Vince and Robert Gardino are born-and-bred New Yorkers whose love of history leads them through America's great cemeteries. One of their favorites - Woodlawn Cemetery - is located right in the city. They took Vivian Lee through it.

Not too long ago, Vince and Robert Gardino took me through Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, a sprawling 400-acre oasis of rolling hills, centuries-old trees and bridle paths whose inhabitants are famous, and some, infamous. 

"We've been doing this for 20 years," says Robert. 

When the brothers told me years ago that they wanted to produce a documentary series and publish a book about their coast-to-coast grave tripping – jaunts through cemeteries tracking down the who’s who of America and learning about their lives - I couldn't help but think, Why didn't I think of that? Their passion is rooted in the joy of discovery - or, re-discovery, as it were - of who makes American culture so great.

While unusual, they say their pursuit is not morbid. 

"It's like going to pay your respects. When you're doing so, you really re-live their life and career, and put everything in focus," explains Vince. 

"You get insight," I say.

"Correct," he replies.

Woodlawn's stately headstones or statuary mark the graves of more than 300,000 people whose names are still etched in the collective cultural memory.

Some are known simply by their surnames: Macy, Pulitzer, LaGuardia, Moses. Others bring a smile of gratitude: musician Celia Cruz, suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and the first black woman to become a self-made millionaire, Madame C.J. Walker.

The brothers tell me that in decades past, appreciating these lives, so well lived, was an American past-time that doubled as an outing into a beautiful public space. 

"Long before the age of television and movies and radio, families would go to visit the graves, visit cemeteries and had picnics," says Robert. 

How do the Gardino brothers reply when someone suggests their grave tripping is morbid? 

"It's A, respect for the person, and B, feeling a closeness to them as sort of a kinship," says Vince. "And you do tend to go see people that you want to see, people that you have an affinity for. I remember when I went to a Jewish cemetery where Al Jolson is buried, and then I wanted to go see where David Janssen was, because we used to see The Fugitive when we were kids.”

Robert and Vince show me the so-called Jazz Corner of Woodlawn, where many of America's jazz greats, including Miles Davis, Lionel Hampton, are buried. 

It's a beautiful day, with a light wind and the sun blazing, and it complements their storytelling. 

They describe Duke Ellington's decision to make New York City, and Woodlawn in particular, his burial ground. Nearly all his contemporaries then wanted plots in Woodlawn, to be close to him.

The brothers' aptitude for fine details in the lives of the celebrities they adore feeds my fascination for the universal human experience of preparing for death. They tell me how Ellington chose a plot for his whole family, even disinterring his parents from another cemetery and re-burying them here. I can't help but think The Duke would have approved of what we were doing: chatting away about how much thought he'd put into his own burial, how he changed the cultural landscape, and how his decision to be buried in New York City and not his native Washington, D.C. was a final act of self-love after a wildly successful life as a composer.

Some of the best grave tripping, Vince tells me, happens when you stumble upon a great figure in history while trying to find someone else.  

“I remember when we went to Canseco Cemetery (in Westchester County). We were going up the slight little incline and there was this big, big aboveground sarcophagus. Now when you go to cemeteries, everyone gives you a map of all the notables. There are a lot of times they leave people off. So I see this sarcophagus and it says "Frazee," and I'm like, 'Oh my gosh, I can't believe it’s Harry Frazee.' Harry Frazee was the owner of the Boston Red Sox who sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees, and the person he sold him to, Colonel Jacob Ruppert, was right down the hill. Jacob Ruppert is on the map.  But Harry Frazee is not.”

Here, Vince and Robert both chuckle.

“But I think Harry should be.  He played a big part in [the Babe Ruth affair].”

It’s these small connections that make grave tripping with the Gardinos worthwhile. I can’t believe, with all the stories to be discovered visiting grave sites, that one book from them will be enough.