There are more than just dead bodies buried in Green-Wood cemetery.
A construction worker last week discovered a time capsule filled with historic books hidden inside a wall of the landmark cemetery’s crematorium.
The weathered metal box entitled “Green-Wood 1838-1954” was likely squirreled away in the wall in 1954 and included six books detailing the history of the 478-acre cemetery.
“It's exciting to know that people in 1954 wanted to leave something in terms of the cemetery legacy for us to find,” said cemetery historian Jeff Richman.
Retired Brooklyn College Professor Anthony Cucchiara, an expert in water damaged artifacts, ordered cemetery staff to freeze the books in an attempt to keep them from fading further.
But the pages were totally ruined by years of rain water that seeped into the box and through the plastic covering inside.
One of the books found in time capsule.
“The paper was essentially pulp,” said Richman, who gives weekly tours of the cemetery.
The books were likely stashed away by cemetery workers who were photographed inserting the capsule. Photos of that event were found in archives years ago, but officials didn’t know the exact locatiion of the capsule.
News of the capsule was first reported by DNAinfo.com.
The books included a copy of “A Handbook for Green-Wood” by the Nehmiah Cleaveland, the cemetery's first historian, published in 1867, and "Green-Wood Illustrated" by the same author published in 1847.
The cemetery has good copies of both tomes and will likely toss the rain ravished ones, but plans to keep the metal box, Richman said.
The Sunset Park graveyard, the final resting place of William “Boss” Tweed, Samuel Morse and Horace Greeley, was hit hard by Superstorm Sandy.
Scores of trees came crashing down onto historic monuments and headstones, causing more than $500,000 in damage.
