I remember getting drunk and eating burgers at a cemetery in seattle like 10 years ago with a couple friends. it was a fun night
In the past, cemiteries used to be public parks, people would go there to make picnics, smoke opium or have sex.
Do you think cemiteries should be made into public parks again for the general enjoyment of the population?
No, but in the past the cemiteries were the parks, the first parks were cemiteries full of trees, lakes and mausoleums were people went to drink, chat and spend time.
But cemitiees used to be different:
" For the most part it used to be the case that in the 19th century people would die at home; funerals would happen at home. A middle-class house would typically have two parlors: a front parlor and a back parlor. The front parlor was a special formal room where you'd have major family rituals like marriages and funerals. People had a much more direct and visceral contact with death.
We don't even call them "cemeteries" anymore. We call them "memorial parks." In memorial parks across the country there is a lot less emphasis on death than in older cemeteries. It's mostly on beauty and memory and the living. The imagery becomes very stark. You don't go out to the memorial park very often. It's seen as an American phenomenon. We send our old people off to homes and hospitals to die; we only go to the cemetery for funerals and then avoid them. "