A cemetery is a sacred space, a public park, and a macabre art gallery, all at once.
The older graveyards of New England are especially haunting, with their centuries of interments and an staggering range of monuments. Autumn is also the perfect time to visit, when there’s a nip in the air, and leaves drift eerily down from garbled branches. A spine-tingling Halloween stroll requires nothing more than a little free time; all that chiseled artwork handles the rest.
Notes and Miscellanea
- This segment was actually filmed in different Providence places: North Burial Ground and Swan Point Cemetery. Both are enormous; Swan Point alone covers 200 acres and contains more than 40,000 interments.
- Blink and you’ll miss it: One shot zooms in on the resting place of Howard Philips (H.P.) Lovecraft, the “father of modern horror.” The epitaph on his headstone famously reads: “I am Providence,” a striking expression of hometown pride. Other famous Swan Point residents include Ambrose Burnside, Civil War general and namesake of “sideburns” facial hair.
