I traveled this afternoon to Washington Heights, the neighborhood just south of mine, to check out Trinity Cemetery. It was once part of the farm of that painter of birds, John James Audubon, who’s now buried there. So is the guy who wrote “A Visit From Saint Nicholas,” and on Christmas Eve, carolers visit his grave.
Trinity reminds me of a smaller version of another great garden cemetery from the late 1800’s, Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland. There are steep, heavily wooded hills, crooked stairways of rough-hewn stones, twisty paths, an exquisite collection of both mausoleums and headstones, and a compact urban setting. It’s situated on a steep incline from Riverside Drive up to Amsterdam Avenue between W. 153rd and 155th Streets, with vantage points of New Jersey across the Hudson River. It’s a great time in general to be visiting cemeteries, with the leaves vibrant colors and acorns and buckeyes scattered on the ground, much to the delight of the frisky gray squirrels I saw.