Touring Brooklyn

Don at entrance to Green-Wood Cemetery

Well, today is our last day in New York. We decided to make it a Brooklyn day, so after breakfast we hopped on the Subway, traveled down the length of Manhattan, under the East River, and into Brooklyn to 25^th Street. We walked a couple blocks to Green-wood Cemetery in Greenwood Heights. It is a National Historic Landmark. The cemetery was founded in 1838 and has always been a fashionable place to be buried. The list of famous people buried here is huge. In 1860 it rivaled Niagara Falls as a place for tourists to visit!

It is 478 acres of hills, valleys, glacial ponds, and winding paths. We only managed to traverse a small portion of it. We trudged up Battle Avenue to see the monument to the Revolutionary War. The Battle of Brooklyn, one of the first battles between the British and the Americans, was fought here. From the top of the hill you can see the Statue of Liberty, which I thought was most meaningful.

Suzanne at Monument to the Battle of Brooklyn

We continued along the meandering paths admiring the many tombstones, monuments, mausoleums, statues, and all the beautiful plants. It was all so interesting. We stopped at one of the lakes to eat lunch and watch an egret who was looking for fish (he never seemed to find one!). We stopped in the historic chapel, which was very simple with lovely stained glass.

After this we got back on the subway and went to Smith Street where we visited a new book store, Books are Magic. They had shelves of books published by the New York Times Book Review which I had never heard of.

We continued our walk along Smith to Atlantic Avenue which is one of the main shopping streets of Brooklyn. We finally ended up at the subway on Court Street and headed back to our hotel.

Our last adventure was trying to find a deli restaurant where Don could have pastrami and I could have chopped liver. I can’t believe that it was so hard to find one in New York City! We ended up taking the bus back to Ben’s Deli at 209 W. 38^th St. and had a wonderful meal. I would definitely recommend this restaurant.

Can you find the egret?