Woodlawn Cemetery

The Bronx

Woodlawn Cemetery is also a vast bucolic (albeit landscaped) refuge, but its vibe is entirely different Green-Wood: elaborate, often columned mausoleums make you feel at times as if you’re wandering through a scaled down amalgam of ancient Greece and Egypt.

Some of the mausoleums were designed by famous architects like John Russell Pope of Jefferson Memorial fame and the firm McKim, Mead & White, and are indeed impressive. Among the many names buried with impressive memorials, there’s the Ionic-columned tomb of Augustus D. Juilliard, industrialist and benefactor of the Juilliard School, and the Egyptian-style temple, flanked by two sphinxes, that houses F. W. Woolworth. (James Cash Penney is buried nearby, and although the Woolworth mausoleum is many times grander, Mr. Penney has the last laugh: his stores are still in business.)

Not all the famous were so ostentatious. The La Guardia family monument, near which the former mayor and airport namesake Fiorello is buried, is modestly tucked under two charming mini-evergreens. Duke Ellington and Miles Davis are across the road from each other; Mr. Davis’s grave is the more noticeable, engraved with a trumpet and a line of music from his piece “Solar.”