Good morning. It’s Friday. Today we’ll look at amateur astronomers and a cemetery in Brooklyn that is giving them a permanent place to look up at the sky. We’ll also get details on a deal in Albany to weaken a law that mainly affects all-boys Hasidic Jewish schools, known as yeshivas.
Amateur astronomers set up at Evergreens cemetery in Brooklyn.Credit…Willie Xu
“It seems incongruous, doesn’t it?” Julie Bose said. It was more of a statement than a question.
She was talking about how amateur astronomers set up telescopes in a cemetery — specifically, the cemetery she runs, the Evergreens, in Brooklyn. The astronomers like it there, and not just for the rolling hills and the architecture. (One of the architects of the former chapel that the cemetery uses for offices was Calvert Vaux, who is better known for designing Central Park with Frederick Law Olmsted.)
Mostly, the astronomers like that the Evergreens is dark. “You don’t have all the light pollution from the city,” said Bryanne Hamill, the chairwoman of the Amateur Astronomers Association of New York.
Now the cemetery is planning a $20 million center that can be used for what Bose called “celebrations of life” as well as community meetings and outside gatherings that do not involve funerals.
For the astronomers, there will be a separate observatory. The association said that a partnership with the cemetery would create “a permanent hub” for public stargazing and astronomy education. The association will outfit the observatory with telescopes and guidance systems. The group will provide the volunteer astronomers to lead educational programs.
