Open House New York: Grant’s Tomb

On Open House New York weekend (when I visited the Green-Wood mausoleums and the Salmagundi Club), we also stumbled upon a late night event at Grant’s Tomb. It was one of those completely serendipitous incidents. We were walking around Morningside Heights after a party. It was a beautiful night and earlier in the evening I’d mentioned how I’d never been to Grant’s Tomb, but I thought it was somewhere around here. Sure enough, we happened upon a massive white structure that could only be one thing. And even though it was rather late, it was still open!

The tomb is seriously tall: 150 feet tall, in fact. It resembles Napoleon’s tomb at Les Invalides in Paris with its soaring domed ceiling. Grant’s Tomb was open late for Open House New York weekend, and downstairs by the sarcophagi, a historic reenactor was telling the story of Ulysses S. Grant’s life.

The Civil War general and US President is buried alongside his wife Julia. The sarcophagi are formidable, and to look up from them in the atrium of the tomb is a bit vertigo inducing. I definitely recommend a visit if you haven’t been. Although it would be hard to beat stumbling in accidentally for a late night visit on a quiet Saturday.