Back in the day the dead people were buried in the back of the churches (At least in Latin America) in 1820 appropiated a orchar in the back of a franciscan church to build a new city cemetery or, as it was call at that time, the North Cemetery.
In those times there were a lot of different things to do, but one that was constant in every mind, in every house, in every family was death.
The people get use to get ready to die, so the guys with money start thinking about a good way to leave the terrenal life.
That's how the Recoleta cemetery start to grow, full or rich people, politics, war heros and artist, famous people.
Today there are 4870 tombs in perpetuity in five and a half blocks of space. Stories of the dead people in there come and go, people see ghosts and that sort of things. There are some tombs in bad shape, bones show up from the caskets without any respect for the dead.
Today thousands of people visit the cemetery, is historic, there are huge tumbs of marble and glass, new and old, beautiful statues and structures to every style anyone can imagine.
Every tomb has the name of a family, usually all the family is buried in only one tomb, some are huge with four, five floors but most of them have at least two, there are two or three casket on the top floor and down the stairs there is more space for the rest of the family, no one can't enter to most of the tombs, they are close with keys or have padlocks to protect the dead but the doors are of glass or are in bad shape, you can see inside.
There are stories about the deads there, people like Eva Peron, a politic figure in Argentina whose body was embalmed, rape and was lost for years before coming to rest finally in a family tomb (the tomb with more visits in the cemetery)
There's also a history of a elder couple.. the husband fight with his wife and cut all financial aid to her, he had a tomb ready and we he die the wife decide to be buried with him, as a punishment for him eternally, and that on the top of the tombs there will be two statues giving the back to each other.
Today is a tourist attraction, i highly recomend the visit is an awesome and strange place to visit.