By: Dennis Duggan

Obsession brought them together in life. Then tragedy linked them in history. Now, in a twist of fate, they are entwined forever in death. City Councilman James E. Davis and Othniel Askew. Davis was buried yesterday in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. Four days earlier, the ashes of Askew, the man who killed Davis, were secretly placed in a mausoleum in the same cemetery.

It is one of the paradoxes of death, you never know who your neighbors will be and even if you did you can't do anything about it.

Green-Wood is filled with the famous and infamous. Mobsters are cheek to jowl with maestros and high- ranking politicians.

Davis, who fought to reform how the Brooklyn Democratic Party selected judges, is buried just a few yards from another Democratic reformer, Abram S. Hewitt, who was mayor in 1887 and 1888.

I spent most of yesterday at the graceful cemetery, which is said to have been the model for the layout of Central Park. Lily-pad laden ponds, hills and plenty of greenery and flowers make Green-Wood seem more like a garden than a graveyard.

But make no mistake. It is a graveyard.

When I asked if I could see the urn with Askew's ashes, I got an unexpected answer. "The family doesn't want that disclosed," said Kenneth A. Taylor, vice president of operations at the cemetery.

Taylor said there have been incidents in which graves have been desecrated and bodies have been dug up by people seeking extreme revenge.

There are about 640,000 people buried in Green-Wood, including such mobsters as Albert Anastasia and Joey Gallo, both of whom were ambushed by people they knew and trusted.

And there are many others who, like Davis, died at the hands of assassins, including William Poole, whose headstone reads "aka Bill the Butcher."

Daniel Day-Lewis played a character based on Poole in the film "Gangs of New York." Poole was shot in 1855 in a Broadway hotel, and when he drew his last breath said, "Goodbye boys, I die a true American."

An imposing monument presides over the grave of Lt. Col. Edgar Addison Kimball, a Union officer who was shot in 1863 by Col. Michael Corcoran, a Union officer who was jealous of Kimball's military success.

I rode yesterday with field supervisor and Green-Wood employee Jimmy Dines, who ticked off one famous name after another.

William Marcy "Boss" Tweed. Leonard Bernstein. John Matthews. Gov. DeWitt Clinton.

Dines, a former Navy man who lives in Staten Island, has worked at the cemetery for 35 years and has already chosen a plot for himself and his wife, as well as his brother-in-law and his wife.

"I want to be cremated even though I am a Catholic and at one time they didn't want us to be cremated," he said.

But Dines is following a recent trend of more cremations, although the vast preponderance of people who lie in the cemetery are buried in coffins.

And today Davis, who had his cap set on a glowing political career, and Askew, who wanted that career so badly he killed for it, lie just yards apart.

There are many sad stories etched on the tombstones that rise above the 22 miles of streets that wend through hill and dale in this charming cemetery. On one tombstone, a young son is told "Darling George, Bye Bye till Mama and Papa Come."

A tombstone has yet to be placed on Davis' grave, where yesterday workers swept leaves off a green felt covering next to the graveside.

It's doubtful that either Davis or Askew would have wanted to be neighbors. But death leaves its victims no options.

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