Between myself and my friends, we jokingly call Colma “Disneyland of the Dead.” Some cemeteries there have big lighted decorations and windmills looking like amusement parks
Haha! That’s great! Some documentaries refer, maybe a bit melodramatically, to earthquake-prone San Francisco as “the city that waits to die” so I always think of Colma as “the city that waits for ‘the city that waits to die’ to die.”
Some things just make sense and some things don't. What makes sense is when you've used a system for so long why change it? It wouldn't make much sense to change it now would it?
@@deathbydeviceable True, in Britain we use a mixture of them both so we somehow end up getting them both but having a favourable system for particular things
I hate it when somebody says, “ I’m 180cm tall” I just stare off into space for awhile and then say, ok, but how tall are u?🤣🤣 That didn’t tell me anything.
My suggestion; "build multi-stories high-rise cemeteries". Just like people live in multi-stories high rise buildings, the dead would be just fine in high-rise burial buildings in cemeteries.
@J S it is very common in my city actually. The local government owns the cemetery and sells land inside it. A family can buy some space and build a small"house" for the dead, which usually accommodate 4 bodies one on top of the other. I've even seen some with up to 10 bodies in total. Also, the poor can get buried for free in a mass grave, with something like 7 bodies high
LOL. My mom says stuff like that all the time. She told us to donate her to one of those body farms or just kick her off the side of a hill somewhere. Ah mom. She is a special lady.
@@sonofsisyphus5742, make a memorial at home. In a respectful space where the family members urns would be. Or just a picture and the ashes into some garden.
They are for memory, to be remembered by family, to be remembered by history, to help future genealogists, to help future historians, to help future archaeologists, and to help future paleontologists.
The way the prices are going, it will cost over 20,000 dollars to have a cheap funeral. Cremation is the way to go. I remember the price for a friend that got buried over 40 years ago. It was only 1500 dollars and that included everything, even a beautiful stone which still looks beautiful today. Prices are going out of control.
Norfolk Va: $11,000 for standard funeral (this is all 5 years ago, pre-covid). due to permits, insurance etc, you don't save much with cremation--they're gonna get your money. burial: $2500 to open/close grave, $1500 for one plot, buy-a-good-car for the stone/engravure.
Water cremation is the cheapest cremation option and just became legal in CA in 2017 or 2018. You can also plan ahead for a green burial. Green burial means no embalming fluid, biodegradable casket, and your loved ones having a more hands on experience with your burial if you'd like.
I live in San Francisco, born and raised. I was driving through Colma just about a month ago and thought to myself for the first time “Wow, there’s a lot of cemeteries here...Weird.”. Now it makes sense! I’m only 23, but it’s crazily odd to me that I’ve lived here all my life and never realized that SF really has almost no cemeteries. Random thing to add: My mom used to live right next to Mission Dolores Cemetery. She said she often felt and sometimes experienced weird things, but she never thought much of it until she learned that she lived right next door to a cemetery!
When I was a kid in the 80s whenever my dad took the family to KMart on El Camino Real and Serramonte Boulevard we'd drive down from our house in the Excelsior District and we'd go past all the cemeteries on the way
Best solution I’ve come across thus far is a green funeral were you are buried in a wicker or cardboard coffin and a tree planted on the site. Gradually, over time, the site becomes a forest and is managed as a woodland habitat. No headstones or mausoleums. No burning or fumes to deal with. A good way to go I feel ... although I appreciate that some have more specific requirements for moving into their next life/other world.
I think that is an amazing way to go. No pun intended. I've seen that some still have little markers so your loved ones can visit your burial site but it's just a small metal identifier. I personally dont care much as long as I'm not embalmed and family is able to grieve (or celebrate!) in a way that gives them closure.
I live about 15 minutes outside of San Francisco in a little town called Pacifica. I gotta say, the dead make excellent neighbors. I personally am not bothered by essentially living in a giant cemetery. Such a morbid interesting history San Francisco and the surrounding area has!
I'm not American and I was thinking exactly the same. Deads are the best neighbors. Correct if I'm wrong, but my impression is that this wouldn't be an area where people would like to live, so I suppose that the rent would be even cheaper (?)
That’s funny! In seriousness, the yeast strain in San Francisco sourdough is Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis. The coolest thing about sourdough is the taste is dependent on where it’s made. That yeast strain is very specific to that area! Eating a piece of fresh sourdough is literally tasting the region it was made in!
This topic is just as valid as the ones I've seen in Japan where my wife is from. Cremation and storage in a family shrine or group sites are very common. Frankly most people have no idea the amount of contamination that occurs when a body is embalmed or "treated" just so the family can view thier loved one in a more "natural" state all for a couple of hours during a ceremony. That's why the body has to be sealed into a coffin like container so the surrounding soil/area is not contaminated by the toxic cancer-causing materials they use to treat a body let alone the huge amount of steel or other metals that are used to make those coffins. It's kinda crazy when you try to take a step back and look at all the time and wasted materials that are used just to bury someone.
I have been told by those in the death industry (aka funeral workers/embalmers) that 95% of what is sold to you by the funeral home is just getting profit off of mourning families. It's gross. Private funeral homes are insanely profitable because of this. They WANT you to buy the unnecessary metal tombs with fancy silver seals and shit, but it isn't needed. All those seals will fail. Your corpse will be reduced to gross sawdust either way and it doesn't really affect much when it leaks. The pretty pennies your family spends on that only goes to the funeral homes and they like to lie. Keep in mind, the average funeral costs over 7,000$ on average in the US, mostly due to this.
@@chandranapier2259 What do you count as the cost of a funeral? For Germany, a funeral costs around 8000EUR on average. That includes the wooden coffin, the graveyard, funeral services etc. The coffin itself is just a small chunk of that.
@@joergsonnenberger6836 And dont forget that in Germany, gravesides are usually not permanent, exact duration varies by graveyard. Thats how they solved the problem of needing more graves. IN theory, the lease on the grave can be renewed by family members.
There’s a cemetery in Oakland that’s been there since 1902, it’s so bad headstones are literally blocking other headstones like people are being buried in the same spots
It's because Americans use British methods and apart from wealthy noble families its unheard-of to bury above ground in the Anglo-Saxon world except from in the swamps of Louisiana which were formerly French
That used to be the largest golf course west of the Mississippi. Little by little they sold parts of the course to the surrounding cemeteries. 10 years ago you could still play 9 holes. Sometimes a miss hit would land on a plot. Lol
Gleeson Library is on the campus of the University of San Francisco. When I was a student there a trench was dug for a new water line. They dug up a few tombstones. Several got cleaned up in the shower and provided dorm room decorations.
They moved the headstones but not the bodies. For instance the UCSF campus at Laurel Heights (which has a creepy eerie haunting howl in the elevator) was built on top of a graveyard where they just took all of the headstones and threw them into the Bay, but left the bodies. Same thing with the graveyard that used to be where the golf course now is near the Legion of Honor. San Francisco has no respect for the dead. Or the living
The mystery child found in a glass-lid coffin mentioned at the beginning was identified as Edith Cook, and you can read about her sadly short life and even see her stunningly preserved in her coffin here www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-miranda-metal-casket-girl-identified-20170509-htmlstory.html
It’s so expensive in the Bay Area! The Cemeteries in Colma are now charging $15K for a plot. I just plan to be cremated. My family and loved ones can keep the $15K.
I wish you could just take matters into your own hands but thats illegal where i am so you are forced to shell out thousands for even the simplest burial.
Though there are burial rights associated with religions, burying people has been a thing for 130,000 years according to archeological evidence. Far, far older than any religion.
Very true. I live in Toronto and there's a large historic cemetery close to downtown called Mount Pleasant that's quite popular for people to walk around in (staying on the roads, obviously).
@@PongoXBongo not exactly, because with a regular burial when the lease of the grave expires, the ground keepers have to remove the remains and those end up in a 'bone pit'. With ashes it will dissolve in the ground so there's nothing to clean up later on.
I've been to Colma. It's a beautiful, eerie and quirky place. Nothing but cemeteries, well manicured homes, casinos and green hills all around. Me and my dad spent an afternoon walking through, dusting off and righting toppled stones. My dad does this as a sort of meditation and respect for those who have been before us.
Another great job, Christine! I loved that you put some spookiness in the narration hahahaha And I wanted to tell you that I admire you for being very articulate and in control of the pace of the video! Happy halloween
@@yeaolon More like, check into matters a bit more before making a story on it. Basic journalism, stuff that few do anymore, sadly. Colma is a pretty busy area.
@@yeaolon didn't say they had to visit. This video made it like it's some spooky ghost town, when in fact it's not. Fake news, in other words. Maybe you're into the whole news distortion thing, personally I'm into facts, it's a busy area with half a million people next door. If you don't know about it, people are providing corrections, then you're not adding to the conversation. Wasting everyone's time in other words.
Everywhere you look, there's a corpse, there's a corpse, a corpse to hold on to. And when you're lost out there and you're all alone, a corpse is buried, right under your home. Everywhere you look.
What about Memorial Parks and natural burials? An unpreserved body is placed into a burlap or paper sack with a surrounding of mulch or fertilizer and some tree seeds (my choice is Maple or Oak in my burial) and buried fairly shallow in the ground. As the body decomposes it feeds beetles and worms which feed the plants and trees. Place a plaque for a marker and let the tree grow. After 60 to 100 years the tree can be harvested, the plaque moved to a memorial wall, and a new body can be placed to start all over again.
As someone who used to be an avid cemetery photographer, I was sure to check out Colma the last time I visited San Francisco. I could have spent days there touring the various themes and styles, but only had enough time to cram it all into an afternoon.
3 of my Grandparents, 1 uncle are buried in Colma. My parents have purchased their plots there too. My Mom would take us to feed the ducks at Cypress Lawns when there were hundreds of them. My 2 Brothers and I worked for a florist where we would place flowers at Colma and the National Cemetery. I would go there blasting Salsa music from the florist van speakers while looking for the plots. This brought back memories.
When I die, I want my body to be used for medical research and then disposed of in the most eco-friendly manner. Maybe, burn or allow bacteria to eat it up. I want to enjoy my life and I want people to remember me for what I did, but I don't see any point in preserving my dead body.
@@ancalyme I don't want to be buried with those useless caskets and grave stones. I mean I want my body to be disposed off the way you would dead cattle or other bio waste. No waste time, energy and space on protecting physical objects relating to the dead because of funny religious beliefs but rather use those resources for the welfare of the living.
@@DelfinaKS I think the caskets purpose is so the people transporting putting you in the grave don't have to touch a corpse. But yeah I agree that big ostentatious caskets are stupid.
I live in Colma. It's really not that big of a deal. You notice some cemeteries around, but it's more known now for foggy weather. The dug up bones are also no surprise -- people gardening around the UCSF Parnassus campus regularly dig up human bones. Many of the 3000 fatalities from the 1906 earthquake seem like they were just buried around the hospital. It's not that spooky.
It's a beautiful area. I remember we use to have picnics. Nothing creepy. it's just peaceful and serein. My favorite is "Fabens" near Levi Strauss's tombe
I want my body parts, to go for transplants, then to science what's left, and anything after that, in a mushroom suit. I lived a few miles from Colma from '12-'19, just inside if SF. Daly City lies between SF and Colma, but I'd often hand to drive past it, or ride past it on the BART (Including going to SFO airport). It's a weird vibe. The predictable joke is *Colma's so great, people are just dying to get in "
This is common in most cities that predate automobiles. My hometown (Philly) there are hundreds of such similar stories. Ppl are still getting discovered...
In europe, that happens on a regular basis, that graves get unearthed and removed from the cemetary. Here we only rent a grave and as soon as there are no relatives anymore to keep paying for the grave, space is made available for new deceased bodies. Also, we just don't have so much space, that a grave could be forever.
In the future, bodies should just decompose in biodegradable caskets, be cremated, or get donated to science. The idea of vertical cemeteries doesn't sit right with me.
7,800,000,000 people are alive right now. 7,799,997,000 of them will never be visited 25 years after dying. The idea of keeping dead people buried or cremated is foolish given today's population.
We really should just do away with cemeteries altogether. It’s really dumb to waste so much space for someone that’s literally not able to use it. Burn and spread everyone’s ashes. So much better.
An interesting place to visit is the San Francisco Columbarium, which is near Stanyan and Geary (I used to work for the Neptune Society that owned it at the time). It's an above ground "cemetery" holding urns with cremated remains. It was a beautiful place, containing many gorgeous and several irreverent urns.
The same thing happen in Seattle because of the Alaska Gold Rush. But when the Fire happen, they discovered a bunch of bodies and since then every major building project has to do all kinds of pre ground surveys. We've also found Native American burial grounds all around the Puget Sound Metro Area.
Really liked this video... My great-great grandmother is there in Colma in one of the mass graves after what the city of San Francisco did to Laurel Hill - I was glad to see the crypts where they put the bodies and learned that they do know pretty precisely where the remains are for these folks and I do plan to go see her there in Colma one day soon.
I actually live in an apartment in Colma/Daly City that appears to be named after a guy called John Daly🤔🧐, a South SF town surrounded by cemeteries & a lot of old folks like myself..my residence is just a few blocks away, walking distance to nearby Woodlawn Cemetery, where my grandma, mom, & baby brother are resting today...thank you for putting this informative video together... I learned info that I'd never gotten in any public school💯🔥♍💎😷😎
That's why I think burying is stupid. If we kept track of every single burial, we would eventually run out of space for the living and every single plot of land would be used for the dead, which is stupid because they don't need it
There are many more bodies buried under the Palace of the Legion of Honor, and most of the bodies of indigents were just covered over. If you ever in Colma, you can visit the resting place Wyatt Earp.
I live pretty much on the site of one of the former graveyards that they moved next to the USF campus. My housemate has said they have felt ghostly spirits and seen things in their room. I personally haven't seen or felt anything, although my house has had an eerie feel forever pretty much, but think it might just be all the house drama I've dealt with for two and half years.
As a Londoner it makes me laugh people are freaked out by finding a single coffin during building work. It's quite common for big projects here to necessitate the removal and relocation of hundreds of sets of remains. Often these are known about in advance, but not every burial site is documented, and even those that are may be low on detail- the extent, the depth, the number of people interred.
Fun fact: cement contractors are known to dispose of bodies. One came out and said he had cemented 32 bodies between foundations and city roads/construction.
In the UK cremation is the most common way of disposal of the dead. But "environmentally acceptable" burials are also popular where the dead are buried in woodland or other natural places with no or minimal grave marking and all burials are "natural" with biodegradable coffins and no artificial body preservatives. The maximum tenure for such a natural grave is 75 years - beyond which the land reverts to general use at that time.
I lived a few blocks away from Colm BART, on the border of Daly City and Colma. The cemeteries never phased me it was always apart of the suburb. Got family members buried in Cypress Lawn.
Used to live out in those former sand dunes as a kid (Sunset District). Yeah, old San Francisco's history is pretty creepy. I would not want to have a home sitting on one of those former cemeteries. They were just too haphazard with the removals.
6:00 “skeletons were sometimes dug up and used as Halloween decorations” says the narrator as the clip uses cheap Halloween decorations for actual skeletons
haha Colma is really cool, I used to live like a few block in Daly City and it was scary at first, but I then started playing a game called ingress and I started learning about really cool characters like Emperor Norton! Which blew my mind of how strong the media control over people and little by little I visit the cemeteries for fun and see what other stuff is around. If you are ever the area I truly recommend going, visit some graves of people who haven't had visitors in centuries and learn a little about them. I knew Colma was mainly dead people town but I didn't know how many, another cool fact that I know!
I live in Colma, they have a decent chunk of land but vertical grave sites have been a big new thing ive seen them build and we are squished between many other cities.
I just think in 200 or 300 years many US states/cities will just start doing away with all these burial plots no one even visits anymore. Eventually there will probably be a point that continuing to go this direction of permanent plots is not practical.
We use to drop acid and trip balls in the cemetery out in Colma ca. There was a huge owl that hung out on a replica of the Washington monument in cypress lawn cemetery it was a very large monument and at night the owl would case us thinking we were food I guess... always fun when your high on LSD...I❤️the 80’s
I was having a conversation with a cab driver many years ago about how much I enjoyed the homes in the Laurel Heights area - around Commonwealth and Clement. He balked and said he would never want to live in the area due to the history of the former graveyards. As if this area was like another Poltergeist situation in the movie - presuming the transportations of the graves had been done as carelessly!
Why are cemeteries still a thing anyway? Why would we take valuable pieces of city land and use it to store rotting corpses rather than using it for buildings or a public park?
When I die I want to be cremated and have my ashes scattered in a beautiful peaceful place like a mountain of snow I don’t care about being remembered because I’ll be gone and I would want my family to move on and live their lives
Hello Cheddar, It seems your audio isn't doing well in this video. So much sibilance on the host's voice as well. I hope you guys can hear that too. Nice video as always, anyway!
"Hey isn’t it time we stopped wasting valuable land on cemeteries? Talk about an idea who’s time has passed. Let’s put all the dead people in boxes and keep them in one part of town. What kind of medieval superstitious nonsense is that? I say plow these people up and throw em away. Or melt them down. We need that phosphorus for farming. If we’re going to recycle, lets get serious.” - George Carlin
I’ve been to Colma many times. It’s not just cemeteries. There’s also a Target there lol
And auto dealerships. And Lucky Chances casino.
Bought a car at Serramonte. In Colma.
Two Targets - they are across from each other, one on each side of the 280 freeway.
Daaaaaamn 😂
@@truepeacenik same
Between myself and my friends, we jokingly call Colma “Disneyland of the Dead.” Some cemeteries there have big lighted decorations and windmills looking like amusement parks
Haha! That’s great! Some documentaries refer, maybe a bit melodramatically, to earthquake-prone San Francisco as “the city that waits to die” so I always think of Colma as “the city that waits for ‘the city that waits to die’ to die.”
I like to feed the ducks there. Its relaxing
You have an old account
Almost everyone I know calls Colma “land of the dead” because of the amount of cemeteries we pass trying to get to out mom’s job...
More dead ppl in Colma than living.
Not going to lie I misread the title as "No centimetres in San Fransisco" and was like well yeah... 'mericans don't like the metric system haha
Some things just make sense and some things don't. What makes sense is when you've used a system for so long why change it? It wouldn't make much sense to change it now would it?
@@deathbydeviceable True, in Britain we use a mixture of them both so we somehow end up getting them both but having a favourable system for particular things
I hate it when somebody says, “ I’m 180cm tall” I just stare off into space for awhile and then say, ok, but how tall are u?🤣🤣 That didn’t tell me anything.
I was looking for this comment I thought the same thing.
its not like we don't like the system... its just everything around me uses us imperial so i don't have a choice
Idk y
My suggestion; "build multi-stories high-rise cemeteries".
Just like people live in multi-stories high rise buildings, the dead would be just fine in high-rise burial buildings in cemeteries.
True
@J S it is very common in my city actually. The local government owns the cemetery and sells land inside it. A family can buy some space and build a small"house" for the dead, which usually accommodate 4 bodies one on top of the other. I've even seen some with up to 10 bodies in total. Also, the poor can get buried for free in a mass grave, with something like 7 bodies high
"Basement apartment for let. Studio. 9 square feet, no bathroom, kitchen, or utilities."
I like the whole having a tree grow out of my ashes thing
You could always opt for a mushroom suit.
same. my dad said just to bury him in the back yard under the flowerbed. honestly same for me.
Yes. A Bios urn!!
Ashes have no nutrients, you Dummy... LOL
@dynomar I like that idea too but it also creeps me out. I have the same mixed feelings about ashes turned into jewelry.
When I die, just throw me in the trash.
Sure... Where do you live?
@Crazy Monkey or Florida...
LOL. My mom says stuff like that all the time. She told us to donate her to one of those body farms or just kick her off the side of a hill somewhere. Ah mom. She is a special lady.
All these comments and nobody got the always sunny reference lmao
Lol oh dang..😭😇🚽🗑
When I die, burn me up and use my ashes in a concrete floor, I don't care. Never understood the need for a grave site personally.
Gravesites aren't meant for the dead.
@@sonofsisyphus5742, you are right. They are for someplace for survivors to go and mourn if they wish.
@@sonofsisyphus5742, make a memorial at home. In a respectful space where the family members urns would be. Or just a picture and the ashes into some garden.
@@HelgaCavoli Isn’t that called a Mausoleum?
They are for memory, to be remembered by family, to be remembered by history, to help future genealogists, to help future historians, to help future archaeologists, and to help future paleontologists.
The way the prices are going, it will cost over 20,000 dollars to have a cheap funeral. Cremation is the way to go.
I remember the price for a friend that got buried over 40 years ago. It was only 1500 dollars and that included everything, even a beautiful stone which still looks beautiful today. Prices are going out of control.
Norfolk Va: $11,000 for standard funeral (this is all 5 years ago, pre-covid). due to permits, insurance etc, you don't save much with cremation--they're gonna get your money. burial: $2500 to open/close grave, $1500 for one plot, buy-a-good-car for the stone/engravure.
Water cremation is the cheapest cremation option and just became legal in CA in 2017 or 2018. You can also plan ahead for a green burial. Green burial means no embalming fluid, biodegradable casket, and your loved ones having a more hands on experience with your burial if you'd like.
You can get buried in the backyard for free
@@AnthonyFelixCano just don't let anyone find out :D
@@mkthefreak if it's legal where you live...
I live in San Francisco, born and raised. I was driving through Colma just about a month ago and thought to myself for the first time “Wow, there’s a lot of cemeteries here...Weird.”.
Now it makes sense! I’m only 23, but it’s crazily odd to me that I’ve lived here all my life and never realized that SF really has almost no cemeteries.
Random thing to add: My mom used to live right next to Mission Dolores Cemetery. She said she often felt and sometimes experienced weird things, but she never thought much of it until she learned that she lived right next door to a cemetery!
I wonder if Colma residents experience weird things...
Yes! I thought the same thing about Colma but I never thought of it as a cemetery city 😅
When I was a kid in the 80s whenever my dad took the family to KMart on El Camino Real and Serramonte Boulevard we'd drive down from our house in the Excelsior District and we'd go past all the cemeteries on the way
@@Mokkari77 _Colma: The Musical_ , "Colma Stays" czcams.com/video/_h1zzcdzSZQ/video.html
I think those spirits come out and possess your city’s CEO’s and politicians
Best solution I’ve come across thus far is a green funeral were you are buried in a wicker or cardboard coffin and a tree planted on the site. Gradually, over time, the site becomes a forest and is managed as a woodland habitat. No headstones or mausoleums. No burning or fumes to deal with. A good way to go I feel ... although I appreciate that some have more specific requirements for moving into their next life/other world.
I think that is an amazing way to go. No pun intended. I've seen that some still have little markers so your loved ones can visit your burial site but it's just a small metal identifier. I personally dont care much as long as I'm not embalmed and family is able to grieve (or celebrate!) in a way that gives them closure.
THIS.
This is my wish-to become a part of a tree in a forest!
I quite like the idea of having some sort of edible plant for visitors or passers-by.
Agreed 👍🔥😎
I live about 15 minutes outside of San Francisco in a little town called Pacifica. I gotta say, the dead make excellent neighbors. I personally am not bothered by essentially living in a giant cemetery. Such a morbid interesting history San Francisco and the surrounding area has!
I'm not American and I was thinking exactly the same. Deads are the best neighbors. Correct if I'm wrong, but my impression is that this wouldn't be an area where people would like to live, so I suppose that the rent would be even cheaper (?)
San Francisco doesn’t have cemeteries because they eat their dead. Also, what do you think is in the sourdough?
That’s funny! In seriousness, the yeast strain in San Francisco sourdough is Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis. The coolest thing about sourdough is the taste is dependent on where it’s made. That yeast strain is very specific to that area! Eating a piece of fresh sourdough is literally tasting the region it was made in!
Lmaoooo
Lol 😅
Nice...creepy.
@@danae5578 Tasty...crispy.
This topic is just as valid as the ones I've seen in Japan where my wife is from. Cremation and storage in a family shrine or group sites are very common. Frankly most people have no idea the amount of contamination that occurs when a body is embalmed or "treated" just so the family can view thier loved one in a more "natural" state all for a couple of hours during a ceremony. That's why the body has to be sealed into a coffin like container so the surrounding soil/area is not contaminated by the toxic cancer-causing materials they use to treat a body let alone the huge amount of steel or other metals that are used to make those coffins. It's kinda crazy when you try to take a step back and look at all the time and wasted materials that are used just to bury someone.
I have been told by those in the death industry (aka funeral workers/embalmers) that 95% of what is sold to you by the funeral home is just getting profit off of mourning families. It's gross. Private funeral homes are insanely profitable because of this. They WANT you to buy the unnecessary metal tombs with fancy silver seals and shit, but it isn't needed. All those seals will fail. Your corpse will be reduced to gross sawdust either way and it doesn't really affect much when it leaks. The pretty pennies your family spends on that only goes to the funeral homes and they like to lie. Keep in mind, the average funeral costs over 7,000$ on average in the US, mostly due to this.
Absolutely!! Stupid traditions need to fade away!
I like Caitlin Doughty's idea of green burials. No embalming fluid, no expensive casket, and less cancer in our water and dirt.
@@chandranapier2259 What do you count as the cost of a funeral? For Germany, a funeral costs around 8000EUR on average. That includes the wooden coffin, the graveyard, funeral services etc. The coffin itself is just a small chunk of that.
@@joergsonnenberger6836 And dont forget that in Germany, gravesides are usually not permanent, exact duration varies by graveyard. Thats how they solved the problem of needing more graves. IN theory, the lease on the grave can be renewed by family members.
What's the point of being buried anyway? It's just a waste of space _and_ calories. When I die I want to be fed to lions.
Sharks
T rexes.Sorry! Iam from the Jurassic world!
Die in Tibet. They take their dead to mountain tops and eagles feed on them. They are still doing this today.
@@slomo4672 Those Tibetans know their sh*t!
@@slomo4672 Vultures. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_burial
There’s a cemetery in Oakland that’s been there since 1902, it’s so bad headstones are literally blocking other headstones like people are being buried in the same spots
I used live in Colma. I lived across from a cemetery and the only thing separating my apartment building from the cemetery was a see through fence.
In Spain, vertical cemeteries are the norm. It's a little shocking to me that you see that as a brand new kind of burial possibility 😂
It's because Americans use British methods and apart from wealthy noble families its unheard-of to bury above ground in the Anglo-Saxon world except from in the swamps of Louisiana which were formerly French
I want to be cremated and casted in the Artic ocean.
Are there elevator operators but then they're actually ghosts?
This gave me "Buzzfeed Unsolved" vibes...
Fun fact: There's a golf driving range between two of the Colma cemeteries. It's right next to the pet cemetery.
That used to be the largest golf course west of the Mississippi. Little by little they sold parts of the course to the surrounding cemeteries. 10 years ago you could still play 9 holes. Sometimes a miss hit would land on a plot. Lol
I feel like when you live in sf you have heard stories about bodies getting found. Personally I have heard many stories
"They're coming for you Barbera"
Gleeson Library is on the campus of the University of San Francisco. When I was a student there a trench was dug for a new water line. They dug up a few tombstones. Several got cleaned up in the shower and provided dorm room decorations.
At Pelosi’s house for instance.
They moved the headstones but not the bodies. For instance the UCSF campus at Laurel Heights (which has a creepy eerie haunting howl in the elevator) was built on top of a graveyard where they just took all of the headstones and threw them into the Bay, but left the bodies. Same thing with the graveyard that used to be where the golf course now is near the Legion of Honor. San Francisco has no respect for the dead. Or the living
The mystery child found in a glass-lid coffin mentioned at the beginning was identified as Edith Cook, and you can read about her sadly short life and even see her stunningly preserved in her coffin here www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-miranda-metal-casket-girl-identified-20170509-htmlstory.html
I lived there and the cemeteries didn't bother me as much as all the car dealerships that seem to be everywhere in Colma.
We’re Dealin’ !
It’s so expensive in the Bay Area! The Cemeteries in Colma are now charging $15K for a plot. I just plan to be cremated. My family and loved ones can keep the $15K.
I wish you could just take matters into your own hands but thats illegal where i am so you are forced to shell out thousands for even the simplest burial.
My thoughts are that cemeteries will soon be a thing of the past.
Traditions and rituals will change like they always have.
Hopefully.
As long as humans exist, that's unlikely. This particular tradition is tens of thousands of years old. It's way older than any religion.
Though there are burial rights associated with religions, burying people has been a thing for 130,000 years according to archeological evidence. Far, far older than any religion.
Did you mean a thing of the passed
@@kevindignam8847 a “thing of the past” is correct wording.
I want to applaud the narrator for her change in intonation and tonality from her previous pieces. Thank you and keep up the good work.
Cemeteries are peaceful places. It sets one's mind at ease to walk around in them.
Very true. I live in Toronto and there's a large historic cemetery close to downtown called Mount Pleasant that's quite popular for people to walk around in (staying on the roads, obviously).
@@kutter_ttl6786 a fellow Torontonian here. Yes Mount Pleasant is beautiful, but I think it is filling up.
What's the point of being cremated and then having your ashes buried rather than scattered? 🧐
You don't have to have your ashes scattered if your cremated....
@@ShimDigler True. But, burying them kind of defeats the purpose.
Ashes should go to a cool garden. Make some flowers flourish.
Idk, I wouldn't mind. Put me in a cardboard urn and bury me, that way I'm just fertilizer. No different than ash.
@@PongoXBongo not exactly, because with a regular burial when the lease of the grave expires, the ground keepers have to remove the remains and those end up in a 'bone pit'. With ashes it will dissolve in the ground so there's nothing to clean up later on.
I've been to Colma. It's a beautiful, eerie and quirky place. Nothing but cemeteries, well manicured homes, casinos and green hills all around. Me and my dad spent an afternoon walking through, dusting off and righting toppled stones. My dad does this as a sort of meditation and respect for those who have been before us.
Lol if most of SF can't even afford to die. Then thus that mean they are immortal
I believe most San Franciscans choose getting cremated over getting buried.
Another great job, Christine! I loved that you put some spookiness in the narration hahahaha And I wanted to tell you that I admire you for being very articulate and in control of the pace of the video! Happy halloween
bruh I thought it said centimetres... I'm outta here
Why would you watch a video about centimeters anyway? nerd!
@@MarcLloydZ why wouldn't anyone? It's just wholesome and great. Kilometers of happiness.
Would you ever visit colma? Sound like someone isn’t from the bay area
Right? So out of touch.
Wow, only like 7.3 billion people are not living there.
@@yeaolon More like, check into matters a bit more before making a story on it. Basic journalism, stuff that few do anymore, sadly. Colma is a pretty busy area.
@@speedzero7478 not everybody is going to be necessarily interested about visiting there.
@@yeaolon didn't say they had to visit. This video made it like it's some spooky ghost town, when in fact it's not. Fake news, in other words. Maybe you're into the whole news distortion thing, personally I'm into facts, it's a busy area with half a million people next door. If you don't know about it, people are providing corrections, then you're not adding to the conversation. Wasting everyone's time in other words.
Everywhere you look, there's a corpse, there's a corpse, a corpse to hold on to. And when you're lost out there and you're all alone, a corpse is buried, right under your home. Everywhere you look.
Why anyone would want to be buried now a days is beyond me.
What about Memorial Parks and natural burials? An unpreserved body is placed into a burlap or paper sack with a surrounding of mulch or fertilizer and some tree seeds (my choice is Maple or Oak in my burial) and buried fairly shallow in the ground. As the body decomposes it feeds beetles and worms which feed the plants and trees. Place a plaque for a marker and let the tree grow. After 60 to 100 years the tree can be harvested, the plaque moved to a memorial wall, and a new body can be placed to start all over again.
As someone who used to be an avid cemetery photographer, I was sure to check out Colma the last time I visited San Francisco. I could have spent days there touring the various themes and styles, but only had enough time to cram it all into an afternoon.
SF Native here...all my loved ones remains are buried in Colma, California.
I’ve traveled three hours in one day JUST to visit Colma. It’s a beautifully arranged city.
So it sounds like they didn’t do a very good job of relocating bodies if buildings were built on top of graves that hadn’t yet been emptied... :(
3 of my Grandparents, 1 uncle are buried in Colma. My parents have purchased their plots there too. My Mom would take us to feed the ducks at Cypress Lawns when there were hundreds of them. My 2 Brothers and I worked for a florist where we would place flowers at Colma and the National Cemetery. I would go there blasting Salsa music from the florist van speakers while looking for the plots. This brought back memories.
Title: No Cemeteries
Me, who forgot the definition of cemetery: So there's no toilets there?
When I die, I want my body to be used for medical research and then disposed of in the most eco-friendly manner. Maybe, burn or allow bacteria to eat it up. I want to enjoy my life and I want people to remember me for what I did, but I don't see any point in preserving my dead body.
>allow bacteria to eat it up
That's called getting buried.
@@ancalyme I don't want to be buried with those useless caskets and grave stones. I mean I want my body to be disposed off the way you would dead cattle or other bio waste. No waste time, energy and space on protecting physical objects relating to the dead because of funny religious beliefs but rather use those resources for the welfare of the living.
"medical research" www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-bodies-brokers/
There's always the body farm where they watch you rot and take notes for CSI types to learn to solve crimes.
@@DelfinaKS I think the caskets purpose is so the people transporting putting you in the grave don't have to touch a corpse.
But yeah I agree that big ostentatious caskets are stupid.
The Victorians had bells on top of their coffins to protect against what they called 'active burials'.
I live in Colma. It's really not that big of a deal. You notice some cemeteries around, but it's more known now for foggy weather. The dug up bones are also no surprise -- people gardening around the UCSF Parnassus campus regularly dig up human bones. Many of the 3000 fatalities from the 1906 earthquake seem like they were just buried around the hospital. It's not that spooky.
Oakland has a very large old cemetery just across the Bay. There are many prominent San Franciscans buried there going back to the gold rush.
It's a beautiful area. I remember we use to have picnics. Nothing creepy. it's just peaceful and serein. My favorite is "Fabens" near Levi Strauss's tombe
I always go visit Joe
I want my body parts, to go for transplants, then to science what's left, and anything after that, in a mushroom suit.
I lived a few miles from Colma from '12-'19, just inside if SF. Daly City lies between SF and Colma, but I'd often hand to drive past it, or ride past it on the BART (Including going to SFO airport). It's a weird vibe. The predictable joke is *Colma's so great, people are just dying to get in "
Whoever is in charge of Cheddar is doing a great job.
Her videos are always interesting and non bias. Serious and informative, by far.. very far, the most professional and best reporter they have!
@Christine Beldon you suck at this. The pathetic acting is atrocious.
7:00 I like this not-so-perfect home scenario. Make me feel more identified in this situation.
This is common in most cities that predate automobiles. My hometown (Philly) there are hundreds of such similar stories. Ppl are still getting discovered...
In europe, that happens on a regular basis, that graves get unearthed and removed from the cemetary. Here we only rent a grave and as soon as there are no relatives anymore to keep paying for the grave, space is made available for new deceased bodies. Also, we just don't have so much space, that a grave could be forever.
8:15 Ha HAH! That street is literally three blocks from where I am currently sitting.
In the future, bodies should just decompose in biodegradable caskets, be cremated, or get donated to science. The idea of vertical cemeteries doesn't sit right with me.
7,800,000,000 people are alive right now. 7,799,997,000 of them will never be visited 25 years after dying. The idea of keeping dead people buried or cremated is foolish given today's population.
Cheddar trolling itself with that video length 🤣
Just yesterday went to Colma to return something at Kohl’s. Today I learned I visited a ghost town...
We really should just do away with cemeteries altogether. It’s really dumb to waste so much space for someone that’s literally not able to use it. Burn and spread everyone’s ashes. So much better.
An interesting place to visit is the San Francisco Columbarium, which is near Stanyan and Geary (I used to work for the Neptune Society that owned it at the time). It's an above ground "cemetery" holding urns with cremated remains. It was a beautiful place, containing many gorgeous and several irreverent urns.
The same thing happen in Seattle because of the Alaska Gold Rush. But when the Fire happen, they discovered a bunch of bodies and since then every major building project has to do all kinds of pre ground surveys. We've also found Native American burial grounds all around the Puget Sound Metro Area.
Homeless people would ruin them. They’d be sleeping on the graves in no time.
I'm hoping to set it up so my body goes to a body farm or a university. I want my carcass to have some practical use. 😜
Really liked this video... My great-great grandmother is there in Colma in one of the mass graves after what the city of San Francisco did to Laurel Hill - I was glad to see the crypts where they put the bodies and learned that they do know pretty precisely where the remains are for these folks and I do plan to go see her there in Colma one day soon.
Victorians used to regularly picnic in cemeteries. They were used like public parks.
That is how we still do in Europe. If you live near a cemetery it is your local park.
Land up in central valley or surrounding hills can be about $10K per acre. I already bought a piece to bury myself when the time comes.
'Yerba Buena' in spanish translates to 'good herb' aka dank 😂
Mint
I actually live in an apartment in Colma/Daly City that appears to be named after a guy called John Daly🤔🧐, a South SF town surrounded by cemeteries & a lot of old folks like myself..my residence is just a few blocks away, walking distance to nearby Woodlawn Cemetery, where my grandma, mom, & baby brother are resting today...thank you for putting this informative video together... I learned info that I'd never gotten in any public school💯🔥♍💎😷😎
I've visited Colma a number of times, and the cemeteries never bothered me.
Did they made Poltergeist movie based of this place?
No.
Finally I saw the face behind the voice. 🎉
Cutie too
Got a face for radio
I’d say Colma would be disturbing to visit, but then I remember that I love visiting Montreal, which sits in the shadow of a necropolis.
excellent work on research!
When I die, bury me inside the Gucci store.
I’m sure some cadavers were also dropped into the river.
That's why I think burying is stupid. If we kept track of every single burial, we would eventually run out of space for the living and every single plot of land would be used for the dead, which is stupid because they don't need it
I'm born and raised in San Francisco and my mother and other family members are buried in Colma. I go to Colma often.
There are many more bodies buried under the Palace of the Legion of Honor, and most of the bodies of indigents were just covered over. If you ever in Colma, you can visit the resting place Wyatt Earp.
I live pretty much on the site of one of the former graveyards that they moved next to the USF campus. My housemate has said they have felt ghostly spirits and seen things in their room. I personally haven't seen or felt anything, although my house has had an eerie feel forever pretty much, but think it might just be all the house drama I've dealt with for two and half years.
As a Londoner it makes me laugh people are freaked out by finding a single coffin during building work. It's quite common for big projects here to necessitate the removal and relocation of hundreds of sets of remains. Often these are known about in advance, but not every burial site is documented, and even those that are may be low on detail- the extent, the depth, the number of people interred.
Careful, you might rile up some Mericans
if you actually watched the video, there were way more bodies found on multiple projcts.
Fun fact: cement contractors are known to dispose of bodies. One came out and said he had cemented 32 bodies between foundations and city roads/construction.
In the UK cremation is the most common way of disposal of the dead. But "environmentally acceptable" burials are also popular where the dead are buried in woodland or other natural places with no or minimal grave marking and all burials are "natural" with biodegradable coffins and no artificial body preservatives. The maximum tenure for such a natural grave is 75 years - beyond which the land reverts to general use at that time.
I lived a few blocks away from Colm BART, on the border of Daly City and Colma. The cemeteries never phased me it was always apart of the suburb. Got family members buried in Cypress Lawn.
Very disrespectful! When a person wish to be buried. You have no right to remove it.
Used to live out in those former sand dunes as a kid (Sunset District). Yeah, old San Francisco's history is pretty creepy. I would not want to have a home sitting on one of those former cemeteries. They were just too haphazard with the removals.
6:00 “skeletons were sometimes dug up and used as Halloween decorations” says the narrator as the clip uses cheap Halloween decorations for actual skeletons
Put half my ashes in a New Year fireworks rocket and the other half in a LP with a couple of my favourite tunes.
I have family and a friend at Holy Cross in Colma and some other family at the National Cemetery in San Bruno
haha Colma is really cool, I used to live like a few block in Daly City and it was scary at first, but I then started playing a game called ingress and I started learning about really cool characters like Emperor Norton! Which blew my mind of how strong the media control over people and little by little I visit the cemeteries for fun and see what other stuff is around.
If you are ever the area I truly recommend going, visit some graves of people who haven't had visitors in centuries and learn a little about them.
I knew Colma was mainly dead people town but I didn't know how many, another cool fact that I know!
I live in Colma, they have a decent chunk of land but vertical grave sites have been a big new thing ive seen them build and we are squished between many other cities.
I just think in 200 or 300 years many US states/cities will just start doing away with all these burial plots no one even visits anymore. Eventually there will probably be a point that continuing to go this direction of permanent plots is not practical.
We use to drop acid and trip balls in the cemetery out in Colma ca. There was a huge owl that hung out on a replica of the Washington monument in cypress lawn cemetery it was a very large monument and at night the owl would case us thinking we were food I guess... always fun when your high on LSD...I❤️the 80’s
I was having a conversation with a cab driver many years ago about how much I enjoyed the homes in the Laurel Heights area - around Commonwealth and Clement. He balked and said he would never want to live in the area due to the history of the former graveyards. As if this area was like another Poltergeist situation in the movie - presuming the transportations of the graves had been done as carelessly!
Why are cemeteries still a thing anyway? Why would we take valuable pieces of city land and use it to store rotting corpses rather than using it for buildings or a public park?
I never went to Colma before but I been to Presidio and I did go to the cemetery in Presidio for Father's Day with my dad. It's a big area. ;)
I certainly would visit and added it to my list of places just now; sweet video
I talked to a gambler who said he’s so unlucky that if he bought a cemetery, people would stop dying
When I die I want to be cremated and have my ashes scattered in a beautiful peaceful place like a mountain of snow I don’t care about being remembered because I’ll be gone and I would want my family to move on and live their lives
Hello Cheddar, It seems your audio isn't doing well in this video. So much sibilance on the host's voice as well.
I hope you guys can hear that too. Nice video as always, anyway!
"Hey isn’t it time we stopped wasting valuable land on cemeteries? Talk about an idea who’s time has passed. Let’s put all the dead people in boxes and keep them in one part of town. What kind of medieval superstitious nonsense is that? I say plow these people up and throw em away. Or melt them down. We need that phosphorus for farming. If we’re going to recycle, lets get serious.” - George Carlin
Lots of interesting info!!! Thank you !!!