The Allegheny Cemetery was incorporated in 1844 and is the sixth oldest rural cemetery in North America. It resides between the Pittsburgh neighborhoods of Bloomfield and Lawrenceville on the east side of the city. The cemetery currently sits on 300 acres of rolling hills, trees, wildlife and two ponds. Winding paths lead patrons through the final resting places of over 124,000 people in a way that doesn’t seem like the morbid cemeteries in pop culture.
The history of rural cemeteries can be traced back to Europe and didn’t take off in America until the 19th century. The idea of a rural cemetery is to create a place that memorializes the dead in a way that is not all squared-off gates and defined plots. Although these may be present in some sections, for the most part, the burial places are more informal. One thing that is very important about rural cemeteries is even though one religion may seem to be in the majority, it is for all denominations and is non-profit. Walking around, one can see that there are Jewish people buried next to Christians.
The essence of a rural cemetery is that it is, at least seemingly, away from the city and other urban development. The Allegheny Cemetery, especially closer to the date of its incorporation, was/is distanced from the noise and clutter of buildings and vehicles. Once in the midst of the hills of unique grave markers, one loses the sense that he or she is in a city: This is the point. When the cemetery was first incorporated, it was not even within the city of Pittsburgh. Now, it is less removed from the city but remains its own world.
This made the Allegheny Cemetery the perfect place for the community to use for recreation in addition to the traditional use as a site of memorializing the dead. Back when Pittsburgh was still a new and smaller city, it was hard to get out of it. It was as far west as one could easily reach and surrounded on all sides by rivers and mountains. Although at this time there were not yet expansive factories and mills, Pittsburgh had always had an industrial heart which could become overwhelming.
The Allegheny Cemetery was a place where community members could take a stroll and escape the emerging city and perpetual cloud of thick black smoke around them. Rural cemeteries began appearing before the widespread implementation of public parks and therefore were the perfect spot for city folk to get away without going away.
Today it’s even harder to get away from the concrete jungle. It seems at times that the citizens of Pittsburgh are trapped in a wavy blanket of bricks and steel. Even though there are tree-covered hills on all sides, those hills are also packed tightly with little box-shaped houses, remnants of the once booming steel industry. The Allegheny Cemetery provides a much needed green space, and plenty of it.
When visiting, one can choose from two entrances; Butler Street in Bloomfield or Penn Avenue in Lawrenceville. Neither is more grand or more inviting than the other and each have their own special features. Walking through the Butler Street entrance feels akin to walking up to a mini castle. The architecture of the Butler Street gatehouse is heavy and dark but fascinating. It is currently (as of December 2015) missing what was once one of its most striking features; a towering wrought-iron gate destroyed by a car accident earlier in the year.
The Butler Gate House isn’t the only thing worth taking a look at while visiting the cemetery. Along one of the far pathways, alongside hundreds of traditional grave sites sits a headstone like no other. It belongs to Lester C. Madden and features the shark from the movie Jaws. No one knows exactly why this is, but legend has it that he was a shark lover and Jaws fanatic. One thing that’s for sure is that it will continue to be a favorite sight for many visitors for years and years. The location of the stone can be found on the cemetery map available at the Butler Street gate house.
Works Cited
Cemetery. ca. 1910-1920. Allegheny Observatory Records, 1850-1967, Oakmont, PA. Historic Pittsburgh. Web. 19 Dec. 2015.
de Certeau, Michael. “VIII: Walking in the City.” The Practice of Everyday Life. University of California Press: Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1984. 91-110. Print.
Gibran, Kahlil. Sand and Foam. London: Heinemann, 1954. Print.
“Events.” Allegheny Cemetery, n.d. 19 December 2015.
“News.” Allegheny Cemetery, n.d. Web. 19 December 2015.
Sheldrake, Philip. “Placing the Sacred: Transcendence and the City.” Literature & Theology 21.3 (2007): 243-58. Print.
Soja, Edward W. My Los Angeles: From Urban Restructuring to Regional Urbanization. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 2 December 2015.
Pitz, Marylynne. “Allegheny Arsenal Explosion: Pittsburgh’s Worst Day During the Civil War.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 16 Sept. 2012. Web. 3 Dec. 2015.
“Welcome.” Allegheny Cemetery, n.d. Web. 19 December 2015.