The Cemetery of No

Peter: 20th Feb 2009 - 19:19 GMT

...and i suspect it will only be a matter of time before a "no photography allowed" sign appears.

Coco_beans: 20th Feb 2009 - 19:46 GMT

Someone should put up a sign that says "no more signs allowed."

Karl: 20th Feb 2009 - 19:52 GMT

The signage is a bit much I agree, but their just trying to clean up the place better. The cemetary has had a few problems in the past with vandals, and I guess the signage is trying to get a point across. Our family has several loved ones buried there, and its good to see them cleaning up the place. The cemetary has improved quite a bit since then

Gebkivistik: 20th Feb 2009 - 20:06 GMT

NO DECOMPOSING
NO SWEET SWEET TEARS OF SORROW
ONE TO A COFFIN, PLEASE

Rick: 20th Feb 2009 - 20:06 GMT

wait until the "no loitering" signs go up. Where is a dead man to go?

anon (cpe-68-173-181-52.nyc.res.rr.com): 20th Feb 2009 - 20:07 GMT

I read the meter there too man, lol

Rob: 20th Feb 2009 - 20:11 GMT

Visiting Grandma's grave has more stringent rules than visiting Grandma's house ever did.

fightingforward: 20th Feb 2009 - 20:27 GMT

No mourning allowed in the cemetary. Sobbing and wailing are permitted at the bus stop across the street, but only after 4 PM.

Rufus R.: 20th Feb 2009 - 20:49 GMT

You must be this tall to ride the cemetery.

Ashley: 20th Feb 2009 - 22:23 GMT

this is the most boring cemetery ever! and just why can't i wash my car by grandpa's grave!?

Mime: 21st Feb 2009 - 00:15 GMT

I thought that sixth one said "Notice of animal cleanup..."

joey: 21st Feb 2009 - 01:14 GMT

NO living persons allowed
violators are subject to arrest, death and burial

Franny Wentzel: 21st Feb 2009 - 06:55 GMT

Only food items purchased from the Soylent Corporation kiosk allowed on premises.

Jen: 21st Feb 2009 - 08:10 GMT

Corpses are absolutely 100% banned from the cemetery! LEAVE THEM AT HOME!

anon (c-68-44-182-135.hsd1.pa.comcast.net): 21st Feb 2009 - 08:11 GMT

No trespassing. Violators will be shot on sight, and buried as quickly and conveniently as possible.

CartLegger: 21st Feb 2009 - 15:55 GMT

context: A bit of the sign surplus emerges from the cultural fault line that the cemetery strattles. This cemetery has a large number of Latino graves, and has for like 60 years. But the community church that runs the cemetery, and has since 1850, is from a much older stock--German, I'd presume, but I need to go back and check.

So I feel that the signs are most probably part of a passive battle between those who use the cemetery most and those who run it.

This not very funny--but I thought it needed some possible explanation.

upfromflames: 21st Feb 2009 - 15:59 GMT

That fault line is between Bushwick, Brooklyn and Ridgewood, Queens.

http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&ll=40.710508,-73.910909&spn=0.009336,0.018389&t=h&z=16

Peter: 21st Feb 2009 - 17:59 GMT

but come on... they dont say "no smoking", but they do say "no placing of cigarettes on gravestones". do people do that? enough that it has to be specifically pointed out when a simple "no smoking" should suffice? to me, thats pure comedy overkill. at least, as much as youre gonna find in a cemetery, lol...

shaedigga: 22nd Feb 2009 - 02:10 GMT

Who the fuck washes their car at a cemetery?! Perhaps the same people that fight at a cemetery? I don't know about anyone else but if I am so angry that I am willing to fight someone in a cemetery, clearly I am angry enough that I wouldn't give a shit about the signs.

Bob Loblaw: 22nd Feb 2009 - 07:18 GMT

I love how the anti-candle sign is so large and intimidating. If you leave enough candles on a grave, what are they going to do? Exhume the body?

Tone LOC: 22nd Feb 2009 - 07:32 GMT

shit. it is now clear to me that we should have a party there and try to break as many or those rules as possible. anyone else in?

Ben: 22nd Feb 2009 - 23:08 GMT

It's funny that the two most basic crimes involving a cemetery (grave robbing and necrophilia) don't have signs. I'm getting mixed messages here...

Franny Wentzel: 23rd Feb 2009 - 01:05 GMT

To Tone LOC I would but the rules there are enforced by cannibal zombies so I'll hafta pass.

Dubious: 23rd Feb 2009 - 01:19 GMT

I'm not here to wash my car, I'm here to wash my corpse

Peter: 23rd Feb 2009 - 02:08 GMT

preachy authority takes away people's right to choose how to act, which will pretty much always result in the lowest common denominator behavior from people... whereas if the people are left to police themselves and utilize common-sense and respect, that sort of behavior only results some of the time.

people really should give other people more credit.

Dennis: 23rd Feb 2009 - 03:16 GMT

Some public parks here have "No Piñata" signs.

This cemetery needs one of those.

Also, "No Fishing, Hunting or Swimming."

AP: 23rd Feb 2009 - 04:56 GMT

And the said
ya gotta have a membership card
to get inside...

Jamie: 23rd Feb 2009 - 09:43 GMT

The thing that always gets me about signage like this is the belief that a sign stating "Do NOT do [thing you already know you shouldn't be doing here]" is somehow going to discouarge you from doing [thing you already know you shouldn't be doing here]. Funny lulz :)

Real Real Gone: 23rd Feb 2009 - 14:05 GMT

no walking and running dogs??!

it's like the person putting up these signs has been challenged by a pendant, "I'm not walking my dog... I'm running it" and they've reacted accordingly by becoming just as pendantic themselves.

Why not just say "no dogs"??!

As it is, it's just grammatically confusing and liable to all sorts of misinterpretation!

Gytterbug: 23rd Feb 2009 - 15:03 GMT

The last photo.... the signage is the least awful thing about that photo.

What a sadistic abusive rapist of a father Mr. Giacalone must have been for his children to do that to him.

grahams: 23rd Feb 2009 - 15:04 GMT

i spotted this gem on a beach in San Sebastián:

No olympics?

grahams: 23rd Feb 2009 - 15:06 GMT

Sand Dune Park in Manhattan Beach:

Franny Wentzel: 23rd Feb 2009 - 20:20 GMT

What? No Olympic sports playing? No stuffing sausages into a cocktail shaker?

No kite flying... but hey, there's no rules against recreating the Normandy invasion! I think I can round up an old Nazi shore battery 'pillbox' if anyone has a spare Higgins boat or two...

Peter: 24th Feb 2009 - 02:52 GMT

someone should count how many times those signs say "no"...

violet: 24th Feb 2009 - 05:51 GMT

I think the real story here is, what sort of goings-on created the need to explicitly prohibit washing your car on the graves?

Floyd Newton: 24th Feb 2009 - 12:57 GMT

Re: The above photo. I don't understand how anyone ever goes there is the first place!
Talk about "control".

D. D.: 24th Feb 2009 - 16:17 GMT

Why are there barbed wire electric fences, armed guards, and surveillance cameras around graveyards? Because people are dieing to get in there.

myrna smith: 24th Feb 2009 - 18:17 GMT

Similar notices should be placed in all cemetries, since it is a disgrace that even the dead are not left to rest in peace these days.

Aloise: 24th Feb 2009 - 18:29 GMT

Myrna, the dead are dead. They certainly don't care. But maybe we should take your idea one step further and just completely lock up all cemeteries and not let ANYONE in so that we can insure that everyone COMPLIES with the RULES. Lol. Three cheers for fascism!

kurisu: 25th Feb 2009 - 15:43 GMT

@Real Real Gone - its pedantic, not 'pendantic' - not that I'm being pedantic or anything ;)

Melissa: 25th Feb 2009 - 19:19 GMT

Those don’t strike me as preemptive rules as much as reactionary rules. I bet there’s more to the situation at that cemetary than meets the eye.

Maybe it’s like the cemetary in France where Jim Morrison buried, and they have to have a bunch of extra rules and security in place to keep things safe and respectful as possible for the other folks interred there? I googled and didn’t see anyone famous buried there, but it could be someone of a more local signifigance or even just someone with a rowdy set of personal mourners.

Or maybe the cemetary as a whole has become a bit of a hotbed for seedy activity? I’ve seen it happen in my area that cemetarys are sometimes popular spots for folks (mostly teens) to get up to some mischief. Especially old ones. Less recent burials means less mourners, and more privacy for the miscreants. The same for out of the way graveyards, ones with high fences, etc. Plus, just the spookiness of it being a cemetary, tends to add to the privacy factor. Not a lot of folks just minding their own business are going to stumble across you doing what you shouldn’t be when you’re doing it in a cemetary at night. Maybe this cemetary has become a hot spot for sex,drugs, partying, vandalism, and the like?

Mime: 26th Feb 2009 - 00:25 GMT

Peter, 21st Feb: I believe some people leave cigarettes on smokers' graves for the deceased's spirit, much like some people leave flowers, shoes or other items that the person once loved or owned.

Peter: 26th Feb 2009 - 01:29 GMT

no doubt. i left a blunt on basquiat's grave once. i guess i was imagining lit cigarettes...

Grimshawl: 26th Feb 2009 - 14:26 GMT

that is definitely alot of rules posted. I dont think I have seen half that number of rules posted anywhere else. I have seen most of those rules at cemeteries in ones or twos, just never all of them slapped up on the same cemetery. Its really kind of an eyesore taken all together.

Queequig: 26th Feb 2009 - 15:06 GMT

Good thing there is the barbed wire!! what would a cemetery be without it?

Kalief: 27th Feb 2009 - 02:09 GMT

Linden Hill United Methodist Prison Blues
Welcome to the Prison of the Dead
No scary or desolate howling allowed.

Watauga Mike: 1st Mar 2009 - 01:57 GMT

It's sad to see these signs but as a native New Yorker I know that these R&Rs have been posted for the reasons that in the past there have been gang fights, family picnics where whole families would turn out for "Grandma Rose's" Birthday complete with alcoholic beverages and enough food (and left-behind trash) to feed a small garrison. Vandals have also overturned headstones and "tagged" (graffittied) them causing much angst not only for the management but for the loved ones of those who were laid to rest. I also remember an incident of skinny-dipping in one of the ponds at another New York cemetary. Yes, I think the signs and postings along with the razor-barbed wire along the fence are ugly but they are not as offensive as the dstruction and hazards we living are capable of doing.

Watauga Mike

Watauga Mike: 1st Mar 2009 - 02:12 GMT

This is a note to Peter- At Greenwood Cemetary in Brooklyn there is a "No Photography" rule which I found out about when I visted the gravesite of a friend's grandparents. I simply wanted to take a photo of the headstone to be used as a washed-out background for a poem. Although I thought my intentions were pure it turns out that cemetaries in general are protected by copyright laws. This means that even though individual families may own plots, erect mausoleums or statues, once in place they become the property of the cemetary as it then becomes the duty of the Management of that cemetary to maintain the said structures, plots.
Try going into a department store with a camera and start snapping pictures. I guarantee you that not only will you be escorted out of the store, but your film confiscated as well.

JoeyD: 13th Apr 2009 - 20:36 GMT

The cemetary of No!!!! hahaha I love this!! I hear Rush Limbah is looking for a new office.... I think there would be plenty of room for him and the rest of the party of "no"

Jack Wilson: 10th Oct 2009 - 04:43 GMT

As someone who has loved ones in Linden Hill, I applaud the efforts of the management to keep and maintain the cemetery in a dignified manner. When you are visiting a grave and you watch as dog walkers let their dogs go on the graves or families with loud radios and a party pack from Kentucky fried chicken show up or people washing their cars, riding their bikes (those that have no business in the cemetery they just like riding there and of course the muggers. Grow up. they would not need signs if people acted civilized.

Understanding the Signs: 5th Jan 2010 - 05:10 GMT

I think anyone who lived in the area in the 80s and 90s understands the reason for some of these rules... it was a tough area and the cemetery suffered much vandalism. Posting these signs allowed the police to most easily take out people who were clearly not in there to visit the graves.