Overview

Modern Chapel Addition

Tranquility Garden Columbarium

Hillside Mausoleum

Fort Hamilton Gatehouse

The 1861 Gothic Revival Gate of the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn is a treasure of New York City and one of its most important landmarks. Designed by Richard Upjohn & Sons, it is a complex, delicate confection constructed principally of brownstone. Despite its delicacy, the gate has survived to the present without major alteration, though much decayed. During the 1950s-1960s the gates had been coated with a cementitious coating and painted.

Our campaign recompleted the gate—remaking lost crockets, colonnettes and finials, stabilizing decorative gables with steel supports that were designed to be minimally visible. Replacements for severely deteriorated brownstone were made in cast stone with a few carved elements in brownstone. We strove to un-do the worst results of other restoration campaigns—removing layers of coatings and patches—to give the gate a consistent, appropriate character, all without “over restoring” the gate or otherwise obliterating its obvious witness to the passage of time.

Architect: PBDW Architects (Paul S. Byard, Samuel G. White, Anne Holford-Smith)

Structural Engineer: Robert Silman Associates Structural Engineers, DPC

Photographer: Francis Dzikowski