Hillside Cemetery — Joey Ramone

Joey Ramone is buried at Hillside Cemetery in Lyndhurst, New Jersey, under his birth name Jeffrey Hyman. He died on April 15, 2001, of lymphoma, at age 49 — the first of the four original Ramones to die, with Dee Dee following in 2002 and Johnny in 2004. He had been diagnosed in 1995 and spent the final years of his life in New York, continuing to write music and maintain connections with the musical community he had been part of since the 1970s, even as the Ramones' commercial moment had passed long before.

Joey's death prompted a wave of tributes that acknowledged something the music industry had perhaps not sufficiently acknowledged while he was alive: that the Ramones had been foundational in a way that required time to fully measure. The bands that cited the Ramones as an influence — virtually the entire landscape of punk, post-punk, and alternative rock — had collectively changed popular music more than most of the acts that had outsold them. Joey's voice, nasal and yearning and capable of unexpected sweetness, was the delivery mechanism for some of the most direct emotional communication in rock and roll: 'I Wanna Be Sedated', 'Rock and Roll High School', 'Baby I Love You'.

Hillside Cemetery is a Jewish cemetery in suburban New Jersey, a practical and unassuming burial ground where the grave marker is a simple headstone. Visitors who make the journey from New York note that finding the grave requires some navigation through the cemetery; the pilgrimage has a low-key quality that suits the Ramones' sensibility. A steady stream of fans leaves guitar picks, concert tickets, and small mementos at the grave.