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As Manhattan's cemeteries filled with centuries of the city's dead, New Yorkers looked to the vast countryside in the Bronx as an easily accessible location for a new burial ground. Established in 1863, Woodlawn Cemetery was located along the train line from Grand Central Station and advertised as being "only thirty minutes from Manhattan." The cemetery was originally intended to be a "rural cemetery" -- highly landscaped and filled with sculpture and other artwork. The trustees soon adopted a "landscape-lawn plan" that promoted open spaces, prohibited fences, and encouraged families to build centerpiece memorials surrounded by footstones. Many of the nation's most famous designers, architects, and artists designed Woodlawn's memorials, mausoleums, and manicured landscapes. Today the 400-acre cemetery provides burial space 300,000 individuals including: Irving Berlin, Miles Davis, Celia Cruz, Fiorello LaGuardia, Joseph Pulitzer, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Madame C.J. Walker, The Jason Gould family, and the Frank Winfield Woolworth family.
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