Welcome to a spot in Southeast D.C. where you can hang out with your friends, have a cup of coffee, watch some live theater ... and where 70,000 people have chosen to make their eternal resting place.
We're wondering: Could historic Congressional Cemetery be America's liveliest cemetery?
"We are still an active cemetery, so we're actually still selling plots and burying people, as well as having movie nights, immersive theater," said Jackie Spainhour, president of Congressional Cemetery. "We're a certified 5K course. We have a writing group; we have a book club. Everything you can think of, we have tried here."
They call it D.C.'s greatest undertaking.
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In addition to its 70,000 permanent residents, the cemetery welcomed 10,000 guests to its events last year alone.
Those events include Soul Strolls, their immersive history theater experience and guided-lantern tour.
The Scene
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"We have actors actually portraying the people buried here, and we usually have these thematic stories that connect them," Director of Programming AJ Orlikoff said. "This year it blew me away. We sold out over 1,600 tickets for four nights of the event in two and a half days. Ultimately, Soul Strolls is a fun, spooky time with your friends. But you know, it's a fun, spooky history time with your friends."
Permanent residents include some big names from local — and national — history
Speaking of history: Cemetery residents include former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry, J. Edgar Hoover, composer John Philip Sousa and Civil War-era photographer Mathew Brady.
"I would say he's the father of photojournalism," Docent of the Year Rick Liebling said.
Way before selfies at events, Brady's lens snapped Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth and President Abraham Lincoln.
"Brady took pictures of Lincoln and made him look presidential, and Lincoln himself said, 'Brady is the one who got me the presidency'," Liebling told us.
Liebling also shared that he plans for Congressional to be his final resting place, too.
"But I'm comfortable knowing that there's dogs here, and because there's dogs here, that means people will actually walk near or around where I'm going to be. I find that somewhat comforting," he said.
Dogs were the first to bring life back to Congressional Cemetery
Before interactive theater and movie nights and book clubs, it was dogs that brought life back to the cemetery.
"Well, I will tell you, way back around 1988 or so, it was not a real pleasant, comfortable place to come," said Victor Romero, one of the founding members of Congressional Cemetery's K9 Corps. "I mean, aside from the stones and the markers themselves being in various states of disrepair...."
There were also reports of illegal activities — not the welcoming place visitors know these days.
"And we brought more life to corners of the cemetery that people had not been to in ages," Romero said. "This is indeed the liveliest place in Washington, D.C."
Meet a death doula (and try not to freak out)
Laura Lyster-Mensh said people usually get unsettled when she tells them what she does.
"Then they meet me and they chill out a little, but yeah, no, it sounds scary, but it's not," said Lyster-Mensh, the cemetery's death doula in residence. "It's actually about living, not dying, to do things like death cafés."
Think of Death Café as maybe getting a latte and talking about mortality.
"We do, of course, have people here with terminal illnesses who are dying and know that their their time is very finite, but most people are coming to be in groups to talk about this relationship with death, and they're often young," Lyster-Mensh said. "Some come on dates."
"I have much optimism for these couples," she added, laughing.
'Every cemetery has its own kind of brand, and this is ours'
Other historic cemeteries such as Laurel Hill in Philadelphia, Green-wood in Brooklyn and Oakland in Atlanta also look toward the living for a breath of fresh air.
"We're really on the cusp of a real cultural transformation of cemeteries as spaces, and they really are spaces for the living now, and that entails everything that the living love to do," Orlikoff said.
But do people ever feel like a lively scene at a cemetery is too disrespectful toward the dead?
"Yeah, we get that every once in a while, people who have different cultural traditions and maybe just don't understand," Spainhour said. "We're very transparent that this may not be the space for you, if this isn't what you like. You know, every cemetery has its own kind of brand, and this is ours."
