Grant's Tomb

Last week, Matt and I walked the 30-plus blocks up Riverside Park to Grant's Tomb.

First, the walk itself was fun - I discovered that the squirrels at Notre Dame (who will literally beg for food outside the dining halls) are not the most industrious ones in the world. Upper West Side squirrels will run off with peaches that are almost half their size!


After a quick stop at Tom's Restaurant at 112 and Broadway (made famous because its facade was used as the restaurant frequented in Seinfeld and for the Suzanne Vega song Tom's Diner) for lunch, we made it to the famous tomb.


It's a very tall, stately building surrounded by trees.

I very much liked the inscription at the top of the building:


Remember the joke that every 8-year-old tells? "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?"

Almost every school child can tell you the answer is "No one," but probably none of them can tell you why:


Ulysses S. Grant and his wife Julia have their final resting place here - but neither of them are buried.

These coffins are of immense size - almost as tall as I am. In the lower level rotunda surrounding the coffins there are busts of Grant's advisors and generals from the war. The upstairs (main level) is filled with memorabilia, and is an extremely pretty building - as it should be, since it is modeled after the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus - which was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.