From War and Tragedy to Celebration: What Memorial Day Means to Brooklyn

In 2016, Memorial Day for many people is a federal holiday and nothing more. But the day many people have off is meant as a remembrance of soldiers who died in war — something Brooklyn has a good deal of history with.

Indeed, from the borough’s sprawling Green-Wood Cemetery to the oft-forgotten Battle of Brooklyn — as well as other tragic, non-military deaths associated with the day — Kings County has many sites and stories relevant to Memorial Day. Read a few of them below.

Walkabout: The Meaning of Memorial Day in Brooklyn and Beyond
Because the experience of war — losing someone in war, military service, or even having a relative in the service — is so foreign to many of us, nowadays it’s hard to conceive of Memorial Day as anything more than just a blessed day off, a break in the schedule of hard work that we are all too familiar with. But it was not always so. Here’s a look back at Brooklyn’s Memorial Day history.

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Visiting Brooklyn’s Revolutionary War Sites: Old Stone House, Fort Greene Park and More
The Revolutionary War makes many think of New England, but a number of significant battles actually happened throughout New York. Brooklyn, in particular, was home to many historic war sites, buildings and battles, many of which have been memorialized. Here we present five Brooklyn Revolutionary War sites that are worth the visit for any history buff, or any Brooklynite who had no idea how monumental a role the area played in the war.

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Walkabout: Decoration Day in Brooklyn
What today is known as Memorial Day was originally known as Decoration Day. In 1868, General John A. Logan, commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, the Union Army’s Veteran’s Association, instituted the first Decoration Day, calling for it to be celebrated in cities and towns across the country. May 30 was chosen at random, coinciding with the optimal time of year for flowers to be in bloom.

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Walkabout: Death and the Green Wood
For Brooklyn’s Victorian forbearers, and to this day, a resting place in Green-Wood was the final aspiration. Credit for the idea of Green-Wood goes to Henry Evelyn Pierrepont, one of mid-19th-century Brooklyn’s most influential men and a member of one of Brooklyn’s oldest and richest families

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On Memorial Day, 1897, a Tally-Ho Ride from Stuyvesant Heights to Long Island Went Horribly Wrong
On Memorial Day 1897, a group of young adults from Stuyvesant Heights’ Green Avenue Baptist Church was involved in a horrible collision between an open horse-drawn coach and a Long Island Railroad train. The crash took place on May 31, 1897.

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Brooklyn’s Forgotten Electoral Districts: The Lost History of the Ward System
Green-Wood Cemetery Designated National Landmark

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