Stephen Kobasa photograph
Gateway, 1885, brownstone
Fair Haven Union Cemetery
149 Grand Avenue
Though it lacks the Egyptian Revival weight of the portal to the Grove Street Cemetery, this gate has its own isolated grandeur. Dedicated to “my Mother and the Friends of my Youth who sleep within,” by one who was also carried through it eventually, its pair of openings are like parent and child in scale and design. Could it be that the second door was provided so that the living would not have to take the same route as the dead? When I wandered inside, the caretaker pointed out to me that these were “private” grounds, where only the owners had right of entry. But it seems safe to assume that one is free to go as far as heaven’s door, even if one is denied admission.
See previous Object Lessons here.
The other great cemetery in New Haven is Evergreen, now entered off the Boulevard. It has some lovely interesting tombstones and statuary in the sections up the hill.