The remains of an unlikely confederation of aristocrats and scalawags are condensed in a Washington Heights graveyard in the shadow of THE CHURCH OF THE INTERCESSION. The imposing Gothic Revival chapel, at West 155th Street and Broadway, was consecrated in 1915 and designed by a self-taught architect named Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue. His body is entombed in the transept of the soaring sanctuary. Patchworks of stained glass diffuse sunlight, and the altar is inlaid with more than 1,500 stones collected from pilgrimage locations around the world. A cloistered walkway encloses an English-style garden, and a vaulted crypt resembles the Grand Central Oyster Bar without the tables.

A multicultural congregation worships at Intercession, an Episcopal church whose hilly surroundings can serve as a metaphor for the neighborhood’s ups and downs. Long before its streets filled with the sirens and blasting water hydrants that helped inspire Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical “In the Heights,” Washington Heights was wilderness. In the 19th century, summer villas rose as retreats for downtown Manhattan’s elite.

The Audubon Terrace complex was built on land owned by John James Audubon, who is buried in the TRINITY CHURCH CEMETERY AND MAUSOLEUM behind the Church of the Intercession. His swashbuckling image — open-necked shirt, flowing locks — is carved into the base of a towering Celtic cross. The monument also depicts a vulture, a buffalo, an elk, a bear and crossed rifles, symbolizing the sharpshooting skills that allowed him to paint subjects that would not otherwise hold still.

Wind-whipped paths lead past mausoleums, a few of them with fancy pillars. Even in death, some people enjoy better real estate than many of us. On a hillock in the southeast corner, Mayor Edward I. Koch is buried; a bench facing his tombstone is piled with stones, a Jewish custom.