Green-Wood Cemetery opens new welcome center that surrounds Victorian greenhouse

Though some 583,000 people are buried there, the 478-acre Green-Wood Cemetery has always been more than a burial ground. The Brooklyn cemetery served as a verdant 19th-century escape, and it has since been a unique destination for events, nature study, and more. This weekend, the cemetery will officially open the Green-House at Green-Wood, a new $43 million welcome center that wraps around the renovated 1895 Victorian greenhouse. Designed by Architecture Research Office (ARO), the new L-shaped building, clad in glazed terra cotta and topped by a green roof, will help visitors navigate the cemetery’s sprawling grounds. The new center will also serve as a venue for events, starting with a free grand opening weekend program and a MoonFest celebration in May.

Located just across from the main entrance at 25th Street and Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn, the center will be free to enter and open all year.

“The Green-House opens the door to Green-Wood for a new generation of visitors while giving longtime fans, families, and neighbors a welcoming place to begin their visit,” Meera Joshi, president of The Green-Wood Cemetery, said.

“Just outside the front gates, the Green-House will offer visitors a deeper understanding of Green-Wood’s role as a place of remembrance, a historic landmark, and a green space that brings communities together, all before they step inside to experience it firsthand.”

Green-Wood purchased the crumbling, landmarked greenhouse, one of the only surviving Victorian greenhouses in New York City, in 2012 for $1.6 million. The architecture firm of Architecture Research Office was tasked with adding a modern terra-cotta-clad L-shaped building to the existing structure. Construction began in 2023, as 6sqft previously reported.

The new center was designed to further the cemetery’s founding mission of providing a public resource to the city’s residents. In an interview with the New York Times, Joshi said, “It was a place both for people who lost their loved ones as well as for the general public to have some green space and some peace. Now, it’s kind of come full circle.”

The new building measures 17,000 square feet and wraps around the historic greenhouse. As the architects describe, a one-story volume abuts one edge of the greenhouse, and a new entry courtyard separates the 19th-century structure from the two-story volume along the west end of the site.

The second floor overlooks the Civil War-era main entrance arch designed by Richard Upjohn and a landscaped green roof designed by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates.

The facade features a custom glazed burgundy terra cotta, a reference to the brownstone of Upjohn’s arches. The building is certified LEED Gold and is all-electric.

“Our goal was to create a new front door to Green-Wood—one that orients visitors and prepares them for the remarkable experience across the street,” Kim Yao and Stephen Cassell, principals of ARO said.

“The new building frames the historic greenhouse and the views toward the Cemetery, with a sculpted green roof and glazed terra cotta facade that echo the character of its landscape and Gothic entrance.”

The new visitor center will offer free maps and guidance to the cemetery’s most scenic vistas and notable monuments, a new exhibition gallery featuring artifacts from Green-Wood’s history, and a modern classroom for both children and adult programs. There will also be a Center for Research offering access to rarely seen archival material and digital stations to help guests find any grave at Green-Wood.

The $43 million project was funded by city, state, and federal funds as well as private donations, with additional funding provided by Green-Wood, according to the Times. The cemetery is free to enter, but fees for gravesites and services (graves start at $21,000; mausoleums start at $50,000) are used for upkeep and maintenance.

The exhibition hall will feature items from Green-Wood’s history, including handwritten records that date back to its founding in 1838 as one of America’s first rural cemeteries. One wall will be dedicated to the lives of 46 notable Green-Wood residents, with the exact locations of their graves displayed on digital screens.

The Center for Research will offer “An Inside Look,” a collection of stories preserved in Green-Wood’s climate-controlled Archives and Collections.

The Green-House at Green-Wood is free to visit and will be open from Thursdays to Mondays, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., starting Saturday, April 18. Opening weekend festivities will include workshops, explorations, and more.

Highlights include:

“Tokens of Remembrance” is a card-making workshop that offers a chance for visitors of all ages to create a handmade card for someone special.

“Celadon Landscape” by Jean Shin centers around two large vessels, formed from thousands of discarded celadon shards; visitors are invited to write the names of loved ones on paper “shards,” contributing to the artwork.

Another notable event on the horizon at Green-Wood is MoonFest, the newest addition to the cemetery’s after-hours programming. Created to celebrate our collective fascination with the moon, MoonFest will harness the inventive spirit of scientists, historians, artists, and stargazers for one night only, to focus on the moon’s influence on all of us.

Topics will include the pull of time and tide, moon mythology and the future of humans in space, addressed through guided moonlight tours, expert lectures, stargazing, and immersive art. The free event happens on May 1st from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. Check the event page for more details.

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