Excursions Part 2 - Historical

When I thought about how to blog our Excursions there was enough content to split into at least two posts.  Hiking seemed one theme, and historic sites another.  But of course travel is never so neatly cleaved.  Historical sites have great beauty even if there's no hiking, and our hiking excursions traversed historic footprints as well.

Historical Excursions

HISTORICAL TRIPS
Robin's and my first excursion together was to meet Mark, a graduate school friend of Robin's who's since has become a dear friend of mine as well.  Mark is very well read, has similar dark humor, and a love of astronomy and politics.  He is also a repository of music trivia.  Mark frequently travels from his home on Vancouver Island to the East Coast for long stays. He only periodically has to be in NYC so he stays in a quintessential New England town, New Canaan, CT where he and his family previously lived (along with Martha Stewart and others).  All three of us being architects, he arranged for us to make the pilgrimage to Phillip Johnson's Glass House.

Classic International Style Glass House

Interior view overlooking manicured "natural" landscape

The property has many Phillip Johnson foibles

Architecture is a great hobby!

Another trip I've planned several times, but never executed, was up the Hudson River Valley for "Leaf Peeping in New England.  Monitoring web sites to determine the optimum time for color, I decided this year was October 9 - 11.

Leaf Color progress for our trip.

We invited Teigan to join us since we travel well together and, like her mother, she's a bit of a work-a-colic so hadn't gotten out of the city yet.  On Friday I rented a car at my now favorite spot on the UWS and headed across GW bridge, though this time we headed north along the Hudson on the Palisade Parkway.  After a few scenic overlooks we got caught in our first deluge here.  This was not showers or drizzle of the PNW, but a true frog-strangler and gulley-washer.  It came down so hard that the windshield wipers on high speed could not keep up.  Robin wanted me to pull over, but we continued to make progress, albeit at a much reduced speed.

View from the Palasaides down the Hudson to GW Bridge

Before the Deluge 

Fortunately, by the time we reached our first stop, Hyde Park, we drove out of it and were back to just overcast and a light drizzle.  Hyde Park is the location of two National Parks and historic homes of FDR and Vanderbilt.

Both FDR's and Vanderbilt's home are located on an original Crown land grant from the 1600s that extended from the Hudson to Connecticut.  FDR's father bought the property and enlarge an early nineteenth century farmhouse to the Italianate style seen today.  FDR was born here and, although it was always owned by his mother Sara, lived here most of his life when not in government provided lodgings.  He loved the property with its view across the Hudson, and stayed here frequently throughout his presidency; entertaining Kings and Queens, Churchill and many other heads of state.  He created the first presidential library on the grounds, and oversaw its construction.  Every president since has a library built in their home town.  Prior to this tradition presidential papers were haphazardly left to heirs and many were subsequently lost.  Additionally, he and Eleanor are buried on the grounds.

FDR's Hyde Park home in Italianate style

First Presidential Library

The Vanderbilt house was not built by the famous steamship and railroad entrepreneur Cornelius Vanderbilt but by one of his profligate grandsons.  Despite amassing the largest fortune of its time, all grandchildren spent the inheritance like a US aristocracy they aspired to be.  Though they left magnificent edifices including this site, several in Newport, R.I., and the Biltmore in Ashland, by the fourth generation they were all bankrupt.  Anderson Cooper of CNN is a descendent.  His money is his own.  "Rags to Rags in three generations" holds true.

Frederick Vanderbilt's house in Hyde Park

Classic English Country "man-cave"

Just come by for Tea.

After visiting these two historic homes on a grey day we headed north in earnest, passing through Connecticut and Massachusetts, and into Vermont.  We stayed in the charming New England town of  Manchester, VT in the Green Mountain National Forest.

Classic hotel in Manchester (we had drinks here, but didn't stay)

Saturday dawned clear and crisp.  Perfect for a lazy day of driving, photography, and taking in the splendid mosaic of nature in the fall.  We understand from the locals that this year was average for color.   Like wine, the best color is based on the terroir, and a quick cold snap at the start of fall.  So, like at home, we enjoyed a nice $15 bottle of fall color.  More than good.

Teigan and Robin at Fall Fair

with their Maple Syrup jugs

Some kids never grow up.  

The three leaf-peepers at a Vermont Covered Bridge

Norman Rockwell

(We also visited his birthplace)

Beautiful - leaves aren't bad either

Rural (isn't it all ) country side

During this election year, particularly with people feeling the Bern from Vermont, my last observation is about this state's fierce independence.  The state has the second smallest population, is the most homogeneous (more than 94% white), and the most contrarian in their voting record (one of only two states that did not vote FDR for any of his four terms - among other examples). I can only summarize based on my limited interaction that they have generationally struggled hard with physical labor (logging, maple syrup, subsistence farming), in a difficult climate; relying on themselves, and rejecting consumerism.  I think that makes one self-reliant and independent of thought.  Not a deep analysis, but the best I can fit into a word-limited blog.

During another of Robin's business trips back to Seattle (or was it Nashville?), I decided to take a trip down memory lane - and stretch for another geographic landmark.  Through the 70s my college girlfriend and I had a long distance relationship for several years after; before the inevitable.  She worked for the National Park Service and was stationed in the Everglades, FL; Fire Island, NY; Olympic National Park, WA; and Glacier Bay, AK.  I managed to visit her at three of the four locations.  One of my favorites was Fire Island off Long Island. I took the train out and stopped at Patchogue, LI to see it again.  Unfortunately, the park ferry wasn't running as the park was closed for the season.  So I took my obligatory photo of the train station, rented a car, and drove to the eastern most end of Long Island - Montauk.

Train Station on Long Island

During my drive I stopped in the Hamptons to discover that while the Dutch settled NY city, the first British settlement in NY state was at the Hamptons.  While the homes are beautiful and the landscape serene, one has to conclude that living here in these oversized houses is merely for status.  Why in the world would one live 3 hours by train while working in Manhattan.  Don't get me started on the guys working, while the family stays in the Hamptons.

Hedges blocking any view of the estates in S. Hampton

Estates in S. Hampton along the inlets from the Atlantic

At the far eastern end of Long Island is an eighteenth century lighthouse.  Built while George Washington was President, the lighthouse stood a football field from the crashing surf.  I was impressed that their plan considered erosion and projected a 200 year lifespan. They pretty much hit it right on.  Now a historic site, rockery and drainage have recently been installed to protect it from further erosion, but it survived its expected lifetime.

Montauk Lighthouse at Eastern most end of L.I.

Attempting to relearn watercolor painting.  Jeesh, difficult.

Largest surfcasting destination

The town of Montauk was mostly shut down as their main business now is guided fishing during the tourist season.  Only one restaurant was open - and that was bad pizza.  While out at land's end I popped our friend Mark from CT a note and by golly he had a bit of music trivia.  He suggested I check out the Memory Motel in Montauk as it was made famous in a Rolling Stone song.  But said it was one of their worst songs.

Memory Motel.  Why they'd write a song about this dump is past me.

Final bit of trivia, after the slaves on the ship Le Amistad revolted, instead of heading back to Africa, the Spanish crew misled them and sailed north landing near Montauk.  They were captured and the Owner claimed them as his slaves while abolitionists claimed them free.  The event is significant in the movement to abolish slavery in the US.  The Supreme court decision was they were free men and not slaves having never made it to the US.  They returned to Africa.

For my birthday we decided to go to Washington D.C.  Wow, so much to write about this, but I'll leave it to pictures.  I'll just say that four days was clearly not enough.  While at this time in life I wouldn't want to live there, it does needs a minimum of a week and preferable two weeks to enjoy all its offering.  Two highlights.  If you go be sure to see the Newseum right on the Federal Triangle.  Also, check out the Ford Theatre where Lincoln was shot.  They still run plays there so any tours are scheduled around rehearsals and performances.  Across the street in the apartment where Lincoln was taken and where he died early the next morning is also a fabulous museum for any Lincoln buff.

Grand Central Terminal before heading to Washington D.C.

AIA lobbying headquarters in D. C.  An embarrassment of architecture.

Vietnam Memorial

Reminders from Veteran's Day the day before

Haunting Korean Memorial

M.L. King's Memorial

Quotations are moving, the sculpture less so

The Pentagon where Flight 77 struck

Memorials to Victims of the Pentagon Attack 

Benches are oriented in direction of flight path

looking toward plane or occupant victims.  

Changing of the Guard

Unknown Soldier

Washington Monument and Arlington Cemetery 

American Indian Museum

Newseum

Best non-art museum

Lincoln's Chair in Ford Theater.

Gun was 6" from his head 

View towards the President's booth

15,000 books have been written about Lincoln.

This is a tower of them in the Apt where he died.

Georgetown Architecture

George Washington University

After our dinner with Barack.

Before we return to Seattle we'll have one more excursion referenced above.  While the kids are here for x-mas we are going to take the train out to Newport R.I. to see some of the other fantastic homes of the Gilded Age.  The summer "cottages" of the wealthy from NYC after Saratoga became so yesterday.

Excursions Part 1 - Nature

A short drive from one of the most urban cities in the world the landscape is pastoral and sylvan; covered with footprints of our history.  

When I left Seattle in 1980 to attend Graduate School in Milwaukee my plan was to move to the east coast after I finished.  I grew up in Chicago, explored seven years in the PNW, and wanted to experience all the nature and history of New England and New York.  Alas, love had other priorities.  Amy, my Seattle girlfriend then, joined me my second year at school.  When I finished in 1983 we returned to Seattle instead of going east.  However, we did highlight more "blue highways" and states on my dog-eared Rand McNally road atlas.

But the desire remained.  There is so much out there (here) that was older, and different, from the West.  More than 3-day business trips or week long visits can provide.  Part of my plan during this four month "sabbatical", was to take excursions from the city to these refuges of nature and history.

New York and New England

NATURE
My first trip was to the Adirondacks.  This park in upstate NY is larger than Yellowstone and Yosemite combined.  I planned to go when Robin was away on business so our time together would be focused in the City.  The good news was I'd still have a companion.  This past January when my good friend Mark and I took a trek to Patagonia we met Bill Lawler.  A retired IT salesman and former ballet dancer with a laconic public personality that becomes voluble with friends.   The three of us hit it off.  (See first blog for photo of Bill with Mark and me in Patagonia). Bill is from the west coast, but now lives in NYC where he shepherding his gifted son Diego to become a fashion designer. (That's a longer story, but at 16 Diego is attending Parsons college here in NYC and interning with Brandon Maxwell - renown stylist for Lady Gaga and recent fashion designer for the stars).

On September 21st, the autumnal equinox, I rented a car on the Upper West Side to minimize driving in Manhattan.  In a few short blocks we were on the H. Hudson parkway to the George Washington Bridge and crossed into New Jersey.  There we drove four and a half hours due north along the Hudson River, back into NY, past Albany, and into upstate New York wilderness.  We stayed at a classic Adirondack lodge called Ampersand Resort on Saranac Lake.  It was a scene out of "On Golden Pond".  The nearest town of substance is Lake Placid, of the 1980 Winter Olympics, about fifteen minutes away.  We arrived in the off-season and things were shutting down.  We were the only guests at the resort, and restaurants closed early.  The fall weather was clear, cool and crisp; and the leaves on the trees had just a breath of color condensing on them.

Saranac Lake from Mt. Baker Summit 

Afternoon hike on day of our arrival

Our "resort" is at far right on lake

Lake Placid at Sunset

Bill and Bill on Summit of Ampersand Mt. 

Saranac Lake in background

Trail to Algonquin Peak

Second Highest in State

Bill L descending steep granite slabs off Algonquin Peak

Shoreline of Ampersand Resort and Saranac Lake

Motoring "On Golden Pond", Saranac Lake

Lodge at Ampersand Resort before hauling boats for season

The Adirondacks are part of the Canadian Shield, the basement rock of North America about 3.5 billion years old - about the age of Earth.  Once sporting peaks over 10,000' and higher (some say higher than the Alps or Himalayas), glaciation and erosion has worn them down like old dogs teeth.  Now the park contains only rounded hills, the highest not reaching 6,000'.

From Summit of Algonquin

Note landslides from Hurricane Sandy exposing 

Canadian Shield granite basement rock 

For my second adventure into nature, I literally made a last minute decision to visit long time friends in Maine.  When I found out Robin was going to be tied up for multiple days/evenings in a conference here in NYC I emailed David and Sandy to see if they were free - that evening!  Fortunately Sandy was online at the time and enthusiastically said yes.  Half hour later I was on the train to Newark for a flight to Portland, Maine where they picked me up.

I've known David and Sandy since the mid 70s when they lived in Seattle.  They now live on Arrowsic Island just off Bath, Maine, about 45 minutes from the airport.  When they left Seattle they bought 90 acres on this island with a 1736 salt box house - in original condition.  They are the second owner occupants from the original builder's family!  When I visited them in 1979 I helped David survey a foundation for a new mortise and tenon barn for their flock of sheep.  Ever since then I've always enjoyed my visits to this beautiful and historical place.

1736 Salt-box house - from original entry road

Sandy walking their 90 acres

Cat and tombstone in family cemetery on site

Besides our social activities back then, David and I were active climbers.  One particular climb turned into an adventure in 1977.  We planned to climb two peaks, with an intervening ridge traverse, at Snoqualmie pass, all in one day.  While we were successful, we needed every last minute of twilight to complete our final rappel off the mountain.  We hiked out with headlamps in the dark on the longest day of the year.  The girls back home, being nervous about the late time, had called mountain rescue.   MSR advised the only thing they could do at that hour was to see if the car was still in the lot.  We had just left after 11:00 pm - there were no cell phones then to advise we were fine.

For my brief stay David arranged an impromptu hike on the only coastal mountains in Maine.  The hike, about an hour north, was in a state park very similar to Tiger Mountain in Issaquah, WA relative to elevation gain, distance, and the network of trails from all sides of the summit.  Like the spokes of a wheel, a slightly different trail down from the summit can lead to the other side of the park. It reinforced how on even a simple hike, if you are unfamiliar, things can get confused.  After discovering our loop route was contouring in the wrong direction, and not wanting to go back up and over, we added a couple more miles to reach a road and then hitched a ride back to the car.  This being fall it was twilight by the time we got back home.  Sandy had to remind us that things haven't changed after almost 40 years.  But she only called our cell this time.

Bill(s) in Panorama on hike

(Note Bill is on Left and Right)

David at Summit - we conquer again!

Islands in Gulf of Maine, Atlantic Ocean

My final trip before the snow flies I again relied on my friend Bill for companionship.  This would be a day-trip to the Catskills, only a two and a half hour drive from the city.  NYC's water supply comes from the Ashokan dam and reservoir in the Catskills. Those who watched Ken Burn's Civil War may remember the haunting waltz throughout the documentary: Ashokan Farewell.  Click here to listen - it's worth it.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDkQ4FeooLA

The Catskills and Adirondacks are similar in that they are soft, round, rolling hills knitted together by long fingers of lakes.  Unlike the PNW, NY forests are primarily deciduous, which makes for such fabulous quilts of fall color draped across the landscape.  In addition, these trails are rocky.  In many ways more difficult hiking because of the constant checking of balance and potential to twist an ankle.  We did this final day-hike in mid-November.  The trees were bare and sparse. As we started on the trail, thin ice covered puddles of water, and wet leaves on the trail crackled underfoot from the overnight frost.  Though crisp and clear, the air was noticeably cold in the shade all during the day.  Back at the car by 3:30 the low glancing light told us winter is finally coming.

Bill and rock escarpment

Last of the Mohicans on Giants Ledge

Frozen puddle at noon

Very rocky terrain.  Hard to tell, but this trail is UP

A Country of Immigrants

It took one-hour to go from New York to Ukraine.

From our loft in SoHo we walked a couple blocks and boarded the Q line to Brooklyn. We clattered and rocked through the dark underground of Lower Manhattan, submerged beneath the East River, looped through subterranean Flatbush and Prospect Park, and finally emerged into daylight. There our train clickity clacked above residential streets SE toward Brighton Beach on the Atlantic - just north of Coney Island.

Subway to Brighton Beach

In less than an hour, we were transported to "Little Odessa" as it is called. The signs were "we are not in Kansas", and all in Cyrillic.

Theatre Poster of Upcoming Event

Women, short and round, many with head scarves, waddled on stocky stockinged legs pulling their wire grocery carts to speciality shops. We strolled into a few. Slavic sausages and bloody organ meats, all variety of smoked fish, shelves of sturgeon caviar, and rows of unrecognizable goods described in untranslatable words written with indecipherable letters.  In this long, narrow shop the center isle was filled with pre-made salads and slaws, while steam-tables kept casseroles and cooked meals hot.

Home Cooked Home Food

Patrons circled clockwise around the island filling their take-out pans with familiar home cooked foods. Some I recognized from my youth in Chicago, but Robin was filled with amazement.  Wanting to engage in this foreign place I asked one patron what "spasibo" (the only Russian word I recognized being said).  He struggled to understand my pronunciation, then struggled to reply in English "Dank-ooo".  Thank you too, I replied.  We truly felt transported to another country.

This visit to Brighton Beach reminded us that the city's history of immigrants is still present in America today. 

Previously we visited the Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side, one of the best non-art museums in New York City.  It showcased housing that accommodated the largest mass migration in the world.  Today 60 Million Americans can trace their roots to an immigrant relative who lived in a tenement within the seven block radius of the museum.  That's one out of six Americans!  Originally built by German immigrants for new German immigrants arriving in the 1860s and 1870.  Each unit consisted of one 8' x 8' bedroom, one similarly sized living room, and a smaller kitchen/dining between. There was no electricity, no refrigeration, no water, and no toilet - three outhouses were located in the back yard - next to the well - for a 5 story, 16 unit building.  While the men usually did physical labor for day-wages, the woman maintained the house; hauling groceries and water up several flights of dark stairs, and taking refuse down to the street. When you walked the streets you needed to be aware of what's above you.  After all that up and down residents often tossed grey water, garbage, and chamber pot contents, out the window.  Combined with the excrement of 200,000 horses that transported goods and people around the city, gave New York a foul odor, and a crucible for disease.

Original Tenement, now a Museum

One unit is restored to 1860s, and one left as found in the 1960s

By the 1920s tenements were synonymous with slums.  With increased immigration, each unit now housed several Italian or Irish families in less than 300 sf, smaller than a standard hotel room today.  A twin bed would accommodate four persons sleeping head to toe.  To solve the squalor, city planners revised building codes for the health and safety of residents.  Knowing that the requirements were economically impossible for owners of old buildings to afford, it also enabled the city to condemn the buildings for residential use.  This forced residents to move to new low-income housing built further north and east.  By 1930s the tenements were empty of residents and falling apart.

While today the city's neighborhoods are more a stew of cultures as previously discussed, there are still pockets of immigrants, like Brighton Beach, where they huddle together, yearning for a better life.  Little Italy, west of the Lower East Side, is probably one of the oldest ghettos in NY, but frankly more a tourist attraction now.  The descendants moved out of Manhattan to the other Boroughs, especially the Bronx where a new "Little Italy" sprung up.  However, they still own and run rows of Italian restaurants along Mulberry and Mott streets. Red, white and green awnings over street-side tables, and gateway arches lit with "Italian lights" make the streets look like Rockefeller center at christmas.

Little Italy

L'Italy is being compressed by the ever expanding Chinese community to the south. Chinatown, with its neon red characters across flat Soviet style building facades, and vegetable and fish markets spilling into the streets, made me recall my frequent trips to Asia.  Throngs of Chinese, as dense as any street in Shanghai or Hong Kong, press upon you, reach over you, as you try to select seafood based on only Chinese characters scrawled on a placards stuck into iced fish.

Seafood Market

Ubiquitous Red Signs

Enthusiastically slapping cards onto the table characteristic of play in China

In Astoria, a northern neighborhood of Queens, there are streets catering to the either Arabic or Greek residents.  Here again, orthodox churches, mosques, and retail stores call out in strange letters. Old men stroll the streets in their dishdasha and taqiyah (embroidered can-like cap) with arms clasped behind their back, while young men in leather jackets hawk from shop doorways or hustle goods From one place to another.

         Greek Orthodox Church


                 Arabic Grocery Store

Guide for Arab Spotting

Just south in the Williamsburg and Borough Park neighborhoods of Brooklyn, are Hasidic Orthodox Jewish communities.  They congregate not because they are new arrivals seeking support as they transition to America, but to protect the purity of their beliefs and lifestyle from the influences of others. Men are to be dedicated scholars, devoting their life to studying the Talmud.  When out and about they are noticeable for their black coats and broad-brimmed hats, seemingly too small, perched high above corkscrew curls spinning down each cheek into their beards.  (Do they have to spin in opposite direction to balance?)  Like the men, religious law also requires women to keep their hair covered. But being women they still want to look fashionable. So they've found a work-around by wearing a natural hair wig to cover their own.  Though some of the more conservative women wear a headscarf to cover their wig, which covers their hair.  Robin still struggles with this concept.

The Boys in the 'hood

Rules for Women

In and around the city are neighborhood pockets of Eastern Europeans, Koreans, Ethiopians, Indians and hundreds of other immigrant groups.  As mentioned, compared to other cities, blacks and hispanic are distributed throughout most neighborhoods, perhaps because they are the most assimilated americans here.

New York brings home that America is a country of immigrants. Except for our Native American population we are all descendant from immigrants.  My paternal grandfather and grandmother emigrated from Romania (then Hungary) in the early 1900s with less than a 6th grade education.  My mother's parents moved from Austria and what is now the Czech Republic.  Both sets of grandparents worked hard, struggled through the depression, provided their kids education who then went on to serve America in WWII.  They they and other immigrants became "The Greatest Generation" building America's economy in the mid-twentieth century. Today, two generations later, the immigrant's grandchildren cannot think of themselves as anything but American, if they think about it at all.  And that may be part of the problem.

American culture is not based on 500 years of traditional dress, rituals, music, or aristocracy.  We are an ever-changing demographic mix rejecting, incorporating, and blending these other cultures into our own "creole".  Our culture is a culture of change.  The earliest settlers were already a mix of cultures: the Dutch in New York, religious fanatics in New England, British on the East and NW coasts, French in the Southeast, and Spanish in the Southwest.  In addition millions of africans were brought against their will for the cotton economy, and Chinese came to labor on the railroads or in the California mines.  Due to turmoil and starvation in Europe our doors opened to Scandinavians who located in the upper midwest and NW, Lebanese and Greek to the Detroit area, the Irish to Boston and Chicago, German to Chicago and the mid-west and others to their ethnic communities throughout the country.  We assimilated Vietnamese and other allies from our misbegotten foreign conflicts.  Most recently we see the changing face of America as our streets fill with subcontinent Indians and Chinese in the hospitality and high-tech industries.  This diversity strengthens our country, and our economy, despite what the fear-mongering isolationists claim; just as genetic diversity strengthens a species vs a monoculture.

However, I can't help but reflect on our culture of immigration and change relative to the current mass migration to Europe from war and economic ravaged countries.  European countries (as most of the world) have long cultural traditions and cultural identities.  They are not a product of constant change and immigration like America.  They are a distillation, not an amalgamation.  How does a culture and self-identity survive when overwhelmed by another without time to absorb?  How does a town in Germany of 150 maintain when over 700 new inhabitants arrive (NYTimes)?  What will France be when, soon in some districts, the electorate will be a majority of another religion and culture? Will they change? Should they?  I applaud the Germans and the Scandinavian countries with their open doors helping a suffering people - a model for our country.  But I try to comprehend what will be wrought by this change, and what else can be done.  We love diversity, that's why we travel, but in this mass migration will Europe lose its diversity in the long term?  These are historic times. There are no easy answers.