How one indie funeral home in Brooklyn is trying to repackage death

After two decades in video production, where her clients included fashion and cosmetics brands, Erica Hill did something radical in November 2021: She opened a funeral home in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

It wasn’t just a career-180 for Hill; it was an unusual move, period. Funeral homes have been declining in numbers in New York and nationwide for decades.

“If you had told me 10 years ago that this is what I’d be doing, I’d tell you you were absolutely insane,” said Hill, one morning last month in her funeral home, called Sparrow.

“I have no interest in dying,” she said, “but I've had enough loss in my life that it's just unfortunately a reality and every single person on this earth is gonna die.”