Laurel Hill Cemetery New App!

First posted December 4, 2017 on Facebook

Monday morning...time for some reflection.

I'm not going to talk about a particular stone or story today. Instead, I want to introduce you to a super cool resource that has just been published by my favorite cemetery, Laurel Hill!

There is now a great mobile app, available for free through Google Play or Apple, that introduces you to the cemetery.

It features various tours (more than I thought there would be), which match some of the in person tours you might take here in Philadelphia. So it can be like being at the cemetery when you are not in the Philly area or able to visit any time soon. Or you can use it for a solo trip though the physical site, since it tells you how to find each spot being portrayed as you move through the tour.

Photos, audio clips, some videos - it's pretty comprehensive. I even have been learning from it! (Shhh! Don't tell anybody!)

Some might worry that this type of technology would try to take the place of me and my fellow tour guides. I think it's an excellent addition to the information we like to share with everyone. Some folks just can't make it to the cemetery, or prefer to wander it solo. This way, everyone gets a chance to access our history.

I have gone through the tour titled "Pop Culture from the Gatehouse", which has 13 'stops'. There are often multiple photos, so don't forget to flip through them, to get the full picture (get it??). I learned a lot from it! and look forward to exploring all of the tours at my leisure.

For the record, I did look online for other cemetery mobile apps. Two notable ones I found are Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY (seems to have a lot of glitches in it so far - they say that are working on it), and the Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis, MN. That one is sort of a middle of the road app, without the audio-visual elements of Laurel Hill's. So Laurel Hill is currently the one to beat!

Let me also tell you that the app was produced by the Friends of Laurel Hill Cemetery and Night Kitchen Interactive, and funded by The 25th Century Foundation and The McLean Contributionship. A lot of work obviously went into the whole production, from the fundraising, research, photos, scripts, physical plant. It's impressive.

I always talk about the stories in a cemetery, how those stories help us to find a connection to history or our own family. Congrats to Laurel Hill Cemetery for finding yet another way to make that important people, living and dead, connection.

Go search for it! Or look here:

http://www.thelaurelhillcemetery.org/visit/mobile