The New York Grimpendium: Ferncliff Cemetery

My new book, The New York Grimpendium, comes out October 1 [UPDATE: Available now]. Like its predecessor The New England Grimpendium, it covers my experiences traveling to hundreds of death-related locations and artifacts in the region. Below is one of a series of photo essays from sites in the book that I’ll be posting over the next few weeks. If you live in or like New York, the book is for you. If you’re a bit morbid, the book is also for you, even if you’ve never been to the Empire State. After all, death is a punch line we all get.

September 17, 2012 — They say the best place to spot a celebrity in New York is Manhattan. Well, I walked its streets for a whole week, averaging some seven miles a day, from Battery Park to Harlem, Riverside Park to FDR Drive, and the closest I got to seeing a celebrity was somebody who might have been Walter Matthau had that actor not died more than a decade previously.

The truth is, the only way you can guarantee a celebrity sighting is to visit the graveyards where they are buried. Celebrity corpses often congregate together, albeit mostly in Southern California. However, in New York, the biggest wrap party is at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale. Here’s a partial guest list:

You might know this bit of turf better as Jam Master Jay.

Read all about my visit to Ferncliff Cemetery in The New York Grimpendium, which is on sale now: