When I first walked into the Allegheny Cemetery, I was consumed with the surreal feeling of being in a rural countryside. Suddenly, gone were the city sirens and bustling streets; instead, these were replaced with an eerie silence and land beyond the eye could fathom. Expansive green stretches from all directions surrounded me as I was deep within the Allegheny Cemetery’s 300 acres of land. Because of the cemetery’s massive size, I felt unsettled, as though myself and my group were the only ones there, save for the occasional staff member or active jogger. Even in the sweltering heat, the Allegheny Cemetery evoked the chilling feeling of being cold to the bone. Despite the hundreds of thousands of people buried at the Allegheny Cemetery, visitors such as myself who held no previous attachment to the place are consumed with feelings of loneliness and isolation. Per Laqueur, “There would be no cemetery without the dead...Cemeteries need bodies, discretely hidden bodies: there are no mounds and no jumbles of bones; there is no smell” (279). Upon reflection, it begs the question: why is visiting a cemetery that holds so many people such an isolating experience?
Each grave is a landmark; these are described in Kevin Lynch’s The Image of the City as “another type of point-reference, but in this case the observer does not enter within them, they are external. They are usually a rather simply defined physical object: building, sign, store, or mountain” (Lynch 50). Initially, I had read the Lynch piece in reference to a completely different site in Pittsburgh. However, upon reflection, I realized that the Allegheny Cemetery is filled with landmarks. These landmarks signal that the cemetery is anything but empty; how could it be, when it is estimated to hold over one hundred thousand people?
During my visit, I ventured through the cemetery, surprised to find that much of the land was identical. The green space is uniform throughout the grounds, and because of the difficulty in distinguishing one section of the cemetery from another, multiple members of my group got lost, circling much of the cemetery before finding the group once again. One central point within the cemetery, a large, white, bird-like statue, was crucial for those who were lost to ultimately rejoin the group, as they were able to find it from where they were and eventually find the group’s location relative to this statue. Oftentimes within the cemetery, larger graves or statues serve a dual purpose: they symbolize a person’s life and story, but they also allow visitors to familiarize themselves with the otherwise indistinguishable grounds.
It is extremely easy to get lost within the cemetery because of how large it is. Since there are so few people around, getting lost within the cemetery can be terrifying, and without the taller graves that can be seen from multiple points throughout, it would be nearly impossible to find your way back. The isolation and silence of the cemetery combined with its size makes getting lost without a map dangerous, so being able to recognize landmarks is extremely helpful. Getting lost is always a lonely experience, but getting lost within this particular cemetery is much different from getting lost within a crowd - there is almost nobody else around.
During my visit, it was easy for me to forget that the Allegheny Cemetery holds some of the most influential, controversial figures of Pittsburgh’s history, because I had seen the graves and statues as physical objects and as landmarks. For example, buried there is Lawrencville native Stephen Foster, a nineteenth century composer. While he wrote many tunes familiar with much of American society today (such as “Oh, Susanna!”), Foster is remembered first and foremost for racially motivated songs written in black dialect with the intent to be performed in blackface ("Stephen Foster"). Scores of famous (or infamous) people are buried within the grounds, such as Josh Gibson and General James Scott Negley and his family. However, one must remember that everybody buried at the Allegheny Cemetery has a past, regardless of how well-known they are. Each tombstone, plain or elaborate, holds someone who had their own story. Some were kindhearted and well-intentioned, but others were not.
The Allegheny Cemetery is not empty. It is all too easy to forget that it holds people; visitors are consumed by their feeling of despair, and those without personal connections to someone buried may not truly comprehend its significance. Some might come to the cemetery to visit a loved one, while others come for a leisurely stroll and to enjoy the surrounding nature. Its purpose and significance changes with each visitor, because each visitor will have a different interpretation. Yet, every visitor of the Allegheny Cemetery, no matter why they are there, can relate to the feeling of loneliness; the feeling is one that lingers.
Works Cited
Lynch, Kevin. The Image of the City. MIT Press, 1977.
Laqueur, Thomas W. The Work of the Dead: A Cultural History of Mortal Remains, Princeton University Press, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/pitt-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4001376.
“Frequently Asked Questions About Stephen Foster.” University of Pittsburgh Library System, sites.pitt.edu/~amerimus/FosterFAQ.html.