Here is New York

Singing tour guide belting out a song from "West Side Story" while standing on grave of composer Leonard Bernstein.

You read that right, a cemetery tour. I’ve done a lot of strange things in NYC but, until last week, I had yet to check cemetery tour off my list.

The tour I took was at Green-Wood Cemetery, an historic array of grave-sites on the outskirts of Park Slope. It is a beautiful, extraordinary place (no kidding) that was, for a time in the 19th century, the No. 2 tourist attraction in the nation behind Niagra Falls. I’m not sure if that’s a testament to the beauty of this cemetery or the lack of cable back then. Let’s just say, it was a different time, a time when people got all excited about where Gov. DeWitt Clinton was going to be buried.

Green-Wood carts around the curious on trolleys complete with tour guides, and the tours are still so popular that they often sell out, and pretty much are conducted all the way through the winter. When I finally took this extraordinary tour recently, I not only had a tour guide, I had a singing tour guide who broke out into a tune from “West Side Story” while standing on top of the grave of composer Leonard Bernstein. When the earth didn’t open up and swallow her, I figured she was doing okay.

Famous dead people have always been the calling card of Green-Wood since its inception. Aside from Bernstein and our dearly departed Gov. Clinton, you can also find the graves of Boss Tweed, Currier & Ives (not buried together), mobster Joey Gallo and artist Jean-Michel Basquiat to name a few. And sometimes the graves of people you’ve never heard of are the most impressive, like that of the founder of the ASPCA.

But my favorite story of the tour is about the people afraid of being buried alive. Seems during the Victorian Era, it was fairly common to bury those not quite ready. People were so afraid of this, as you can imagine, that Green-Wood marketed above-ground graves. Actually, the graves were in what could be considered a large crypt and, get this, they were sold with air vents that are still visible. The idea of course was that, if you were still alive, you’d need a little fresh air. But how does one escape from a  coffin? Strings were attached to fingers and if you moved your fingers, an above-ground bell would ring, hence the term “saved by the bell.”  See, there was life before TV.

Green air vents for the unlucky few buried alive.

Grave with a bear on top, as seen from the trolley tour.