All posts filed under: Historic Preservation

A Few (More) Observations from the Road

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Two years ago today, I was blogging during a tour of the American Southwest and made a few short observations from the road.  This year we’re touring New England and I have a few more observations to share. Observation #1:  Our family tends to gravitate to the food choices in the book 1000 Places to See Before You Die. I wrote a few days ago that we visited Pepe’s Pizza in New Haven.  Today we found Lickety Split ice cream store in Williamstown, Massachusetts.  I’m not sure how long our waist-lines can stand this focus of our travel.  Luckily, I’ve also found the fitness room every day along the way. Observation #2:  The Porches Inn in North Adams (pictured above and also listed in 1000 Places) is just about the coolest property of the 200+ hotels that are members of Historic Hotels of America (HHA).   The twins and I stayed here about 2 1/2 years ago, and we couldn’t wait to get back and show it to Candice.  As the marketing materials describe it, …

Architecture Old and New

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Too often college campuses can be poorly designed landscapes for a hodgepodge of mediocre buildings.  So when you come across good – or great – buildings in the academic setting it is a real treat. On this year’s vacation/college tour, we’ve seen some of both, but I’m pleased to say we’ve been fortunate in visiting colleges that through the years have been thoughtful about their buildings and their settings. We’ve now become old pros at the campus tour.  Andrew and Claire head off with one tour guide so they aren’t intimidated (if they ever are) by having the folks in the same group.  Candice and I then follow a second guide.  Candice pays attention to what the guide is saying, while keeping her eye trained on the design and maintenance of the buildings.  I take pictures of the architecture and any landscape feature that strikes my fancy.  We all come together at the end and share what we’ve seen and heard. Hey, it works for us! At the end of week one, we’ve seen some …

The people and places on Main Street

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There are few things I like better than walking along a great Main Street. For the past two days, I’ve been lucky enough to walk around four terrific Main Streets:  Middletown, Connecticut; Amherst and Northampton, Massachusetts; and tiny Red Hook, NY. You can pick up life lessons on Main Street – like the bumper sticker I saw on a car parked along Northampton’s Main Street this morning:  Just say NO to Negativity. You can also meet very interesting people.  While taking photos around Northampton, I was approached by a resident of the streets of the city.  He must have seen my inner preservationist (sometimes people who look at the world a little differently have great powers of observation), because he told me he liked to work for the “hysterical society.”  He then proceeded to point out the historical courthouse (where Calvin Coolidge first practiced law) – a very nice 1885 building seen in the photo above. My new friend then pointed in the opposite direction and identified the Northampton City Hall.  “See those turrets?” he …

Two Years and There’s Still More to Come

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I began writing More to Come… two years ago as a way to keep friends and loved ones updated during a family trip out west.  As I wrote I found I enjoyed capturing not only experiences from travels, but also observations about books I was reading, music I was hearing, or simply life.  The feedback was also positive (probably helped by my admonition in the “About” section that if you didn’t like what I was writing you should “get your own blog”). Two years later I find myself on another vacation with the family and More to Come… has over 300 posts to date.  So look forward to some more vacation reports.  I should warn you that it is that type of vacation that hits families with teenagers:  the college visits.  We’re in the northeast for this trip, and while I won’t bore you (or embarrass my kids) with litanies of schools visited and reactions to the tours, I will post a few stories and photos  along the way of great architecture and interesting people …

Save ALL Of Ellis Island

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Last week I was in New York and had the opportunity to tour the South Side of Ellis Island. It was my first trip to this evocative place where as many as 40% of Americans can trace their initial experience in this country.  From the Save Ellis Island website, here are the basic facts: The Ellis Island Immigration Station opened on Ellis Island in January of 1892. It served as the primary immigration center for the United States from 1892 until 1954 when it was closed. Facilities were built to house and feed immigrants while they waited for their identification papers to be processed. A state-of-the-art hospital complex treated and cured most sick immigrants in order for them to be permitted entry into the country. More than 12 million immigrants passed through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1954, reaching a peak of 1.25 million in 1907. It has been estimated that 40% of Americans today can trace at least one ancestor’s entry into the United States through Ellis Island. It is the early twentieth-century state-of-the-art …

Summer Saturdays are the Best

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The joyful photograph at the top of the post – which comes from the wonderful photo/blog Real People Eat Local (check it out for their delicious pictures) – is a perfect encapsulation of our day.  Summer Saturdays really are the best! Today started relatively early (by Saturday standards) as Andrew had to be at the Cathedral for a choral practice at 8 a.m.  Our car is in the shop this weekend waiting for a leaky fuel pump to be repaired (one never wants to smell gasoline in your home garage), so Candice, Andrew and I had to juggle our schedules around the availability of Zipcars – the wonderful car sharing service we swear by.  Because we have some 25 Zipcars within about 3 blocks of our house, we picked one up (a little Honda) and were on our way by 7:30.  Urban living is great! Swim team meets the past six weeks have their own charm, but they have disrupted the Saturday morning ritual Candice and I established this year.  So we were pleased to …

Twenty Dollars Per Gallon

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The pace has picked up with my day job, so More to Come…the DJB Blog will go on sabbatical while I focus on other priorities.  But before that happens, I want to share with you the work of Chris Steiner, an engineer-turned-journalist who has been writing about society’s relationship to energy. I had the opportunity to spend time with Chris recently while he was  speaking at the National Main Streets Conference.   A writer for Forbes and The Steiner Post, Chris is the author of a thoughtful book entitled $20 Per Gallon:  How the Inevitable Rise in the Price of Gasoline Will Change Our Lives for the Better. This 2009 work takes the “inevitable rise” in oil prices over time and imagines how each $2 increase in the price of a gallon of gasoline will change our lives. Perhaps counter-intuitively, he sees the change as largely positive.  The rise is inevitable because oil is a finite resource and demand worldwide is escalating at an unsustainable pace.  For instance if China – which now has 4 …

A View from Home Plate

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I’ve been to countless Major League Baseball games in my life, beginning with Wrigley Field in 1964 to see the Cubs vs. the Cardinals.  But I’ve never seen a game in the front row behind home plate. Until last night. Thanks to a local friend and colleague, who heard of my plan to visit all the MLB ballparks, a group of 12 – in town for today’s launch of Partners in Preservation and a National Trust Council meeting – headed out to Seattle’s  Safeco Field last evening to see the hometown Mariners take on the Oakland A’s.  Kevin told us the seats were great.  He wasn’t kidding. On a beautiful cool evening we saw the Mariners top the A’s 4-2.  And when I say we saw it, we took it all in from the first few rows behind home plate.  You know the seats…the ones you see every night on television when the pitcher glares in on the batter.  I started out four rows back on the first base side, only a few bat-lengths away …