WOODLAWN CEMETERY
Webster Avenue and East 233rd Street, The Bronx; 718-920-0500, thewoodlawncemetery.org
The best jazz club in town isn’t in the Village or in Harlem; it’s underground, in The Bronx. Woodlawn is home to the famous Jazz Corner, where a handful of music legends lie. Visitors get to see the shiny, trumpet-and-notes bedecked grave of Miles Davis, not far from the elaborate tombstone of Illinois Jacquet, engraved with likenesses of the musician and his favorite saxophone.
This year marks the 150th anniversary of the opening of the 400-acre cemetery at the end of the 4 train line.
You can also see some fine architecture, thanks to a few notable New York families. The Belmont family mausoleum, for example, contains an elaborate chapel with stained glass, intricate carvings of gargoyles and a tribute to Alva Belmont’s involvement in the suffragist movement.
There are many familiar NYC landmarks named for people nobody remembers now, says tour guide Susan Olsen, but “they’re buried here in Woodlawn.”
After a tour, Lynn McBride, 63, of Mount Vernon, NY, says she wants to be buried here, near her jazz heroes. “It brings back memories for me,” she says, “because I have a lot of their albums and CDs and listen to them all the time.”
Don’t miss: The Strauss mausoleum, a 1928 memorial to Isidor and Ida Strauss, owners of Macy’s department store, who died when the Titanic sank.
Famous residents: Herman Melville, Robert Moses, Irving Berlin, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington.
Tours: Customized group tours — on topics such as jazz legends, baseball heroes or silent film stars — are available on request for $15 per person, $10 for students and seniors. Call 718-920-1469 to arrange.
MORAVIAN CEMETERY
2205 Richmond Road, between Greeley and Prescott avenues, SI; 718-351-0136, moraviancemetery.com
Some of the first families that settled Brooklyn — the Stillwells, the Nostrands and the Cortelyous, to name a few — decided to hop over the water and spend eternity in the 113-acre Moravian Cemetery. They’re buried alongside 38 Civil War vets.
The four oldest tombstones on the grounds are made of brownstone, and the tour explains how materials used for headstones changed over time — from bronze, limestone, marble and more — each generation convinced that its model would last forever.
Don’t miss: The site of the original Vanderbilt mausoleum — before the deceased family members were moved into a private estate behind a gate, due to fear of grave robbers. Built in 1865, it was built by the same person who imagined part of the US Capitol building.
Famous residents: The Vanderbilts; Martin Scorsese already has a family mausoleum waiting for him (some of his family lived on Staten Island); Alice Austen, one of the country’s first and most prolific female photographers; and Elmer Dundy, owner of Coney Island’s original Luna Park.
Tours: 90-minute tours start at 2 p.m. Sundays and cost $10 per person. E-mail cemeteryguy@earthlink.net for reservations.
GREEN-WOOD CEMETERY
500 25th St., at Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn; 718-768-7300, green-wood.com
Before there was a Central Park, droves of families looking to escape the city hopped on the ferry and headed to this graveyard. Morbid as it may seem, Green-Wood was a respite from the dirty Victorian-era city, where families would picnic and have tea on the patch of land they had bought for, er, later use.
“This became an oasis for them,” tour guide Marge Raymond says.
Today, the sprawling, 478-acre grounds remain an oasis of sorts — essentially a gorgeous outdoor sculpture garden that happens to have people buried underground, with massive mausoleums, elaborate monuments and ornate gravestones.
On a tour, you’ll learn that the land was the site of the Battle of Brooklyn and how the park — the highest point in Brooklyn, at 200 feet above sea level — was formed by glaciers.
“I had seen other cemeteries in the US that just have things underground,” says Isabel Marshall, 60, who was on a tour while visiting from Chile. Green-Wood, she says, was “beautiful sculptures and a beautiful site.” Half of the tour takes place on a trolley, the other half by foot.
Don’t miss: Manhattan skyline views; Minerva, the companion to the Statue of Liberty (which is in its sight line).
Famous residents: Frank Morgan, the Wizard of Oz in the 1939 film; Bill the Butcher of “Gangs of New York” fame; artist Jean-Michel Basquiat; and Leonard Bernstein (fans leave bottles of whiskey, cigarettes and other items for the composer).
Tours: Historic trolley tours take place all year, every Wednesday and the second and fourth Sunday of each month; 1 p.m., $15.