The skyline of the American graveyard is changing. The average necropolis has turned into a metropolis with high-rise public mausoleums looming over once bucolic burial grounds.
But if all mortals are created equal, the same is not true of all tombs. Pedestrian granite towers, dotted with casket cubbyholes, take up real estate in the same neighborhood as elaborate marble memorials, each dedicated to one lucky dead person.
Not everyone is taking the cohabitation lying down. Leona Helmsley made headlines for suing a cemetery that erected a six story public vault that towered over her family mausoleum.
Guests:
Gary Laderman, associate professor of American religion and culture at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia
Barry Boudreaux, senior manager for cemetery design at J. Stuart Todd Architects
Andrea Peyser, reporter for the New York Post
and TBA.