When I first moved to New York, I lived by a Ridgewood cemetery on the very periphery of the vast cemetery belt that runs along the edge of Brooklyn and Queens. It’s so big that there are twice as many dead people as there are living people in Queens. The cemetery belt is so big that you can see it from space. In 1847, when the city of New York passed the Rural Cemetery Act, Queens was distant farmland. The Cemetery of the Evergreens, where I used to go for walks when I lived in Ridgewood, was incorporated in 1849.
I was obsessed with the cemeteries, partly because I was convinced that the house I was living in was haunted. In reality, it had a terrible mouse infestation. It was also because when I wandered out east towards the cemeteries and away from Bushwick, it felt like I was barely in New York City anymore. Everyone lived in low houses, I would walk by people washing their cars on the weekend. I used to run around the Ridgewood Reservoir sometimes, which is startlingly lush in t…