At 'Funeral' for Barton F. Graf, Alumni Send Off a Creative Agency Like No Other

A suitably surreal yet sentimental celebration for a shop that never played it safe

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A New Orleans-style marching band played a frenetic swan song around an open coffin—containing only a dead rat—as Barton F. Graf mourned its closure at a send-off event Thursday befitting of the agency’s oddball reputation.

Dozens of former staffers and friends of the agency attended the mock funeral, held in a lower Manhattan event space, where they spent an emotional evening trading their wildest memories from the creative shop’s nine-year run.

“I’m feeling really sad and really happy at the same time,” Barton F.

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