A Spooky Gravestone For Halloween

 

I've featured this gravestone before on my Church Grounds blog, but it's so delightfully macabre that I had to use it for Halloween as well.  

It's one of the oldest stones I've encountered at the Albany Rural Cemetery and one of the distinctive.  It features a winged skull - a popular image of mortality in old New England and some downstate burial grounds, but not so common here in the Albany area.  The center tablet is framed with a wonderful carved border of vines and flowers. 

It's also one of a few stones featuring a Dutch inscription and marked the grave of Elsie Gansevoort Winne, wife of Frans Winne.  The grave was originally located in the churchyard of the Reformed Dutch Church at the intersection of State Street and Broadway, but was moved several times over the years (including to the Washington Park) before ultimately being laid in the Church Grounds lot at the Rural Cemetery.

Noose & Scythe

This ghastly Grim Reaper appeared quite suddenly on State Street on Saturday evening.  And I do mean suddenly.  He wasn't there when I walked down this street on the way to an ATM two blocks away, but was there when I came back up the hill just a few minutes later. 

I'm not sure if the figure - placed by the Justice Building at the Empire State Plaza - was intended as a protest or a prank or a decoration.  But it was quite seasonably spooky on a October evening...and gone by early the next morning.

Happy Halloween

A spooky gravestone in the Albany Rural Cemetery. 

Stones like this - with winged skulls or soul effigies -aren't found in great number around here (they're much more common in New England), there are a few interesting examples.  This striking stone is one of the oldest in the Church Grounds section.

Ghostbusters

I ain't afraid of no ghosts!

With Halloween (and a bad storm) on the horizon, this car was spotted just off Lark Street this morning. 

Happy Halloween

An old headstone in the Albany Rural Cemetery, one of my favorite "haunts."