Moravian Cemetery

Moravian Cemetery is one of the most beautiful cemeteries in the tristate area. Located in Staten Island’s New Dorp neighborhood, the historic place of rest for the departed was established in 1740. It’s the final resting place of public figures of notoriety like a number of Vanderbilts and famed gangster Paul Castellano. (It’s also the future resting place of American Film Director Martin Scorsese, whose family has a mausoleum here.)
It’s an expansive area of land. There’s a lake with many geese on the property. There are community mausoleums — Hillside is perched way up on a hill and provides visitors a beautiful view of the grounds and Bayview is further back and gives visitors a peaceful environment in which to reflect. Honestly, the whole design of the cemetery — and how well kept and maintained it is year round — gives all those grieving a chance to reflect and mourn respectfully.
During spring and summer, you can adorn graves of loved ones with real plants. There are water fixtures located throughout the graveyards, where you can get water to tend to approved foliage (check their website for the list — basically, any plants that may get in the way of the groundskeeper or mess with other plots are a no-​no). During this time, artificial flowers are not allowed, but come November you can put those up until spring time (unless the City announces a West Nile-​type of alert, then no).
I agree that the open hours are not as accommodating as other cemeteries, but I can see why in terms of security and prevention of vandalizing graves and such. So I’m okay with that. What Moravian offers me is knowing that my loved ones are in a peaceful and beautiful resting place. Plus, the cemetery office staff were easy to work with from what I can remember. If you are from Staten Island or have roots in SI, it’s a really nice cemetery.

The cemetery is beautiful but very inconvenient if you work. I live in NJ and work until 5pm. Yesterday was my anniversary and wanted to go put flowers on the grave and do some maintence. I left asap from work got stuck in major traffic and got there 6:25 only to be locked out. I can understand closing at darkness but it stays late in summer and it should be left open later. In winter there is no way you can get there during the week but at least give us a break in the summer when the days are longer. Yes, I agree with maintaining so there is no vandalism but you are not only keeping them out your keeping loved ones out that have to work. I’ sorry this is not acceptable. On my way back I drove past several cemeteries on SI and all were open, only Moravian’s was closed.

We went there on a gorgeous late October Saturday. The cemetery has lots of lovely statuary and pretty grounds (although it’s much smaller than Green Wood & Woodlawn [my two favorites in NYC]), but you MUST go there at the peak of fall colors! There are many beautiful trees, including some Japanese maples whose brilliant red colors were truly «a feast for the eyes». To further enhance our enjoyment, we took one of their (occasional) walking tours and the guide was quite interesting & informative. It was well worth the $ 10/​person cost (be sure to sign up in advance).