Top 5 Fascinating Graveyards You Must See

5. La Recoleta Cemetery
Buenos Aires, Argentina

Always topping lists of places to visit in Buenos Aires, the Cementerio de la Recoleta is a fascinating glimpse into Argentine history. The most famous tomb is undoubtedly that of Eve Peron’s, but there are many more Argentinean politicians, poets and personalities. The cemetery is designed much like a city, with wide avenues branching off into alleyways, all lined with “houses” for individuals and families. Many are exceptionally well maintained, but there are many more that no longer have family members to maintain them and have thus fallen into disrepair. There are stories of crypts being used as maintenance closets, with cleaning supplies stored on top of coffins. Among the tombs that have been maintained, you will find many sculptures that have been declared national historic monuments, as well as a myriad of styles, from Egyptian to Gothic to Art Deco. Another interesting note: among Argentina’s rich and famous deceased, you may also find a colony of feral cats that have made Cementerio de la Recoleta their home, and who are often fed by the locals.

4. Saint Louis Cemetery

New Orleans, Louisiana

This is actually three cemeteries. Each is worth visiting, though Saint Louis Cemetery #1 is, in my opinion, the most interesting, and the one I will be referring to. The tombs in Saint Louis are above ground, and the stone buildings are actually concealing bodies only a few feet away from the visitor. The reason for this is supposedly because the ground water level in New Orleans is impractical for burials, though there is some dispute of this. Saint Louis #1 is more than a little run down, and a tour guide is strongly recommended. Voodoo is alive and well in New Orleans and the tomb of Voodoo Queen Marie LaVeau is supposedly located in the Glapion family crypt in Louis #1. When I visited, graffiti made this particular tomb hard to miss, but that was a few years ago, and I can’t vouch for what it looks like now. As an aside, when I visited I did not go with a tour. Aimless wandering through the one square block cemetery found many tombs that had been broken into, and more than a few remains scattered. This cemetery is not for the fainthearted.

3. Forest Lawn Memorial Parks

Glendale & Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles, California

Also: Hollywood Forever (Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.) Three places for the price of one! First, Forest Lawn: A unique entry… The creators of these parks wanted to approach the creation of a final resting place with a sunnier outlook. The result is practically a theme park for death. Traditional headstones are ditched in favor of markers set into the ground, and replicas of artwork –paintings and statuary- and famous buildings from all over the world, abound. If, for instance, you want to see the complete collection of Michelangelo’s sculptures but can’t afford to bounce around Europe, look no further. This cemetery contains the only complete collection in the world that is made from casts of the originals and marble from the same quarry Michelangelo used. Between Glendale and Hollywood Hills you can find the final resting place of what may seem like most of Hollywood (and you’ll find the rest at Hollywood Forever). Curiously, some of the graves are in a restricted section, among them Hollywood elite such as Humphrey Bogart, Nat King Cole and Mary Pickford, but most are available to the public. Some of the more visited markers are those of Walt Disney, L. Frank Baum, Errol Flynn, James Stewart, Spencer Tracy, Tex Avery, Scatman Crothers, Bette Davis, Marty Feldman, Buster Keaton, Fritz Lang, Liberace, Telly Savales (buried with a lollipop!), and many, many more. Hollywood Forever is located nearby, adjacent to the north wall of Paramount studios. It is less popular because it spent the latter part of the 20th century being run down and financially mismanaged. It was purchased by its current owners in 1998 and refurbished. Movies are screened there in the summertime, drawing hundreds of visitors. Famous occupants include Mel Blanc, Cecille B. DeMille, Douglas Fairbanks, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., George Harrison, Johnny and Dee Dee Ramone, Rudolph Valentino, and my all time favorite actor, Peter Lorre.

2. Green-Wood Cemetery

Brooklyn, New York

Boasting 600,000 graves spread out over 478 acres, this site is a popular tourist attraction for those visiting New York City. Like Père-Lachaise, there was a campaign to promote the cemetery involving moving famous bodies there and donating monuments. Unlike Père-Lachaise, the plan didn’t really work, and from the time it was opened in 1838 until the building of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883 made it easier to get there, the cemetery did not get that many permanent residents. Those that did come to stay had plenty of room to do so, however. There are hundreds of ornate tombs for famous and non-famous residents alike, but the site still seems wide open. Most New Yorkers who made their name in the second half of the 19th century (a prolific chunk of time for famous New Yorkers) can be found here. There are also war memorials and monuments, including an Obelisk that serves as a grave marker for 103 of the nearly 300 victims of the Brooklyn Theater Fire.

1. Old Jewish Cemetery

Josefov, Prague, Chzech Republic

Easily the oldest cemetery on this list, with the earliest discernable headstone dating back to 1439, the Old Jewish Cemetery operated until 1787, which means it closed before most of the entries on this list had opened. The headstones bear this out, jumbled at strange angles and deeply weatherworn. Ropes divide the walkway from the headstones, and tickets can be bought to see the cemetery individually or in addition to visiting the surrounding synagogues. Interestingly, while many Jewish cemeteries were destroyed during the holocaust, Hitler specifically requested this one remain intact, as he apparently intended to build a museum here after his assumed victory.

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Top 5 Amazing Coincidences

5. Twins

The twin brothers, Jim Lewis and Jim Springer, were separated at birth, adopted by different families. Unknown to each other, both families named the boys James. Both James grew up not knowing of the other, yet both sought law-enforcement training, both had abilities in mechanical drawing and carpentry, and each had married women named Linda. Both had sons, one of whom was named James Alan and the other named James Allan. The twin brothers also divorced their wives and married other women – both named Betty. And they both owned dogs which they named Toy.

4. Golden Scarab

From The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche: “A young woman I was treating had, at a critical moment, a dream in which she was given a golden scarab. While she was telling me this dream I sat with my back to the closed window. Suddenly I heard a noise behind me, like a gentle tapping. I turned round and saw a flying insect knocking against the window-pane from outside. I opened the window and caught the creature in the air as it flew in. It was the nearest analogy to the golden scarab that one finds in our latitudes, a scarabaeid beetle, the common rose-chafer (Cetonia aurata) which contrary to its usual habits had evidently felt an urge to get into a dark room at this particular moment. I must admit that nothing like it ever happened to me before or since, and that the dream of the patient has remained unique in my experience.” – Carl Jung

3. Taxi

In 1975, while riding a moped in Bermuda, a man was accidentally struck and killed by a taxi. One year later, this man’s bother was killed in the very same way. In fact, he was riding the very same moped. And to stretch the odds even further, he was struck by the very same taxi driven by the same driver – and even carrying the very same passenger!

2. Hotel Discovery

In 1953, television reporter Irv Kupcinet was in London to cover the coronation of Ellizabeth II. In one of the drawers in his room at the Savoy he found found some items that, by their identification, belonged to a man named Harry Hannin. Coincidentally, Harry Hannin – a basketball star with the famed Harlem Globetrotters – was a good friend of Kupcinet’s. But the story has yet another twist. Just two days later, and before he could tell Hannin of his lucky discovery, Kupcinet received a letter from Hannin. In the letter, Hannin told Kucinet that while staying at the Hotel Meurice in Paris, he found in a drawer a tie – with Kupcinet’s name on it.

1. Historical Coincidence

The lives of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, two of America’s founders. Jefferson crafted the Declaration of Independence, showing drafts of it to Adams, who (with Benjamin Franklin) helped to edit and hone it.The document was approved by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776. Surprisingly, both Jefferson and Adams died on the same day, July 4, 1826 – exactly 50 years from the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

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Top 5 Fascinating Last Pictures Taken

5. Wiley Post & Will Rogers
1898 –1935, 1879 – 1935

Wiley Post who was the first pilot to fly solo around the world and his good friend Will Rogers a famous comedian, humorist and social commentator were set out to fly around the world together. This photo (that’s Will Rogers in the hat and tie, standing on the wing) was taken on August 15, 1935 shortly before taking off from a lagoon near Point Barrow Alaska. During take off Post’s experimental Lockheed Explorer sea plane crashed when its engine failed killing both men.

Interesting Fact: The airport in Barrow Alaska was renamed Wiley Post – Will Rogers Memorial Airport.

4. John and Jackie Knill

On January 13, 2005 the bodies of Canadian couple John and Jackie Knill were discovered on a Thailand beach resort. They were two of the many victims killed from the December 26 2004 tsunami. Weeks later a Seattle man doing relief work found a damaged camera and discarded it but kept the memory card in the camera. After downloading the images he discovered pictures of the Knill’s enjoying their vacation, as well as shots of a huge wave approaching the shore. With each picture it shows the wave getting closer and closer to shore. The last picture taken of them before the wave hit (shown above) was shot just after 8.30 am on December 26.

Interesting Fact: The Seattle man that discovered the images recognized the Knills from a missing person’s web site and contacted the couple’s two sons in Vancouver Canada. The man then drove from Seattle to Vancouver to give the sons their parent’s last images.

3. Albert Einstein

b.1879 d.1955

The photograph above is the last known picture of Einstein, taken in March, 1955. There are not a lot of details concerning this photo but he is probably at his home near Princeton, New Jersey. A month later on April 17, 1955, Einstein experienced internal bleeding caused by the rupture of an aortic aneurysm, which had previously been diagnosed and reinforced. He went to the hospital and took a draft of a speech he was preparing for a television appearance commemorating the State of Israel’s seventh anniversary with him. Unfortunately he did not live long enough to complete it. The following day Einstein died at the age of 76.
Interesting Fact: Einstein’s brain was removed within seconds of his death (without the permission of his family) in hope that future neuroscience would be able to discover what made Einstein so intelligent. Recent scientific studies have suggested that regions involved in speech and language are smaller, while regions involved with numerical and spatial processing are larger.

2. Marilyn Monroe
b.1926 d 1962

Many believe Celebrity photographer George Barris took the last pictures of Marilyn Monroe. However, it was actually Life Magazine’s photographer Allan Grant. The pictures were taken July 7, 1962 during an interview at her home. Six pictures appeared in Life including the one pictured above.
Just under a month later on August 5, 1962, the LAPD received a call at 4:25AM from Dr. Hyman Engelberg proclaiming that Monroe was dead at her home in Brentwood, Los Angeles. The official cause of Monroe’s death was classified as “acute barbiturate poisoning”, and was also recorded as a “probable suicide. Many questions still remain unanswered about the circumstances of her death and the timeline from when Monroe’s body was found.
Interesting Fact: The Life Magazine issue featuring Monroe’s interview was dated August 3 1962, just 2 day before her death.


1. Bill Biggart
1947-2001

Photojournalist Bill Biggart was covering the events of September 11th and was Tragically killed as the second tower of the World Trade Center came down. Four days later Biggart’s body was recovered from the rubble and his personal effects, including his cameras were given to his wife. Biggart’s widow later handed over the camera bag to a good friend and fellow photographer. She was convinced that no pictures had survived because the falling debris had blown off the backs of the two film cameras and the lids of the film canisters had been peeled back. His friend turned his attention to the digital camera that was covered by ash. The lens had been sheared off but when he opened the chamber that held the flash card he discovered it was in pristine condition. The card contained 150 pictures including the last picture taken shown above which is time stamped 10:28 am and 24 seconds. The time was 10:30am when the second tower came down.
Interesting Fact: When Biggart’s wife reached him on his cell phone shortly after the first tower fell. He told her not to worry, and would meet her in 20 minutes at his studio. “I’m safe,” he assured her, “I’m with the firemen.” It was the last time they ever spoke. About 20 minutes later, the second tower collapsed.

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