This page will be dedicated to the subject of urban & rural blight. These two types of blight are the most threatening elements to cemetery preservation. My hope is that through awareness, education, & mutual agreement, we can find a way to better resolve these situations as they arise. I have always firmly believed that there can be room for two things. It reminds me of the big fight every ten years to rewrite the history books. It is always an argument over what to leave in & what to leave out, what’s hot & what’s not. I guess they aren’t bright enough to add more pages or another chapter or even another volume. Why must it be a choice between destroying a cemetery or progressive building & expansion? Those who cry there isn’t room for both are generally full of it. They are usually just plain unbending & uncaring. Hopefully, it is due to lack of awareness & lack of education & can be resolved by some good mutual agreement. And sometimes it needs to be fought for by exercising the laws that are in place. The laws concerning cemeteries are scant to say the least. I invite you to go to the link we have concerning Ohio cemetery law & see for yourself. It is also my hope that together we may work to enforce already existing laws, as well as help create some new ones. Remember: there is strength in numbers & it is many times more about who you know, than what you know. I will post information & editorial comments on this subject as more information becomes available & situations arise.
This is a great example of coexistence between a land owner & an old family cemetery. The current owner is working to restore & preserve the family plot where members of a family who settled the land were buried.
A rural farm in Ohio.
The Betsy Ross Bridge in Philadelphia seems like any other. It doesn’t have the grace of the Golden Gate or the history of the Brooklyn Bridge, nor does it draw any acolytes wanting to make the trek across. The structure exists primarily to move people, and this it does well, helping connect Pennsylvania to New Jersey. Most commuters, however, are surely unaware of what the bridge’s foundation is actually built on: a cemetery.
The bridge springs from the headstones of a forsaken graveyard, dumped unceremoniously into the Delaware River. The sunken stones at the base of the bridge came from Monument Cemetery, once located two miles from City Hall. Monument Cemetery, established in 1839, was the second Victorian garden style cemetery in Philadelphia, after Laurel Hill, now a protected historic landmark. Monument was modeled after the Pere Lachaise in Paris, and was created to function both as a final resting place for the dead as well as a green respite from the surrounding urban environment.