The funeral of Brooke Astor had all the elements that make New York a great city.

It was a gathering of the powerful and wealthy, but also of the not so wealthy and not so powerful.

It was a religious ceremony that all in attendance respected and embraced.

It was a carefully orchestrated event that surged with the energy and style of the city.

And with its undertones of drama — Who will get control of her estate? Was that Whoopi Goldberg in the third row? Can you believe all those paparazzi on the steps of the church? — it was quintessentially New York: all caught up in the moment. This was not the time to discuss what this life has meant for the city and how it will influence future generations, though surely the city will find a way to answer these questions in the coming months. The New York Public Library tribute scheduled for September will likely be the first place these answers are addressed in a meaningful way.

What was clear yesterday afternoon, inside and outside of St. Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue, is that because of the press over the past year about her care and handling of her fortune, many in New York and indeed the world have come to admire Astor.

“She just represents New York, and the best things about it,” a self-employed Manhattan resident, Roger O’Brien, said.

“I thought she was lovely and elegant and did a lot of wonderful things in the city,” a retired nurse from Queens, Ann Steinkellner, said. She stood outside for the duration of the funeral, about an hour and 10 minutes.

Hundreds of people yesterday happened by accident upon her funeral — and decided to stay.

“I was just passing by, but when I saw what was going on, I realized I should stand here and give her a moment,” a consultant from Manhattan, Llewelyn Barton, said. “This is someone who did a lot of great things and we should celebrate people like that.”

A nurse from Manhattan, Marie Aromondo, passed by an hour before the funeral, en route to a hair dresser appointment. When she found out what the crowds were gathering for, she decided to return, after her hair was done.

Fifth Avenue was at its full summertime tourist bustle, which meant that many of those who gathered outside had heard of Astor from across continents and oceans.

“She was 105 — one of the last of her generation to have seen everything. She was a lady of the time,” a freelance writer who lives in London, Rupert Raby, said standing across the street from the church, wearing a Polo shirt and Cargo shorts.

“All of New York is here,” Michael Collins, a manager from Waterford, Ireland on vacation here, said. Mr. Collins had been walking up Fifth Avenue headed toward Central Park when he came upon the funeral and decided to stay. “I only know what I read: she was 105, and she donated money to museums,” Mr. Collins said. He had not yet been to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where Astor was a longtime trustee.

Tourists from Uruguay, Dora, and Jose David, were walking out of the Museum of Modern Art, down the street from the church, when they saw the crowds and decided to find out what was going on. Their first thought was that it was a wedding, a fair assumption since New York City buses rolling down Fifth Avenue did a good job of obstructing the view of the hearse parked on Fifth Avenue.

A bystander told the Davids that this was the funeral of Brooke Astor. “We didn’t know who that was,” Mrs. David said, “but then he explained, and so we are staying here, because this is Mrs. Astor, a great lady, who gave $200 million to the city.”

Mr. and Mrs. David stayed until the end of the funeral, taking pictures of the attendees as they scattered on the sidewalks.

The pallbearers for the casket were United States Marines, in deference to Astor’s father’s service in the Marine Corps.

“It was an honor to participate,” Sergeant Jeffrey Bentley Jr., of Brooklyn, who carried the casket into the church and down the aisle, said. “She was very nice and generous and she paid her dues.”

And what of those who knew her well?

“I think she had a long, wonderful, productive, joyous, and happy life and we all should be so lucky,” the founder of the Citizens Committee for New York City, Osborne Elliott, said on the steps of the Colony Club, where a reception for friends and family was held until the early evening. Those who attended the reception included Inger & Osborne Elliott, Norma Dana, Lewis Cullman, Duane Hampton, Schuyler Chapin, Marshall Rose,
Ellen Futter, Alexandra Schlesinger, Stephen Lash, Joe Armstrong, and Jamie Figg.

Recollections of Astor were vivid.

“We were very good friends for many years. We spent many weekends together in Northeast Harbor. It was just us. She’d make picnics and drive us around, clean everything up herself. She was always thoughtful and kind, the same with everyone,” an art critic, Rosamond Bernier, said.

There will be a permanent record of how people felt toward Astor on the day she was buried: in the hundreds of entries left in two guest books put out at the entrance to the church.

“Mrs. Astor, You were a wonder for all New York,” Melissa Sutphen of Manhattan wrote.

The sentiment of the day is perhaps best summed up in the poem printed in the back of the funeral service program. It is described a verse Astor wrote when she was 15:

I am not on earth today
But am soaring in the clouds,
Floating, flying
In the wide universe.