Day 55

Dutch Reformed Church of Flatbush

February 23rd, 2012



Founded in 1654 under the direction of everybody's favorite peg-legged, intolerant bastard (but then again, who wasn't in those days?) (these guys weren't!) (intolerant, that is, not peg-legged) (although odds are they weren't peg-legged either), Peter Stuyvesant.

The oldest legible stone here in the cemetery apparently dates to 1754; I saw several from that era (1760s and 1770s) during my brief stroll. While some of the markers are now too worn to be read, others have achieved unintelligibility simply by sinking into the ground over time, their recorded dates of death themselves becoming interred.

For an unusual take on this place, I'd recommend the beautiful photos and fevered narration of Mitch Waxman, who can generally be counted on for such things.


2 Comments

  1. Amanduh says:

    Have they sunk into the ground, or has the ground risen up around them? I know that may sound like semantics, but I was once told by a teacher who’d traveled to Italy that you have to step down to get into into a lot of Roman landmarks. Topsoil gets formed as organic material dies and decomposes, making the ground a tiny bit thicker each year, so if something sits in one place for several centuries, the ground will start rising around it.

  2. As I have learned in my yard, “dirt grows”.

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