a sunday walk

Today is a beautiful snowing day, the roofs from my window once again dressed in white. I say again because the snow on rooftops melts overnight, a sign of the bad insulation. I set off around 10 toward the New Haven Historical Museum, for a morning of learning and education before setting for the Sunday opening hourse of the YCBA (Yale Center of British Art). The museum is at the confluence of Temple street and Whitney Avenue, the same way I took a week ago to East Rock Park (see post Jan 13thHowever The museum is closed on Sundays. No erudition (But if you desperately seek a crash course about New Haven's History you can browse the new Attaliano's slideshow). As I was heading back, thinking on how to spend the following two hours this sculpture appeared in front of me.

Where to go? Looking at the map the Grove Street Cemetery is close by, a dear friend of mine had mentioned it (thank you, Galina) and so I decided to pay a visit. How perfect, a cemetery in the snow. It is an historical cemetery, where people from the city and from Yale are buried. There are many stones that are almost or completely illegible; mostly they are from the last two centuries. The tombstones are usually very simple very often with indication for a husband and wife. Some carry the information on the profession, such and such, professor of xy, Yale class of xxxx. One president of Yale got his burial surrounded by a fence embracing him. One striking feature are the small American flags planted on many tombs. It seems to me that some of them were somehow connected with military merit. I you have managed to survive the carnage, and died in your bed (otherwise you would not find yourself in this cemetery) and are not buried along with your buddies in a war cemetery, you get however a little flag. Part of the nation’s respect for its –dead- veterans? I may be wrong. And were all of the flags for military? No academic got a flag, and no women, however, this need further investigation.


From the cemetery gate, one can head toward the WWI memorial, a building called Commons that still I have to undestrand what is it there for. (left picture) The courtyard was strangely free of snow after a night snowing, how did they do that, do they heat the couryard from below. there is also a rotonda in memory of the American revolution and the civil war. Close by also the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library ( the modern building at the back of the picture on the right, at the forefront the Book and Snake building). I will visit it on thursday.