Transcript of video, unedited, from YouTube's transcription engine:
here i am back at beautiful st
john cemetery
when i say beautiful i'm not being
sarcastic as i sometimes humble
this is a beautiful beautiful
immaculately kept maintained cemetery
and it has one of my favorite things
ever in the world
a real-life detex watchbox station with
the key and everything
i spotted this last time i was here
i got ridiculously excited about it
[Applause]
you just don't see too many of these
anymore
but i came out here with uh
this is still milking that metro card
that i found
with uh i forget how much was on it now
30 something bucks
so getting to st john is a bit of a
project
there's a subway and then a bus and then
half the time i forget which stop to get
off at
on the bus but i got it right this time
takes you right to the front front gate
by the way that that row of houses over
there
one of them is the is the archie bunker
house
that you see in the opening
in the opening of all in the family
it's on cooper it's i don't think it's
one of these but it's on that street
if it's not one of these it is
definitely on that stretch of road
across the street from
from st john
i haven't watched that in a long time
but
every once in a while i'll just
spontaneously bust out laughing at some
some memory from from that show from all
in the family
it probably hasn't aged all that well
but i don't know
it's been so long since i've since i
encountered it but
yeah every once in a while some zinger
from that show will surface in my mind
and i'll just bust out laughing
for no no visible reason
[Music]
last time i was here all the all the
mausoleums
were closed because of the pandemic but
i just passed through one of the smaller
ones
so i guess they're all going to be open
i have reason to believe
uh i have it on good authority that
there are actually three pay phones on
the grounds here i knew about one of
them
from last time i came here but there are
said to be two others one at the
resurrection mausoleum
which i think i think is one of these
two big ones over here
and another one what is called building
seven i have to figure out what that is
that is actually a pretty imposing
structure
the st john's cloister
but i'm here for this circular shaped
building
this is where there is said to be
a pay phone
yeah this is really my life
if you look over here you'll see they're
building more mausoleums
they look like like mailboxes
i'm sure i'll figure this all out but
this is the resurrection mausoleum but
it's also labeled as building number
seven
but then across the street here you have
another building labeled building seven
so
i don't know maybe they're connected
underground
indeed there it is in some low light
very low light
wow that's dial tone although kind of a
weird dial tone
yeah this one's a mess it connects with
us
here it is from a little wider angle
so it has dial tone but it's a very
husky weird dial tone
calls connect but you can't really hear
the other party very clearly
[Music]
well this is a great place to get lost
isn't it trying to find my way out of
here i was just
just checking the space out a little bit
and uh felt a little awkward getting
that
video for a variety of reasons but
so i didn't say anything
or maybe i did i don't even remember now
this is not the entrance that i want
or exit rather
this really does feel like a labyrinth
like it's designed for me to
not figure out how to get out of here
okay i think this is it
yes this is the exit that i want
i don't think i've ever seen this before
but i realize now though that i
i take my hat off anyway
when i enter one of these places
it's a lot of instructions
this is the saint john cloyster
oh this this makes it easy
public phone this way
and there she is
nothing doing
no prodigal son here in terms of the
phone
doesn't work
i'm not going to be leaving a payphone
radio card here
that's just not cool
not to make fun or anything but that's a
hell of a name to have gone through life
with
something very penis-y about this place
[Music]
god
[Music]
so
[Music]
so
there's a style excuse me here's a style
of
[Music]
of uh
a font and a style that i'm not familiar
with
oh there's another person by that name
[Music]
maybe it's a more common name than i
[Music]
think
[Applause]
[Music]
so
so
so
yes that really is charles atlas
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
beautiful structure but it does get a
little monotonous
i was looking for
columbarium niches
and i actually found a room with them
but there was somebody in there praying
[Music]
music in here is nice and this sounds
like satie
oh no it's not
[Music]
well this is the top floor and
i've been through pretty much every
floor now
they all look more or less the same
and we saw one room with columbarium
niches in
it's it bad there's no view to the
outside world from up here
[Music]
this is the sixth floor
[Music]
or is it the fifth i got a little
confused by that
[Music]
okay so just to set the record straight
this building
labeled resurrection mausoleum had a
phone with a really weird husky dial
tongue
and calls connected but you couldn't
hear
the party called very clearly
then this building saint john's cloister
had a non-working phone by a sink
now we're going to check on one last one
i wasn't going to do that by the way
i wasn't going to go stake out famous
people
but i i only just happened to spot
charles atlas
i wasn't looking for him but it did
register in my mind that he's here
so maybe my my antlers were
were perked but when i spotted him i
figured i'd look for the others that i
know to be in that
st john cloyster so john gotti
and mario cuomo
odd grouping of people but that's a
cemetery for you
okay well we have pay phone we have
visual
this is the one that i checked on i
don't even know how long it's been now
i think it was like back in november
december
it did not work
this is at the main entrance to the to
the cemetery
there's the there's the gate
i think the address is 8001 metropolitan
avenue
this one also has a
red siren light siren thing on top for
some reason
i'm not gonna hold my breath but let's
see
no no dial tone this phone's as dead as
everything else here
this one i don't mind leaving a card on
[Music]
so
and one last celebrity for you
robert maplethorpe great photographer
section 48 row b
plots 131 and 133
i've been walking around for like a half
hour now trying to find the way out of
here
uh oh it seems like all the gates are
closed except for this front one that i
was at earlier we'll take another look
at the phone
from the side also i uh
um also wanted to get this little bit of
signage
a little bit from the other side with
better light
raises false hope that you'll be able to
make a call because the phone's
there is everything else here i'm just
gonna keep using that joke over and over
again until it gets
stupid
yeah this is on the uh that's the
parking lot
parking garage for the the shops at
atlas park
where i'm not gonna go in there today
but i've been in there a few times
i'm gonna go ahead and
take a look at the archie bunker house
since i mentioned it earlier
i'll say this for st mike i mean for st
john
compared to other cemeteries is it feels
like a friendlier environment somehow
i can't quite put a finger on it but i
feel like i can say hello
to other people who are here other
visitors
and i don't feel like security is
breathing down my neck all the time like
i do at st
michael's i also just find that
whenever i'm at st michaels that anybody
else that's there just seems
strange i don't know maybe i'm one of
them
but in calvary while there's just so few
people there but
the groundskeepers have always been very
approachable
one of them was even giving me tips on
cool stuff to
to seek out out there
but i do like st john a lot it's just a
little far off my
off my radar off my uh off my usual
paths
but it's a bit of a project getting out
here
here's the row of houses they all look
pretty pretty similar if not identical
and it's uh 89-70 cooper avenue
it's the one with the flag in front of
it
roped off
archie bunker lived here fictionally
if i remember right the street address
they use in the show
was a fictional of course but it was it
wouldn't even have qualified as a
valid queens street address because it
didn't have a dash in it
but you'd have to be a queen's street
great
geek to keyed into that
so those opening credits that end up at
that house
don't show you that there's a cemetery
across the street
but and now we know better
there's a disconzo in the middle of
woodhaven boulevard
i guess there was a fatal accident here
a little place to die right across the
street from the cemetery
saint john is best known i suspect for
its mobsters
i did get the one but i wasn't i didn't
want to make a project out of
that stuff i'm not really into celebrity
burial sites in general but
sometimes i just say what the hell but i
think
the genovese crime family is here or
some of them at least
and calvary is also known for its you
know what a whole lot of cemeteries are
i think michael's is home of frank
costello
whose uh mausoleum was famously robbed
years after he died
i'm not really into mobsters
i do appreciate maple thought though his
work was pretty cool
i was not expecting this
this is the 63rd road of woodhaven
boulevard
and this is one of the ones that
happened the wi-fi antenna on top of it
part of a pilot free wi-fi program that
never got anywhere
got swallowed by link nyc
i'm going to be amazed if this thing
works
holy it works
that's a pretty husky dial tone too
well i guess i can't keep saying that
100
of new york times don't work although
i'm gonna actually try to
make a call if i have any change
you know i don't think i have any change
oh wait yes i did this
oh no no i don't i'll try um
i'll just try three one one
we have a working pay phone in new york
city can you believe
and yeah this music is going to turn
this whole video into a copyright
violation
a copyright infringement
that was funny i got interrupted by i
guess was the owner of
bridey's the bar that was that that
phone was outside of
he was having fun with the pay phone
thing
uh i'm not sure how much of that i might
have caught on video i wasn't
sort of taken aback but he picked it up
and made some funny comments
i told him i never thought i'd find
another working phone in new york but
in the outdoor space that is
but here comes the remains
this is at 63rd avenue
nothing to see here
there used to be a bunch of pay phones
at this mall
but they disappeared in january of last
year
they were owned by
something with a very generic name
something like interstate communications
or something like that
we were based in georgia
somebody told me this is the most highly
trafficked mall in the world
or maybe just the u.s
i think i did this one before
well here it is again justice avenue and
uh 52nd avenue
in elmhurst yeah this one's beautiful
so
you
- Author
- Mark Thomas