Brooklyn cemetery hosts eerie, solar eclipse viewing party: ‘I feel like we were guided to come here’
It was dark, beautiful, and perhaps a little bit eerie.
More than 7,000 people gathered at Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery on Monday for a solar eclipse viewing party as they watched the sun disappear from the sky above while the dead slumbered below.
While some may take issue with hosting a party in a cemetery, Bill Gabriel, 64, told The Post the location was “a beautiful place” to host a viewing of the eclipse, even if he has friends and family buried at Green-Wood.
“I’ll be at Green-Wood for the next one, but I won’t see it,” Gabriel joked, referencing the next total eclipse over the US scheduled for 2044.
While Gabriel decided to attend the event after hearing about it from friends who work at the cemetery, others made the trek to Green-Wood for spiritual reasons.
One attendee, who went by M. Lopez, 38, said her group was compelled to come to the cemetery as a way to enjoy the eclipse with the deceased and undergo “some type of changing, healing energy, world healing.”
“It’s more of a spiritual thing. I feel like we were guided to come here.” Lopez said. “I feel like we were guided here to pay homage to some of the people that came before us.”
Faye Lewis, 64, a lifelong Brooklyn resident, said she was awestruck by the eclipse when it reached its peak over New York City.
“It was really nice to share with everybody,” Lewis said of the crowd that gathered. “It got cold, and the birds got a little quiet.”
Eva Tenby, 22, echoed the description of the chill everyone felt when the sun was blocked by the moon.
“It got cold, and darker, and it was cool to get to experience it with a big community this time,” Tenby said, noting that she also caught the 2017 eclipse.
“Last time I saw it it was just me and my family, which was nice, but having this big communal event, that was special,” she added.
Gules Asperti, 26, said the cemetery’s landscape and gothic archway made the eclipse viewing more “magical.”
Zoe Quinn, 34, and Isaac Smith, 30, said their 6-week-old baby, Solomon, “got a little fussy” when the sky blacked out.
“He didn’t look at it but he sensed the change,” Zoe said.
After looking at the eclipse, which covered about 91% of the sun over the city, Smith joked, saying he was only “91% impressed.”
Jeff Simmons, a spokesperson for Green-Wood, said that the cemetery had 7,000 RSVPs, with hundreds more showing up to watch the eclipse.
Along with the viewing of the eclipse, the event included food, music, a slew of activities and self-guided tours around the historic 478-acre cemetery.
The viewing party was held in coordination with the cemetery, Pioneer Works, the Amateur Astronomers Association of New York, and the Simons Foundation.
Alice Teple, 45, a volunteer at Green-Wood, described the cemetery as a special and unique place that already hosts events for residents.
“Usually we have events here, concerts or dance performances, or things in the catacombs,” she said, adding that the eclipse viewing party is “way crazier.”
The cemetery had previously faced backlash for hosting large events in the past among mourners visiting their family’s graves, including in October 2013 when it opened its gates to joggers amid then-President Barack Obama’s Brooklyn tour.