lecture Series
Fall 2023

Brooklyn Arcadia: Art, History and Nature at Majestic Green-Wood.
With Photographer Andrew Garn and Writer Allison C. Meier

Monday, October 30th, 6:00 pm

Presented in Partnership with The General Society of Mechanics & Tradesmen of the City of New York (Founded 1785)

In this talk, renowned photographer Andrew Garn, will discuss his new book, Brooklyn Arcadia: Art, History and Nature at Majestic Green-Wood. Mr Garn will be joined by Allison C. Meier, one of the nine essayists included in the book. Through stunning images, this New York City treasure will be revealed as a garden in the city, a repository for memory, and a place for repose, inspiration, and delight.

Founded in 1838 and now a National Historic Landmark, Green-Wood was one of the first rural cemeteries in America. By the early 1860s, it attracted 500,000 visitors a year, second only to Niagara Falls as the nation’s greatest tourist attraction. Green-Wood’s popularity helped inspire the creation of public parks, including New York City’s Central and Prospect Parks. It has 478 spectacular acres of hills, valleys, glacial ponds, and paths, throughout which exists one of the largest outdoor collections of nineteenth- and twentieth-century statuary and mausoleums. Its 570,000 permanent residents include Leonard Bernstein, Boss Tweed, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Louis Comfort Tiffany. It continues to be one of New York City’s great wonders.

Brooklyn Arcadia takes a deep dive, with 15 chapters on all facets of Green-Wood, including over 400 new photographs by Mr. Garn, historic images, blueprints and informative essays, the book is an insightful survey of Green-Wood’s storied past and riveting present.

At once a celebration and an invitation, Brooklyn Arcadia ranges from a consideration of the natural landscape in which it is set to a close look at its architecture, statuary, symbols, typography, birds and fauna, trees, and typography.

A native New Yorker, Andrew Garn is a fine art and editorial photographer, and writer whose work has been widely exhibited and has appeared in the pages of the New York Times Magazine, New York, National Geographic, Audubon Magazine, Fortune, Forbes, Interview, Vogue, Der Spiegel, French Photo, Elle Décor, and Bloomberg LP. He has completed twelve previous books, including New York Art Deco: Birds, Beasts & Blooms (Rizzoli), The New York Pigeon (powerHouse), The Houseboat Book (Rizzoli), Bethlehem Steel (Princeton Architectural Press), Exit to Tomorrow (Universe), and Subway Style (New York Transit Museum).

Allison C. Meier is a Brooklyn-based writer and cemetery tour guide. She is the author of Grave (2023, Bloomsbury) and has bylines on death and culture in the New York Times, CityLab, Curbed, National Geographic, Wellcome Collection, Lapham’s Quarterly, and Smithsonian. Previously, she was a staff writer at Hyperallergic and the senior editor at Atlas Obscura.

Brooklyn Arcadia will be available for purchase on the night and online through www.rizzoliusa.com

Purchase here.