Customer Reviews

Philadelphia Graveyards and Cemeteries (Images of America: Pennsylvania)

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I just got this book yesterday and I highly recommend it for any fan of old cemeteries.

The author really drives home the point of how callous we've become as a society when political patronage, urban blight. etc. have caused these once-beautiful places to fall into decay and neglect and finally to disappear. I think that point needs to be made.

It made me sick when I learned that these places were replaced by playgrounds, athletic fields...and housing projects (which we all know bring nothing but crime and drugs to the neighborhoods in which they are built). The playground that replaced Ronaldson's on 9th Street in South Philadelphia is a dreary, ugly place. For that, an cemetery dating back to 1827 was uprooted? The same with Lafayette, across the street from the famous Pat's Steaks, which was also displaced for a playground!

I've wondered many times what the "lost" and long-gone cemeteries like Machpelah, Union, American Mechanics, Olive, etc. looked like. This book satisfied much of my curiosity about those places with the black and white photos in it.

It is a great read and a must for any taphophile's library.