Ace Frehley's Grave

What would a Fourth of July celebration be without fireworks? And what better fireworks display to witness than Ace Frehley’s 2007 Dunkin Donuts television commercial? Easily one of the best television commercials EVER, assuming you’re a KISS fan. Here’s a link to the commercial on YouTube, to refresh your memory.

Still from Ace Frehley Dunkin Donuts commercial (2007)

If you’ve ever attended a KISS concert, you know that pyrotechnics were a big part of the band’s stage show. Firepots, explosions, flashing lights were de rigueur, and Ace Frehley, the lead guitarist, had his guitar rigged up to shoot sparks! It’s difficult not to feel all that excitement standing in front of Ace’s final resting place. This past June, I visited his crypt at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, NYC. 

Ace, or rather Paul Frehley, died in 2025. He was 74 years old. Hard to picture him at 74. The first time I saw him perform with KISS was in 1974, when he was just 23. That’s kind of how I pictured him for many years, face made up in his painted-on mask, spaceman costume, sunburst 3-pickup Les Paul, and more swagger than you could possibly imagine. The epitome of a lead guitarist in a dynamic rock band. Of course, none of the band members ever appeared to age, as they performed with the same painted faces for many years. Time is a challenging dimension.

Fans leave offerings, as you can see in my photos. No graffiti, all very tasteful. I brought an old guitar pick of mine, which I left on the artificial blue rose someone had left standing against his crypt cover. The pick was one I’d had since the 1970s, so it had the relevance of bringing me back to an era when I first saw KISS in 1974.

Here’s a short Instagram video of me placing the pick. I was rather shocked at how many “likes” I got when I posted this the day after I shot it. My IG feed (@mourningarts) is all cemetery-related images and videos. I typically get about 54 likes on each of my daily posts, mainly from cemetery nerds like me. The day I posted this video, I got 3,316 likes! A few days later, this was up to 8,855. Obviously, Ace touched a number of lives in his career with KISS and then as a solo artist after that. I have nothing but respect for the man.

Many people (literally hundreds) commented on the video in the first days it was posted, and most comments were positive and appreciative. A few people took issue with the fact that I left a Fender pick, thinking it was an insult to Ace, who mainly played Gibson electric guitars. The KISS Army is not to be trifled with. I’ve been playing guitar since around 1970, and I’ve never seen a Gibson guitar pick. I see them now on the Internet, but I’ve never seen one in real life or in a guitar store for sale. So, to be clear, this was not meant as an insult. My pick just had sentimental value to me. 

When I saw KISS the first time in September 1974 in a theater in Wilkes-Barre, PA, they were an opening act for Blue Oyster Cult. I was a huge fan of both bands, mainly as a result of buying their records (KISS had just released their first album) and reading about them in Creem magazine. KISS appeared on Don Kirchner’s Rock Concert and ABC’s In Concert, the late night concert television shows that pre-dated MTV, so people did have some idea of how wild their stage show was. As an aside, there was actually a lesser-known act that opened that show before KISS came on – they were a three-piece Canadian noise band called Rush. They had just released their first album as well, but the audience didn’t care. Rush was pretty bad – Led Zeppelin wannabes. Who knew that Rush would evolve into one of the world's most popular and successful prog bands? 

I had to sneak off to that show. I was 15 at the time and my parents did not want me to go, since I couldn’t even tell them when the show would end (concerts did not have 11 p.m. legal curfews then as they do now, so shows ran to all hours). I don’t recall the details, exactly, but I seem to remember “going to bed early,” climbing out the window of my second-floor bedroom, shimmying down the rain gutter, and walking the four miles to the Paramount Theater in Wilkes-Barre! I had to go - after all, I had already purchased the $6.00 concert ticket! I reversed the procedure after the show, getting home who knows when, with my parents never knowing that I was gone. Not quite as exciting as the movie, Detroit Rock City, but it was a coming-of-age adventure for me nonetheless!

That year KISS’s popularity grew so fast that they returned as headliners to the same theatre in Wilkes-Barre only two months later (December, 1974). I went to this show as well, this time with my brother Tim (who provided some of these show date facts). As I said, concerts did not have a hard stop at 11 p.m. back then, and I seem to remember this one running past 1:00 a.m.! 

Garden Conservatory Mausoleum

Finding Ace’s final resting place was nearly as challenging as getting to that first KISS concert. Once I found out he was a resident, I needed to visit. After a few attempts on the Internet to locate him, I saw that he was in a community mausoleum. Woodlawn has four of these, so I needed to do more searching. To add to the confusion, his parents are interred in a different community mausoleum in Woodlawn, and I believe there was some speculation that Ace’s body was placed in an unmarked crypt below those of his parents. However, Ace resides in the Garden Conservatory Mausoleum. He’s a bit difficult to find, this being a large building. Based on some photos I found on the Internet posted by previous visitors, I was able to find him after about twenty minutes of searching. Through the front doors, past the other spaceman (the white marble angel in the center of the building), and toward a rear corridor of the building. For video guidance to Ace’s crypt, you can watch this video, which I found after I visited, unfortunately. Would have saved me some time.

So why all the fuss? Why do fans want to visit? Why are they so intrigued by the video I posted? Most likely, these are people - from all over the world - whose lives were touched in some way by Ace. And visiting his grave, albeit vicariously, is a way to thank him and pay their respects. There are a lot of famous people at Woodlawn who I did not visit. I’m not a celebrity stalker. But I did visit the graves of a few well-known people whose work touched my life in some way. One of whom was Dorothy Parker, who lived in New York in the 1920s and was a theater critic. Her finely crafted prose was clever and often biting. I think of her line almost every morning when I walk into work and ask myself, “What fresh hell is this?” So of course, I visited her grave. 

If you visit Ace, or any grave at Woodlawn, do be respectful. There may be mourners there visiting their loved ones, and people grieve in their own way. When I was in the Garden Conservatory Mausoleum, an old guy was slow dancing in front of a crypt while holding his cell phone, which was playing Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon.” Music is often such a big part of our lives, and our memories. My brother Tim found this YouTube video of a fellow who visited Ace's final resting spot recently. He mentions some of his own reminiscences in the video and also leads you through the confusing hallways of the mausoleum right to Ace, which would be helpful should you want to stop in and pay your respects to this talented artist.

Rock ‘n’ Roll all Nite, Ace.

Ne’r do-wells at the Fan House Graves

To recount last week’s blog, “Fan House Graves,” I discovered (with the help of some friends) an abandoned wreck of a mining operation’s fan house during a routine cemetery run in northeast Pennsylvania. The complex, which had been built in compliance with the Mine Ventilation Law of 1870, housed enormous fans that pulled explosive gases out of the mine and brought fresh air in. The structure, along with the rest of the Dorrance Colliery, was abandoned in 1959.

1796 gravesto

A month or so after my initial trip to Wilkes-Barre City Cemetery and my sighting of the fan house hovering over it (which you can see in the photo above and read about in my blog posting, Fan House Graves), I made the trip back to further explore the fan complex as well as roam around this quaint old graveyard.

I arrived in Wilkes-Barre City Cemetery (est. 1871) around 9:30 on a sunny August Friday morning (this is 120 miles north of Philadelphia where I live, so its no small jaunt). The entrance gate was open and no one was around. I figured that this would be perfect for a little abandoned building exploration. Who would be around? There’s not even a staffed cemetery office. Afterwords, I would roam around the graveyard at my leisure. The cemetery is quite large, and the crumbling brick fan complex is on the downside of a hill, out of view of the traffic on River Street.  

Lower building in the fan house complex, Wilkes-Barre, PA

My car in front of fan house

I drove my car quickly through the grounds, down the washed out road toward the river to the monstrous tree-shrouded old cluster of buildings. Headstones are scattered around the area, some ominously placed right next to the enormous mining structure. Sparsely spaced, some stones may have been washed away in the flood of 1972, when Hurricane Agnes hit the area. The coal breaker associated with the Dorrance Colliery (of which the fan house was a part), used to be upriver about a quarter mile. There’s a MacDonalds there now, but I remember seeing the giant black mining structure from across the Susquehanna River when I was a kid. My grandmother lived in a house at the foot of the river dike in Kingston. Her house, incidentally, was one of the first to be flooded when the swollen river crashed through the dike during that flood.

Upper floor with graffiti and old machinery

My mom tells me that my father, grandfather, and great-grandfather all worked at the Dorrance at some point in their mining lives. There were many coal mining companies in NEPA (Northeast Pennsylvania), but as she says, Dorrance was “the big one.” So the Hillman Fan House, as it is properly titled, has some personal meaning for me. 

Sort of a courtyard in the center of the fan complex

I parked the car near the bottom of the hill where the old graffiti-covered brick complex raises itself slowly out of the woods next to the graveyard. I grabbed my cameras, pushed through the weeds, and stepped into the ruins of the past. Red brick walls and dark doorways were everywhere. Stairs led to upper levels, lower levels, or to nowhere at all – their adjoining walls having collapsed beneath the weight of ancient rusting machinery. I walked through a sort of courtyard covered with weeds, at its center a pile of jagged metal, bricks, and old voltage. Trees cloaked the ruins in a dark shade. I snapped some photos here and there, glancing through the broken walls into upper rooms, in which were mounted motors of various types, their shafts no longer connected to belts or gears.

c. 1980s look at the inside of one of the motor rooms (ref.)

Creepy, is what this place is. On the opposite end of the courtyard, a doorway was visible. Hearts and names were painted in red around it. I made my way closer to the artwork, surprised at how all the vacuous entrance ways around me were just black; no doors, just black void. You couldn’t see beyond any transom, as if the place had secrets it was unwilling to share. I approached the hearts, and began taking some close-up photographs. I read the names, wondering about the young kids who dared bring themselves to such a place – the abandoned fan house behind the old cemetery – to declare their lust for each other.

I clicked away for about five minutes, rooted to the spot. Everything was silent. Satisfied with the capture as I reviewed the images on my camera’s digital display, I looked up to take my next step and … there was a man standing above me on a landing about six steps up! He was no more than twenty feet away, silently watching me, who knows for how long.

In his late twenties, long blonde hair, casually dressed, he did not appear to have slept here the night before. I was stunned and in an attempt to keep my fight-or-flight response under control, I stammered, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to bother you.” He responded, “I’m just doing the same thing you are.” (For the record, I saw no camera around his neck.)

That’s when it hit me: − I broke my own basic rules for exploring abandoned buildings:  1) Don’t go alone; and 2) arm yourself. When going solo, I’ll at least carry a baseball bat. But here I was, in the middle of this old castle of a mining complex, behind the graveyard, well out of earshot of any other people on the road at the top of the hill. What was I thinking, that the ghosts of the Molly Maquires were going to guard me?

Visions of the movie Deliverance swam through my head as I nonchalantly turned away and casually yet determinedly made my way toward the light of the graveyard. Was he alone? Who could tell? Was he just exploring the ruins, as I was? At ten o'clock on a Friday morning? He said nothing and I did not look back. I had no desire to be made to squeal like a pig.

My car was parked nearby, which gave me some comfort, so I spent another ten minutes trying to photograph the outside of the fan house through the trees. I couldn’t really do it justice. I studied the ruins for my little buddy, but he did not show himself again. The take-home message here is that I did something really stupid, and suggest that you not do the same.

Feeling a bit safer, I parked the car on the ridge overlooking the fan house graves and began to wander around looking for interesting tombstones. Some of the photos you see here were taken in this area. About five minutes later, slipping into the historical present, I hear music. Guitar strumming, and then a voice. I hoped it was a radio, but then, I was pretty far away from the public road. Workmen, perhaps? As the breeze changed directions it carried the sound a bit clearer, so I turned toward it. I was startled to see a man sitting on a tombstone, singing, and playing a guitar! Not the fan house guy, another fellow. Staring at him, I involuntarily gave a small wave when he caught my eye; he nodded to me.

The scene reminded me of the rockabilly guitar playing zombie in the 2008 zombie/slasher movie, Trailer Park of Terror (you can click on the link at the end of this blog to view part of the scene, but its not for the squeamish). There’s a tense build-up scene where you hear the guitar first, then as the camera pans back to show the trailer park at night, the vocal kicks in and its actually a zombie with an electric guitar singing on the roof of one of the trailers! (I know what you're thinking - "He watches too many movies." In actuality, I don't see nearly as many as I'd like. However, the few I do watch seem to have a profound affect on me!)

I guess I shouldn’t have been so weirded out by someone playing guitar in a cemetery, as I’ve done the same thing. I was inclined to walk the forty paces in his direction and talk to the gent, but I felt that maybe he was doing something very personal, like singing at his dead momma’s grave. Of course, there was always the possibility that he could be dangerous − or worse yet, not really there. So I skirted his perch while taking tombstone photos in the general vicinity. He never stopped playing for the additional half hour I was there.

All in all, a strange cemetery visit, complete with appearances by knaves and rascals, pochards and indiscrets, as the author James Thurber might say. Scary, yes, but really nothing compared to the horrors this chunk of land wrought on people’s lives in the past. As I was contemplating the mining disaster that shut down the fan house and entire Dorrance Colliery, I pictured all the tunnels under the cemetery filled with water. Ten men died in 1959 when the Susquehanna River broke through the Knox Mine upriver. My Mom tells me that my grandmother’s brother Andy “was one of the last men out" before the river broke through. How horrifying is that? Look at this photo of the giant whirlpool in the river caused by the void of the mines below.

Susquehanna River whirlpool, caused by Knox mine cave-in

Reminder of when coal was king

I looked down at the grass absentmindedly as a glint of something shiny caught my eye. I kicked at a chunk of black anthracite coal sticking out of the ground. Not unusual in this area, I used to see coal all over when I was a kid. Picking it out and pocketing the chunk, I viewed it as a lovely parting gift from the ghost of Asa Packer, the founder of the Dorrance Colliery.

Further Reading and References:

“Fan House Graves,” Cemeterry Traveler blog posting from September 4, 2012
For something even scarier than a zombie movie, check out this account of the 1959  Knox Mine disaster

Dorrancy Colliery Fan Complex
Archival images of Hillman Fan House

Trailer Park of Terror zombie guitar scene

Thanks to photographer Patricia Kinsman for telling me about the Hillman Fan House!

Cemetery Rain

Sitting on the bed at night playing my guitar, all is peaceful as I watch the rain against the window. The colors continually shift into new Impressionistic patterns as the rain and glass refract the glare from street lights, traffic lights, and cars. The colors have a liquid flow not unlike the lava lamp my childhood dentist had in his waiting room. 

With all this tranquility, I naturally think about cemetery rain. Great name for a song, huh? "Cemetery Rain."

More specifically, about how no one ever visits a cemetery when it’s raining. I used to be one of those people. But a few days later, I find myself driving around Cathedral Cemetery (est. 1876) in New Castle County, Delaware, hopping out of my car here and there to grab a few shots with an umbrella over my head. When the rain gets heavier, I simply shoot out the car window. With the exception of the occasional funeral, I’m alone in a cemetery when it’s raining. It’s a very quiet place. As Cathedral Cemetery’s website says, “when our temporal world requires refuge, our cemeteries offer solace.”

 

Being here brings to mind the old Velvet Underground song, “Who Loves the Sun:”

"Who loves the rain
Who cares that it makes flowers
Who cares that it makes showers
Since you broke my heart
Who loves the sun
Who cares that it is shining
Who cares what it does
Since you broke my heart."

When you play guitar while looking out at the rain, you find yourself playing to the rhythm of the weather, the rain gently tapping against the window pane. Which is not unlike visiting a cemetery in the rain – you play to the rhythm of the weather. You’d be surprised at the new things you see, once you get yourself past the inconvenience of it all − strange dampness forming on headstones, water dripping off plant leaves, marble monuments glistening. The odd patterns that formed on this mausoleum above as the moisture soaked into the granite made me realize that this stoic material is not impervious to change. 

I wouldn’t have even noticed this flat-to-the-ground headstone if it wasn’t for the wet, red artificial flower resting forlornly at its base. A lot of people assume headstones just fall over, and that is why they’re flush with the ground. Who would’ve known they do this on purpose in Scotland? In Glasgow, any rickety headstone is placed flat for safety reasons. Unfortunately, a playing child was once killed when an old tombstone fell on him, prompting the practice.  

It sounds counter-intuitive, but you really can’t take a bad photograph during a cemetery rain. You would think it would be severely limiting, given the conditions. Sure you may not be able to control every aspect of the photographs you make, but nature may help you create something you would never have thought possible. Like playing guitar during a rain, it alters your mood. When I photograph cemeteries under less than ideal weather conditions, it’s very much like allowing the rain and color patterns on my window to influence my playing. Sometimes it doesn’t work out, but it always adds a new creative dimension that helps me leave the temporal world. When I can’t quite coax what I feel out of the instrument, however, I take solace in the words of guitar virtuoso Leo Kottke, who  said, “A guitar sounds good even if you drop it on the floor.”