August 2019 – Travels with Abandon

Yeah, so this place isn’t abandoned.

But we absolutely had to see Trinity Church, where Alexander Hamilton and several members of his family and friends are buried.

Trinity Church is located, of all places, in the financial district in Manhattan. It’s absolutely fascinating to see how the city grew all around it and now towers over the church grounds. It’s also the only patch of green for quite a ways in any direction. The church building itself was closed for renovations and asbestos abatement, but the cemetery, which reaches on either side of the church, was open.

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Looking at these headstones was like looking directly inside Tim Burton’s head. The stones that are still there (a few may have gone amiss in the last 250 years…) are all remarkably preserved, and their Gothic scrawl, complete with spelling that’s more “artistic” than accurate, is incredibly beautiful. Not to mention the joy of seeing long-winded eulogies and admonishments to the living etched there, filling up an entire stone.

The churchyard includes several famous burials: Alexander Hamilton, of course, as well as his wife, Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, and his eldest son, Philip; Hercules Mulligan, who served as a spy for the American side during the Revolution (and popularized by the musical Hamilton), and Eliza’s sister, Angelica Schuyler Church.

As we may have mentioned (once or twice) before, we’re big Hamilton fans, and being this close to the actual remains of these people whose stories we are so familiar with–albeit probably full of creative license, but well-researched by Lin-Manuel Miranda and faithfully portrayed to the best of his ability–was incredibly moving. Issa has pondered that this is why she has become involved in the Findagrave.com community–while these people in Trinity Church may be well-known and beloved by many people, everyone in every cemetery was once known and loved by someone, and it seems both fitting and necessary to make sure that their final resting places are documented and photographed for those of us still here who care.

Our final leg of this day before our Broadway show began was to stop by the 9/11 memorials. We quickly found that this was not something we could really stand to look at for very long. They are beautiful and touching, but wrought emotions out of us that we had carefully packed away from that day in our early 20s. We took it in for a minute, then left quickly with our sunglasses on, even though the day was overcast.

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After our show, we caught the shuttle back to our motel, slept in a bit, and made our way home. The rainy weather, along with our desire to get home to our families, kept us from exploring too much on the way home, although Issa would have very much liked to visit Pithole, PA if it hadn’t been so out of the way. Maybe that’s a goal for next year!

The second day of our trip was reserved for seeing a few places, none of which were properly abandoned, but all of which had rich history.

Our first jaunt of the day was, of course, to head over to the Weehawken Dueling Grounds, where Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr famously demonstrated their inability to “use their words” to solve interpersonal conflicts. Again, not at all an abandoned place, but one that’s important to us and our love of history.

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After exploring Hamilton Park and taking in the views of the Manhattan skyline, we headed north of the city to Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow, New York. We were actually excited to find out that there was actually some abandonment here, thus keeping us within our mission as ghost town explorers! There is, in fact, much documentation of the rise and fall of many Hudson Valley communities. As we drove into Tarrytown, we saw a lake with what appeared to be some kind of house…in the middle of it, on its own tiny island. We weren’t able to find a spot to pull over and take a picture of it without causing a traffic hazard, but we did find an article that has one, here. The article itself, written by Jorge Fitz-Gibbon, has some delicious history involving John D. Rockefeller manipulating the railroads in the area (because he didn’t like them so close to his estate), which in turn manipulated the lake system and the entire community. What used to be known as East Tarrytown eventually disappeared due to a change in the landscape and the Rockefeller’s considerable investment to buy the land out from under people and force them to leave.

Additionally, there are other small estates and communities in the area that have gone to ruin, mostly thanks to changing economies. A local man, Rob Yasinsac, has taken to documenting all of the ruins he can as they slowly get demolished for new development. He sounds like a kindred spirit, and we wish him luck and safety as he explores abandoned structures!

Tarrytown proper, as well as Sleepy Hollow, are actually not “sleepy” at all, as it turns out. Both are quaint, bustling small towns, slow close together as to be nearly indistinguishable from one another. What really sets Sleepy Hollow apart, though, is the cemetery.

In total honesty, we have never seen a cemetery quite like this. When you have to measure a cemetery in square miles, you know you’re on to something. Findagrave.com lists over 15,000 interments, but only 53% have been photographed, which means there’s likely many, many more than that. Many famous people call this their final resting place, including some of the Astors, Rockefellers, and Carnegies, as well as Elizabeth Arden and of course Washington Irving himself. There was simply no way a person could see the whole thing in one day, especially considering the rolling hills which are tiered with various levels of graves.

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We were able to find Washington Irving and the Carnegies, as far as famous graves go; Issa was also able to do a little work on photo requests for Findagrave.com. We barely got to explore the oldest, full-Dutch section close to the front because, curiously, the cemetery closed at 4:30 and we were closely monitored by a security guard as we made our way out (we imagine a lot of mischief might take place in such a large space if they didn’t have tight security).

We were also able to find, in Tarrytown, the monument dedicated to the capture of American Revolutionary War spy Major John Andre. It was amusing to read up on this part of history, as we both remembered it, but fuzzily. How fascinating how well he was esteemed by some of the greatest leaders of the Revolution, even in spite of his conviction. There is apparently also a monument to site of his execution in Tappan, New York, on the other side of the Tappan Zee, adjacent to New Jersey.