By Tara Kyle
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
GREENWICH VILLAGE — A creepy new exhibit in Greenwich Village allows visitors to climb inside a coffin to pose for "postmortem" photographs of themselves.
The Merchant House Museum, which calls itself the city's most haunted residence, collaborated with a vintage photo group called the Burns Archive on "Memento Mori: The Birth & Resurrection of Postmortem Photography." The exhibit features postmortem photos from the Victorian era, as well as modern reinterpretations of the tradition.
Today, postmortem photography is generally reserved for crime scene units, but in the latter half of the 1800s, families did it as a way to remember loved ones, according to Eva Ulz, education and communication manager for the Merchant House Museum.
"It's not that they wanted a picture of a dead person. It’s that they wanted any pictures at all," Ulz said.
Photography didn't exist until the 1850s and, throughout the rest of the 19th century, remained unaffordable. So for many families, postmortem photographs served as a last chance to capture the likeness of a son, daughter, mother or grandfather.
"I don't find it creepy, actually," said Robert Petritti, a tourist and magazine editor based in Santa Fe, N.M., of the exhibit. "I think it's actually kind of touching."
Nonetheless, he said, "I think I'll be glad when I go back outside into the sunshine, back into 2010."
Robert Stahlschmidt, 30, a tourist from Germany who stepped inside a coffin to see what it felt like, said, "It's comfortable, but it's a little bit strange."
The exhibit will run through Monday Nov. 29 at the Merchant House Museum at 29 E. 4th St.
