The Mausoleum

When my siblings and I were younger, we had the chance to go to work with dad on special days.  We would excitedly get up at 5am to drive down to Baltimore to spend the rest of the day in a cemetery.  The cemetery wasn’t just any burial ground, it was Greenmount.  Just about the equivalent of a Victorian era park with tombstones, monuments, and fabulous buildings to boot.

It was the most fascinating place to go exploring.  The buildings captivated me, and I got an exclusive glimpse into their glorious interiors.  The chapel on the grounds is decaying, it probably won’t make it through the end of the century, but it had quite the amazing interior and basement for a little imagination.  The massive mausoleum is an interesting place.  It holds an elevator straight from the 1930s (I’m not entirely sure it has been replaced, but from my memory, it was distinctly old), an incredible spiral staircase, and, of course, hundreds of vaults.

Due to the challenge of its difficult geometry, I decided to attempt sketching the mausoleum.  The straight lines and Egyptian details require that everything be perfectly symmetrical.  Everything is not perfectly symmetrical in my rendering, but it comes close.

This large and rather glamorous building’s cornerstone was laid on October 29th, 1929, the date of the Great Crash.  Imagine having to finance this structure at the beginning of the Great Depression.