Greenwood, Brooklyn: The Cemetery That Named It

Green-Wood was Henry Evelyn Pierrepont's idea, and it worked on the Mount Auburn model: landscape first, burial second. In 2017 it received 280,000 visitors. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 8, 1997 and designated a National Historic Landmark on September 20, 2006.

Its gates and its chapel carry individual New York City landmark designations. The 25th Street gate, built between 1861 and 1865, is Gothic Revival, with sculptured panels by John M. Moffitt depicting biblical resurrection scenes and a 106-foot clock tower set between the two gateways; it was designated on April 19, 1966. The Fort Hamilton Parkway entrance is a brownstone double gateway built in 1876 and completed the next year. The chapel, in a Late Gothic and Beaux-Arts manner, was built between 1911 and 1913 by Warren and Wetmore in limestone, with a central octagonal tower. The Fort Hamilton Parkway entrance and the chapel were designated together on April 12, 2016.

The cemetery's most recent addition is a restoration rather than a new building. The Weir Greenhouse of 1895, designated an individual landmark on April 13, 1982, was restored and reopened as The Green-House at Green-Wood, the cemetery's visitor entrance and hub, over the weekend of April 18, 2026.

Battle Hill, inside the cemetery, is the highest natural point in Brooklyn at roughly 216 feet. Fighting took place there during the Battle of Long Island in 1776.

The hill now holds Frederick Ruckstull's bronze Altar to Liberty: Minerva, erected in 1920 and positioned so that Minerva faces the Statue of Liberty across the harbour.

The neighborhood around the cemetery is administered as part of New York City Community District 7, which the 2018 figures put at roughly 132,721 residents district-wide. Greenwood Heights is described as the section of that district north of about 36th Street, but that is a colloquial description rather than a formal boundary: sources disagree on whether this is a distinct neighborhood at all, and where Greenwood Heights, Sunset Park, South Slope and Windsor Terrace divide.

25th Street, at 25th Street and Fourth Avenue, is situated in Greenwood Heights. The R serves it at all times, the D and N stop there late nights, and a limited number of peak-direction W trains call.

Prospect Avenue, at Prospect Avenue and Fourth Avenue, sits near the convergence of the Gowanus, Greenwood Heights, Park Slope and South Park Slope neighborhoods. The R serves it at all times, with the D and N late nights and a limited peak-direction W.

36th Street, at 36th Street and Fourth Avenue, is in Sunset Park rather than in Greenwood Heights. The D, N and R serve it at all times, with limited rush-hour W service.