No cemeteries are allowed in San Francisco. The town of Colma has become the official cemetery spot and now hosts over a million graves. The photos are from The Italian Cemetery, Cypress Lawn, and a pet cemetery.
~ Juliette aka Vampire Maman
Colma: Part 1, City of Angels – A Photo Essay
Vampire Maman 
Reblogged this on West Coast Review.
Just curious…. is there a reason cemeteries aren’t allowed in San Francisco?
San Francisco is built upon a area of land that is pretty small, and there are a lot of steep hills. Real Estate was too expensive to waste it on dead people. Seriously. That is the reason. So over about a 30 year period (give or take a few) most of the cemeteries were dug up and moved. Most were moved to nearby Colma, but remains were moved all over the place. Some people claim it was orderly, but by other accounts it was a regular cluster F. Even today people still find coffins and missed bodies left behind in San Francisco. Today there are only two cemeteries left on city land, one at Mission Dolores Church and the SF National Cemetery in The Presidio (military and a pet cemetery).
Thanks for educating me on that! Kinda reminds me of a project my 8th grade (don’t snicker) “gifted class” was tasked with once…
Land on earth has become to scarce to bury bodies anymore. Come up with a creative futuristic solution for how to handle our dead.
My group settled on shrinking the bodies and turning them into little statues… which is kinda funny now given my figurine/collectible fetish!
Wow. I had no idea.
There’s something so haunting about seeing all of those rows of graves and so many statues. I can’t even imagine what it would be like to see it in person. 🙂
It is stunning, and this is only a small fraction. If you ever find yourself in Northern California make time for a visit.
Wow. That boggles my mind.
I would definitely want to see it for myself if I ever wind up in that side of the States. 🙂
The pet cemetery is touching…
It was really sweet. The feeling was so different from that in the human cemeteries.
It’s good to be alive in Colma!
Yes indeed!
It is both a beautiful and strangely weird place.
In a way I’m impressed… in another way I’m sad. Learning that some of them were moved is… uhm… different.
It is different and really weird. There are still bits of headstones in some San Francisco ditches (yikes.) In the Old Sacramento Cemetery near where I live some of the residents used to be buried in San Francisco and were part of the move.