{"id":873,"date":"2014-03-24T16:51:57","date_gmt":"2014-03-24T16:51:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/emoryatlanta\/?p=873"},"modified":"2014-04-27T20:23:16","modified_gmt":"2014-04-27T20:23:16","slug":"cemeteries-are-for-lovers-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/emoryatlanta\/2014\/03\/24\/cemeteries-are-for-lovers-too\/","title":{"rendered":"Cemeteries are for lovers, too"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s a Saturday afternoon and you&#8217;re wracking your brain to come up with a cool, fun, and, let&#8217;s be honest, cheap date for your special someone. Then, suddenly, an epiphany: Oakland Cemetery! The most romantic spot in Atlanta, right?<\/p>\n<p>Or, maybe you&#8217;re thinking, &#8220;Never would I ever bring a date to a place filled with creepy dead people and their creepy ghosts.&#8221;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_874\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-874\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-874 \" alt=\"casper\" src=\"http:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/emoryatlanta\/files\/2014\/03\/casper.gif\" width=\"650\" height=\"283\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-874\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">These ghosts are more cute cartoon than creepy. But there sure are a lot of them.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>But, Oakland Cemetery is a pretty awesome place. Founded in 1850, Oakland is the final resting place for a lot of famous, and not-so-famous, Atlantans, including <em>Gone With the Wind<\/em> author Margaret Mitchell, golfer Bobby Jones, and Atlanta&#8217;s first African American mayor, Maynard Jackson.<\/p>\n<p>Oakland is a public cemetery, meaning that, for a while, every Atlanta citizen was buried there. Those who either did not or could not purchase a family plot were buried in a 7.5-acre area known as Potter&#8217;s Field. Admittedly creepy factor: A Georgia State geological study conducted in the 1970&#8217;s revealed 17,000 bodies buried in the field, laid next to and on top of one another. Although strange to think that if the dead <em>did<\/em> walk in Atlanta then 17,000 would rise from the same spot, Oakland Cemetery is impressive.<\/p>\n<p>The cemetery is located on the southeast side of the city, just a few blocks from the King Memorial MARTA station. It&#8217;s situated between Grant Park and Cabbagetown.<\/p>\n\n<!-- iframe plugin v.6.0 wordpress.org\/plugins\/iframe\/ -->\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/mapsengine.google.com\/map\/embed?mid=z-Bc78RLyyg8.kiuNxkwDjjT0\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\n\n<p>Walking through the cemetery is like walking through the city&#8217;s history. And, after a century and a half, Oakland Cemetery has seen Atlanta through some pretty major changes, most notably its massive population growth. When the cemetery was founded, Atlanta&#8217;s population neared 2,500. Today, more than 420,000 people call Atlanta home.<\/p>\n<p>[timeline src=&#8221;https:\/\/docs.google.com\/spreadsheet\/ccc?key=0AqTVBzk-fciCdFRhQmJyQnJ0NEc1ZWZmdEk4WkxzMkE&amp;usp=drive_web&#8221; width=&#8221;100%&#8221; height=&#8221;650&#8243; font=&#8221;Bevan-PotanoSans&#8221; maptype=&#8221;toner&#8221; lang=&#8221;en&#8221; ]<\/p>\n<p>Not only does Oakland Cemetery have a historical cool factor, it&#8217;s a beautiful park in its own right. The cemetery&#8217;s caretakers have gone to painstaking efforts to ensure that Oakland and its gardens age gracefully.<\/p>\n<p>Back in the day, families tended to their own plots and planted their own flowers. Today, all of Oakland&#8217;s 38 acres of gardens are tended by three good-hearted ladies and a band of weekend volunteers with some serious green thumbs.Throughout the year, they plant and prune among the headstones and green spaces, resulting in a truly beautiful patchwork of gardens that just happen to grow near some dead people.<\/p>\n<p>Huge, ornate mausoleums framed by rose bushes and perfectly pruned shrubs sit among small, humble (and sometimes hilariously inscribed) headstones and fragrant flowerbeds. \u00a0The gardens at Oakland make for a fascinating, pretty, and peaceful stroll through the cemetery on a sunny afternoon.<\/p>\n<p>And totally not scary. Or morbid.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/emoryatlanta\/files\/2014\/03\/oakland75.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-876 aligncenter\" alt=\"oakland75\" src=\"http:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/emoryatlanta\/files\/2014\/03\/oakland75.gif\" width=\"650\" height=\"283\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Seriously, consider Oakland as a fun, free date option. Just maybe stick to the rules and get out of there by dusk, or, you know, your date may surprise you with a zombie flash mob. But if you&#8217;re into that sort of thing, that&#8217;s cool, too.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/emoryatlanta\/files\/2014\/03\/thriller75.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-875 aligncenter\" alt=\"thriller75\" src=\"http:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/emoryatlanta\/files\/2014\/03\/thriller75.gif\" width=\"650\" height=\"506\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0For more information on Oakland Cemetery, including directions and park hours, click <a href=\"www.oaklandcemetery.com\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s a Saturday afternoon and you&#8217;re wracking your brain to come up with a cool, fun, and, let&#8217;s be honest, cheap date for your special someone. Then, suddenly, an epiphany: Oakland Cemetery! The most romantic spot in Atlanta, right? Or, maybe you&#8217;re thinking, &#8220;Never would I ever bring a date to a place filled with &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/emoryatlanta\/2014\/03\/24\/cemeteries-are-for-lovers-too\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Cemeteries are for lovers, too<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1714,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,11,88,87,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bored","category-grant-park-and-cabbagetown","category-quirky-atlanta","category-things-to-do","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/emoryatlanta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/emoryatlanta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/emoryatlanta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/emoryatlanta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1714"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/emoryatlanta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=873"}],"version-history":[{"count":39,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/emoryatlanta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2413,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/emoryatlanta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873\/revisions\/2413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/emoryatlanta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/emoryatlanta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/emoryatlanta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}