he dead sure know how to live — some of them, anyway. Since its founding in 1838, Green-Wood Cemetery’s permanent residents have lain among the hills of Brooklyn, their tranquility guarded by elaborate statuary, venerable trees, and sumptuous tombs. It’s an alluring place designed and maintained to accommodate the discriminating dead and also attract the not-yet-deceased, who can wander through 478 acres of city history on a Saturday undisturbed by dogs or frisbees or scooters.
Until recently, the cemetery was contemplating its own finality, since it (like much of New York City) was running out of plots, and even urn positions were growing scarce. Then, in 2022, a change in the law gave it a new lease on life: New York State legalized terramation, which speeds up the last segment of the dust-to-dust cycle by packing human bodies in straw, alfalfa, and mulch instead of coffins. The human-composting process can convert each of us into roughly a cubic yard of soil, to be placed directly on or in the earth. Cemeteries are being refreshed by the real-estate equivalent of cold fusion: a cheap and painless way to keep packing more people into a finite amount of land. Terramation isn’t available anywhere on the East Coast yet, but Green-Wood is planning to roll it out in 2027; you can join a waiting list now and hope the timing works out.
