What can I say about the Atlantic City Cemetery that I
haven’t already said? A lot, probably, since I really don’t know anything about
it. I’ve visited a few times, but I’ve never done any actual research. I just
like going there when I’m in the area. I was in Ventnor (next to AC) with my
family a couple weekends ago (mid August, 2014) so I got up early and drove inland
to the cemetery.
I’m in the habit of heading out at sunrise before my wife
and daughter are awake. I jumped in the car and drove the approximate five
miles to Pleasantville, NJ, the town in which the cemetery actually resides.
Not much going on at the shore at that time of day, though it did look a bit
like rain. That was the actual prediction, and I was kind of hoping it would. I
started the Facebook page “
Cemeteries in the Rain” this past year (2014) so
I’ve actually been
trying to capture some images of, well, that.
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| Mausoleum glass in Greenwood |
The rain threatened all morning, and there was some odd
lighting. I photographed a few statues in the cemetery against the partly
cloudy, but bright sunrise. I suppose statues and monuments all face one
direction for a reason (the Victorian version of feng shui?), but it seems like
that is never the direction I
want them to be facing! You would also assume
that mausoleum stained glass faces east or west, so the glass gets as much
sunrise and sunset light as possible. Wrong! Over the course of the two hours I
spent here and in the neighboring Greenwood Cemetery, it got headlight-dark a
couple times, but then brightened up.
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| Mausoleum, Atlantic City Cemetery |
Actually, my feng shui comment was not really a joke. Feng
shui, the Chinese philosophical system of harmonizing things with the
surrounding environment has actually been around since 4000 B.C. The practice
originated with the ancient Chinese
Book of Burial's principles relating the
flow of qi (pronounced “chi”), an invisible life force, to the appropriateness
of a tomb's location (
ref.). So feng shui, the practice of positioning your lawn furniture in a certain way, actually originated with
burial practice! According
to
Wikipedia, “
Historically, feng shui was widely used to orient buildings—often
spiritually significant structures such as tombs, but also dwellings and other
structures—in a manner meant to … bind the universe, earth, and humanity
together.”
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| Memorial sculpture in the Atlantic City Cemetery, sunrise |
Death certainly binds humanity together, and the western
world Victorians were as serious about death as the ancient Chinese and
Egyptians. One look at the grand monuments and mausoleums will tell you that.
Maybe "serious" is not exactly the right word, perhaps "accepting" is a better
choice. And accepting is what I needed to be this morning, when the early rays of the sun were dramatic and golden. I experimented with this angel statue (below) - shooting her frontally into the sunrise (with fill flash) and from the rear illuminated by the sun, her white marble wings temporarily gilded, auriferous.
 |
| Mangled grating |
You can enter both of these Victorian-era Pleasantville cemeteries
any time of day or night as most of the gates are either broken or missing.
That said, the grounds and monuments are in surprisingly fine condition. I suppose
there is little vandalism here, though I did see some mangled bronze window
grating on the largest mausoleum in Greenwood. The grating was there to protect
the stained glass window, but it appeared that someone tried to remove the
grating, probably to sell it for scrap. But generally, no one seems to venture
into either cemetery to cause much mischief. None of the other (albeit less
valuable) metal decorative objects have been stolen, the mausoleum stained
glass is all intact, the statues are not broken. Even these forlorn and
loosely-placed baby blocks (below) remain in their (I assume) original positions.
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| Child's grave, Atlantic City Cemetery, NJ |
If you saw these cemeteries from the air, they would appear
as three large rectangles. Atlantic City Cemetery makes up the two left
rectangles (separated by an old set of railroad tracks) and the right rectangle,
Greenwood, is separated from the AC Cemetery by West Washington Avenue. (
Click link for aerial view.)
The center portion of the trinity looks like the older original AC Cemetery, which
began in 1865. While they may have originally been two distinct cemetery companies,
they are now listed on the Internet as the
“Atlantic City Cemetery and Greenwood
Cemetery Associations.”
I like exploring these places when no one else is awake. Their
little mysteries are usually solved in my mind by conjecture. For instance, why
is this lone monument shrouded by tall weeds when everything else in the
Atlantic City Cemetery is meticulously maintained? How incongruous it seemed to
have a freshly-dug grave marked with a simple wooden cross right next to the
elaborate mausoleum below. I drove to various parts of the cemeteries when it looked
like rain, so as not to be caught in it. Did I want it to rain or didn’t I? I
suppose I felt strongly both ways. I was prepared to get some good photographs
either way.
It never did rain during my walk through the cemeteries,
although it did drizzle later in the day as I lay on the beach. A strange
feeling, lying there in the hot sun, waves lapping at your feet, while the cool
rain sprinkles down on you. Like dreaming too close to the surface. One thing’s
for sure – the dead don’t care whether it rains or shines. They also don't care if their graves are desecrated - but we should.
