The Cemetery of the Evergreens, also called The Evergreens Cemetery, is a non-denominational
rural cemetery[2] along the
Cemetery Belt in
Brooklyn and
Queens, New York City. It was incorporated in 1849, not long after the passage of New York's
Rural Cemetery Act spurred development of cemeteries outside
Manhattan. For a time, it was the busiest cemetery in
New York City; in 1929 there were 4,673 interments. Today, the Evergreens is the final resting place of more than 526,000 people.[3]
The cemetery borders Brooklyn and Queens and covers 225 acres (0.91 km2) of rolling hills and gently sloping meadows. It features several thousand trees and flowering shrubs in a park-like setting.
Cypress Hills Cemetery lies to its northeast.
The Evergreens has a monument to six victims of the
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of March 25, 1911 who were unidentified for nearly a century. In 2011,
Michael Hirsch, a historian, completed four years of research that identified these victims by name (see
§ Group monument).[4][5]
There are also seventeen British Commonwealth service personnel buried in the cemetery: thirteen from World War I and four from World War II.[6]
Bill Dahlen (1870–1950),
Major League Baseball player, one of the outstanding early 20th century players. Lies in an unmarked grave.
James E. Davis (1962–2003), New York City councilman (he was originally interred in
Green-Wood Cemetery, but after it was realized that his
assassin was also interred there, he was moved to the Cemetery of the Evergreens)
Thomas Dilward (1817–1887), Minstrel performer credited with having invented the word "hunky-dory"[7]
Triangle Shirtwaist fire – the bodies of six victims of the 1911 fire to be identified were buried under a monument of a kneeling woman. They could not be identified after the inferno because they were burned beyond recognition, and had been buried without names. A century after the tragedy, in 2011, they were identified by historian Michael Hirsch as Maria Giuseppa Lauletti, Max Florin, Concetta Prestifilippo, Josephine Cammarata, Dora Evans, and Fannie Rosen.[5][9]