If you drive southwest on the BQE, The First Calvary Cemetery will come into view on the right, as you cross the Kosciuszko Bridge. The First Calvary, which rests between the Long Island Expressway and Review Avenue, is the largest section of The Calvary Cemetery. With over three-million burials, it has the highest number of interments in the United States. Its four non-adjacent sections are located in Queens, a borough with a population of 2.3 million.
The First Calvary is a miniature city in its own right, set against the steel and glass of the Manhattan skyline—gray granite and marble towers rise from bright green grass that lays at the concrete feet of The City That Never Sleeps.
The oldest tombstone reads:
ESTHER ENNIS
Buried Aug. 4th 1848 – 29 years old
Born Ireland Died 139 Clinton St. N.Y. N.Y.
First burial in Calvary Cemetery
Grave dug by J. McCann
Her official cause of death was Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy, a medical condition known colloquially as Broken Heart Syndrome.
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Every Valentine’s Day, officials at the Empire State Building choose two couples through an online contest to get married on the 86th floor, a sky-high ceremony prohibited all other days of the year. The building “does not host private weddings,” according to its website, though proposals are “welcomed,” and “recommended particularly” when the saxophonist is on the Observatory. However, on February 14th, the lucky lovebirds exchange vows and rings on what was once the tallest building in the world.
From the top of the skyscraper, the city seems peaceful; cars and buses on the street appear as speedy ants, pedestrians as flecks on the sidewalk. The frenzied noise of life below is muffled, as though you are underwater instead of one hundred and two stories in the sky. For the low price of $34, you can feel like you are the only person in the entire city.
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The tallest structure in the First Calvary is the Johnston Mausoleum. The Johnston brothers—Charles, John, and Robert—were Irish immigrants who opened a dry goods emporium in Midtown Manhattan in the 1850s. Robert’s older brothers died as millionaires from the same condition that claimed Esther Ennis. Following John’s death, Robert squandered the fortune left to him and the J.C. Johnston Department Store shut its doors in 1888. He died shortly after a fire destroyed the family mansion, which had been foreclosed on days prior, and joined his brothers under the domed roof of their final resting place.
Up close, the headstones in the Calvary are spaced out in a pattern resembling the Manhattan grid. From afar, the order breaks down, and the towers look like an undulating wave of stone. Sculptures of angels are scattered throughout the cemetery: off-white heads bowed in mourning, others peered towards the sky, their hands clasped in prayer.
Over the years, rain, wind, and contaminants from nearby highways have eroded the limestone and marble. The faces of many angels have become disfigured, words from epitaphs erased. The structures, if not preserved properly, run the risk of deteriorating completely: obliteration by elements or pollution.
If you drive northeast on the BQE, the First Calvary Cemetery will come into view on your left, as you cross the Kosciuszko Bridge. The gray and white stone towers are a shadow of an every-day sight, familiar yet foreign. Beyond the tombstones, the city’s skyline—immense and prominent—rises like long steel limbs that reach toward the sky.