Wordless Wednesday: NYC, April 2006

Coney Island

a statue of artist Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi on Liberty Island

Columbus Circle

Central Park

the Nederlander

Animals Roaming Cemeteries Update, and Some Famous Friends

Rome: cats
Amherst: skunk
Green-Wood: groundhogs (?)
Woodlawn: Bronx Ninja Squirrels™ and wild turkeys

Woodlawn is only 25 miles from my aunt's house in Connecticut!  That's astonishing (just ask my mom).  It also made the wild turkeys less of an inexplicable sight, since they hang out along the Merritt Parkway all the time.

Last time I went there I missed seeing many famous people; and Woodlawn has a lot of famous people.  And not-so-famous people—it's a flippin' big cemetery.  This time I actually went by the office and filled in the paperwork to take pictures, which was worth it for the chance to talk to a security guard, who was nice in the way particular to New Yorkers.

As it was April, we did get rained on a bit as we drove through the grounds.  The sun came out eventually, though, and the weather didn't ruin the experience at all. 

Famous People I Visited
David Glasgow Farragut
The first admiral of the US Navy; our school in Spain was named for him.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Suffragette.

Fiorello LaGuardia
Annie's "mayor five foot two," for whom the airport was named (as well as P.S. 205, the elementary school next to my building in the Bronx).  I quite enjoy the little flower, in tribute to his name and nickname.

Joseph Pulitzer
Influential newspaper owner.  I am grateful to Pulitzer because in 1885 he, via the New York World, helped raise funds to complete the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. 

George M. Cohan
Born on Independence Day and composer of "I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy," "You're a Grand Old Flag," and "Over There," among many more.  His mausoleum is appropriately adorned with flags, and we sang him one of his songs.

Ida and Isidor Straus
Among those who lost their lives when the Titanic went down were the co-owners of Macy's.  Their plot features an ark, with their surname on the outside; within the gates are the rest of their personal information, along with the words "Many waters cannot quench love—neither can the floods drown it."  That made me the most emotional of anything there.

Duke Ellington
The bandleader born Edward Kennedy Ellington, famous for such tunes as "Take the A Train," "Caravan," "Sophisticated Lady," and, oh yeah, "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got that Swing)."

The mausoleum below is the size of our house a small chapel, and sports some insanely intricate carvings that would fit in on a French cathedral.  As always, I'm glad that people of the past had enough money to leave behind extravagant tombs for me to marvel at.

I'll always love you, New York

An entertainment event earlier this year* had me thinking about New York.  I assumed, because of my longstanding love for the city, that I had plenty of posts about it on this blog; you may imagine my surprise when I found that the posts tagged New York number only six—and that includes places in the state, not just the metropolis.  (I think this particular entry conveys my feelings fairly accurately, though.)  All the same, I reckon I ought to rectify this general oversight and produce some more content about the greatest city in the world.  Thus, please enjoy various and sundry comments about Nueva York.

While there are lots of songs about New York, from the previous to “NYC” from Annie to Ryan Adams’ “New York, New York” (whence this post’s title), the following is probably the song I most associate with the city.  If you’re familiar with Working Girl, you’ll probably understand why; if not, a quick viewing of the opening credits should provide illumination.  The lyrics never name any particular place, but the connection between song and location has clearly stuck with me over the years.

On the other hand, the October before last I rolled into the city on an Amtrak train, eating an apple and listening to Glenn Miller tunes, including “Pennsylvania 6-5000” (and “Chattanooga Choo-Choo,” which, while not a New York song, is a railway song).  Unlike Metro-North trains, which stop in the Bronx and descend after 125^th Street to run south underground until Grand Central, the Acela from Boston and New Haven leaves the mainland to pass through Queens, below, before arriving at Penn Station.  I've flown into JFK, LaGuardia, and Islip, and arrived on buses, and even been a passenger in cars (though you could not pay me enough to drive my own self into the city), but mostly I get on the New Haven Line and in less than an hour I'm there.  And once I'm there, if I can't walk, I'd rather take the subway than the bus—I think that's because I feel less likely to end up going the wrong direction on the subway.  In all, despite the fancy, high-speed trains I've been on, rail travel still strikes me as somewhat old-fashioned, and that fits a timeless city.

In the process of working on this post I discovered that I don’t have as many pictures as I thought I must; I believe many of them are on discs that are still in California, and it rankles me not to have them all.  The best way to rectify this would probably be for me to win the lottery, make a first stop at B&H, and then spend some serious time visiting and revisiting sites around town.

Boogie Down

Of all the boroughs I’ve spent the most time in the Bronx.  Sure, most people think of Manhattan as New York City, but that’s unfair to the other boroughs, which have so much to offer.  I can’t say I’ve ever been to Queens, apart from passing through JFK, nor Staten Island, that I remember—though there are pictures of my family on the Staten Island Ferry sometime in the late ’80s, so I’ve at least been to the ferry terminal there.  Up in the Bronx are the Zoo and the New York Botanical Garden, which are definitely worth visiting.  I’d also recommend Woodlawn Cemetery, whose over 400 acres are home to influential people from Rowland H. Macy and James Cash Penney to Celia Cruz and Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington.

Most likely the eeriest thing I ever experienced in New York was in March 2006.  Spring break was just about to start and I took the day off of work to cross the country for a friend’s wedding.  My flight left Islip mid-morning, but I had to take a bus and a subway train and the Long Island Rail Road and a taxi to reach the airport, and in order to get there in enough time—my parents will tell you that I prefer a generous cushion before takeoff—I had to leave my apartment around three in the morning.  I walked to the closest bus stop and waited in silence so nearly complete that I was startled by the appearance of someone just walking four lanes opposite me.  The quiet was strange, disconcerting in its unfamiliarity.  When the bus came, there was only one other passenger on it.  Of course, by the time I reached Midtown and had to walk a few blocks to Penn Station, more people were out and getting ready for the day, but still far fewer than the daytime city streets.

This picture was taken from one of my roommates' rooms.  I got first dibs on rooms, so I picked one of the ones that looked out over Southern Boulevard and the zoo, and I swear sometimes I could hear the lions roaring at night.  But this view of the Bronx is not at all shabby.

And then this one time I was on my way to campus while wearing the Rangers t-shirt I’d gotten at the Goodwill in Manhattan.  A police car was nearby, and as I jaywalked I heard the PA crackle on; for a moment I was sure that I was going to be admonished for crossing Fordham Road illegally.  So you can imagine my relief when what I heard instead was one of the officers complimenting my “great” shirt.

While you’re in the 718, stop by Ivana’s on Arthur Avenue, the Bronx’s Little Italy, and have a pepper and egg wedge for me.  No one else makes them quite as good.

BKLYN

The Bronx may be known as the roughest borough, but Brooklyn’s got the reputation as the coolest.  I, however, can suck the cool out of anything, even Spot Conlon’s territory.  And so the last time I went to New York I made a point of visiting two sites in Kings County: Central Library and Green-Wood Cemetery.  The former is a formidable building with a curved façade opposite Grand Army Plaza.  The grate at the entrance features figures from literature; this chart identifies all of them, though I was fairly certain that the man second from the bottom in the center column was Walt Whitman.  The interior isn’t as impressive as the exterior, given more to function than form and seemingly last redecorated in the 1970s, but above the entrance inside is a carved eagle that once adorned the offices of the aquiline-named daily newspaper.  

I found visiting Green-Wood Cemetery a far more satisfying experience.  Journalist Horace “Go West Young Man” Greeley, Governor DeWitt Clinton, Leonard Bernstein, Samuel Morse, and Louis Comfort Tiffany are buried there, the last under a disappointingly unadorned stone; Green-Wood in June is full of blooming dogwoods and groundhogs.  The cemetery is also home to the borough’s highest point.  From there, near a spot where a Revolutionary War battle was fought, you can see Manhattan’s skyscrapers, and, by shifting a bit to the your left, the Statue of Liberty.  At the Altar of Liberty a statue of Minerva raises her arm in salute to the lady in the harbor.  If you’re there around noon on an early summer day, you might catch the scent of the freshest pizza you've ever smelled in the air.  So please bury me there, because I can’t imagine a better place to be planted than that, with that view and that history and that pie, forever.

Or maybe just cremate me and toss me into the East River* from the walkway of my favorite bridge.  The next best thing to a Gothic arch is a neo-Gothic arch, and there’s nothing more strong and graceful than the stone and wire of the Roeblings’ bridge.  For a New World city, it’s easy enough to find the medieval in New York: there are relocated buildings up at the Cloisters, arms and armor at the Met, and a Gutenberg Bible at the Public Library; St. Patrick’s is even more exuberantly neo-Gothic than the bridge.  But even if the bridge isn't real Gothic, it’s real New York.  I’ve crossed it on a bright late-September day, and on an overcast April with one of my oldest friends, and after watching Nathan’s hot dog-eating contest on Independence Day, and every time was a dream come true.

Who was to know what should come home to me?
Who knows but I am enjoying this?
Who knows but I am as good as looking at you now, for all you cannot see me?
     from “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” by Walt Whitman

I know I have nothing groundbreaking to say about New York—why do you think I’m linking to songs and quoting Whitman?  The things I want to say have mostly already been said, and more eloquently.  The place is expensive, dirty, and aromatic; it’s uncomfortable in both winter and summer.  But every time a train or bus or plane takes me back I end up in Grand Central, head thrown back to see the ceiling, and I hear Carly Simon sing the sky is a color of blue you’ve never even seen in the eyes of your lover and I wouldn’t trade a minute there for anything.

*It was the movie of the Broadway version of "Newsies," obviously, but I like to pretend to have some dignity. ↩
*Leaving aside a portion to be tossed into the Rimava into Tisovec, too. ↩

Another Emerald Isle

On the west side of Lower Manhattan the street opens onto a wild green lawn that slopes up toward the waterfront.  Among the grasses and plants there are walls, the ruins of a cottage.  Surrounding and in counterpoint to this idyllic scene is New York as we know it, typified by the towering and (on a good day) sparkling One World Trade Center.

But this oasis isn't just there for its own sake.  It is the Irish Hunger Memorial.  Though it opened in 2002, it took me until last June to make it there.  (In comparison, Boston's memorial has been in place since 1998, and its handy location on the Freedom Trail means that it's hard to miss.)  I consider the timing fortuitous, since it was a wonderful day for it.  The memorial pays tribute to those who died in the 19th century famine, and to those who escaped to immigrate to the city.  The building is a cottage, originally a home in County Mayo, transported and reconstructed here, surrounded by native Irish plants.

(The Irish Famine Memorials website is an excellent source for pictures and transcriptions of monuments around the world.)

The entrance to the memorial is around the back, where a tunnel lined with quotations and statistics about the Famine.  Visitors emerge from the dim tunnel into daylight and walk a path that passes through the cottage and among the vegetation.  A gentle slope leads to a space that overlooks the Hudson River; by peering to the left the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island are visible.  The memorial is a reminder of the homes and landscape that many Irish immigrants were forced to leave behind.  It's poignant, especially since they would go on to face so much persecution when they reached the United States.  May we all be so resilient and determined in the face of hardship.

I was there--I myself took these photos--and I can hardly believe how beautiful it all looks.  What a perfect day.

Flashback: Black Friday 2014

One of the reasons this post has languished unpublished for so long is because I honestly thought I'd already posted it, and was surprised, while working on something else, to see it in my Drafts folder.  AND THEN I told it to post on Black Friday this year and it failed to do so, which I only just noticed.  Better late than never, I suppose.

I spent a few days in Connecticut the week of Thanksgiving.  A day or two before the holiday itself one of the aunts mentioned Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in the town of the same name (possibly while discussing the TV show purportedly set there), and on Friday we made the short drive to New York to see some graves at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery and Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York.

There are actually two cemeteries adjacent to each other in Sleepy Hollow.  One is the graveyard of the Dutch Reformed Church, with 18th- and 19th-century interments, and the other is the cemetery that shares the town's name.  The church itself was closed when we arrived.  We bypassed the Old Dutch Church's graveyard to drive through the other cemetery, stopping the car to jump in and out as necessary.  This was a welcome way to visit, because the cemetery is large and hilly, and because, being the end of November, it was fairly cold out.

Located in the Hudson Valley with views of the river, Sleepy Hollow has its fair share of famous residents.  There are Rockefellers, Astors, Chryslers, and Helmsleys, as well as several people involved in newspaper publishing in the city.  The Helmsley mausoleum features a stained glass window of the New York skyline, centered on the family's building.  I was disappointed by the entirely unremarkable Chrysler mausoleum; I'd expected something more akin to the Chrysler Building--not the chrome, really, but the Art Deco style of it--but it was plain, with a set of columns at the front and no windows whatsoever.  And not a fin in sight.  What a missed opportunity.

Where the Chryslers disappointed, though, other less well-known but still wealthy people had better taste.  The two mausoleums (mausolea?) I liked best were the Archbolds' and the Lewis'.  The latter, pictured at right, was a stone chapel with chunky architectural elements; something about it seems very Scottish, though I'm not sure why.  It also has a lovely stained glass roundel.  With its round shape, smooth dome, and mosaics, the Archbold tomb seemed to be modeled after Italian Byzantine churches.  That style, to me, makes more sense for Christian(ish) American cemeteries than does Egyptian Revival.

I was surprised to find on the map that Andrew Carnegie was buried in Sleepy Hollow.  The Scottish-born businessman was probably the greatest patron of libraries and education in the modern age.  His site is fairly simple; there's a plaque with information about his philanthropy nearby, and stones inscribed with his name and his wife's in front of a Celtic cross.  At the base of the cross were an American flag and a Scottish saltire.  Perhaps in appreciation for his exceptional generosity, people had left coins on the stone bearing Carnegie's name; since both Carnegie's name day and St Andrew's Day were coming up, I added the shiniest penny I had as my present.

In the context of the cemetery, the most famous grave is that of Washington Irving.  The author's tomb is among several of his relatives', and the plot, along with Irving's home and the Old Dutch Church, is a national historic landmark.  Irving's grave is slightly larger than the surrounding ones, and is set off by a pair of American flags.  Someone had also decorated it for the season with pumpkins and yellow flowers. 

We also saw, among the graves of the common folk, a stone with our name on it.  It wasn't anyone we knew, but it's somewhat unusual to come across people with our surname who aren't related to us.

Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla is huge.  The office has multiple brochures, including general maps and tours focusing on trees or architecture.  One large section, Sharon Gardens, is all Jewish graves; we drove through but didn't spend much time there.  In Kensico proper there's a big section full of tombstones inscribed with Chinese characters, and some really nice Art Nouveau monuments.

There are fewer industrialists and old-money type people here than in Sleepy Hollow, but more people from the entertainment world.  Sergei Rachmaninoff and his wife Natalie have a nice little plot surrounding by bushes, though the large Orthodox cross that is the center of the plot only features the composer's name.  A popular grave for visitors is Lou Gehrig's, if the baseballs and glove left there are any indication.  I think what looks like the headstone is actually a mini-columbarium; a pair of bronze doors with a keyhole are set into the stone.  I liked seeing Tommy Dorsey's grave, decorated with a trombone and the opening bars of "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You."  But by far the one I was most pleased to see was the grave of Danny Kaye and his wife Sylvia Fine Kaye.  Their monument is a stone bench; a bronze plaque with symbols of their work and interests, including a grand piano and UNICEF's logo, is set into the back.  Danny's name is on the band of a chef's hat on the left side of the plaque, and Sylvia's is on the bottom of a sheet of music on the right.  Much like Katharine Hepburn's at Cedar Hill, the Dorseys', the Gehrigs', and the Kayes' memorials are all fairly understated for people as famous as they were; that kind of humility seems to have fallen by the wayside.

As our time at Kensico was coming to an end we saw a group of graves most intriguingly carved.  The Kirby family included a naval engineer (Frank), a Phi Bete (Russell), and a PhD/author/scholar/musicologist/magician (Frank II).  All of them have stylish and possibly arcane decorations on their headstones.  While I wish Mary's had listed her accomplishments as her husband's and sons' stones had, I did appreciate the squirrel and flowers on hers.

Though I was happy to see Danny Kaye and Tommy Dorsey, on the whole I liked visiting Sleepy Hollow more than Kensico.  The former felt much cozier, and I think on the whole the graves were more interesting there, in part because they were older.  That age also meant that the graveyard felt more organic and less planned.

Mirabilis

We interrupt your regularly scheduled London recaps for this postlet. 

I
Walt Whitman I think would not be surprised to know that there's a cocktail named after him at the Dead Poet on the Upper West Side.  A variation on the Long Island iced tea, it's sweet and fruity and strong.  Whether or not he would enjoy the drink as I did, I don't know; but I cannot imagine that he would not be both delighted by and matter-of-fact about its existence.  Of course we still remember and celebrate him in this city.  How could we not?

It avails not, neither time or place—distance avails not;
I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence;
I project myself—also I return—I am with you, and know how it is.1

II
As we sat at an early service in St. Paul's Chapel, I wondered what George Washington would think of this.  Not about the fact that the vicar leading the service was a woman; not about her wireless mic and the speakers in the balconies or the electric lights; not about the fact that all but two of the box pews have been removed (one of those remaining being the one he sat in) and that the congregation now sat in chairs arranged in concentric circles; but what he would think to see us in 2015 still worshiping in the same church he did.  I wondered if he would be surprised that St. Paul's still stands all these years later, or if his reaction would be one of confidence in the building's endurance.  What must it feel like, to see a building from your time now dwarfed by the unfamiliar architecture of future years?  The chapel has survived for over two centuries; that it survived these past fourteen is all the more astonishing.

III
Noted cinematic masterpiece "Kate & Leopold" begins in the late 19th century, with a ceremony at the not-yet-complete Brooklyn Bridge attended by Hugh Jackman's character.  When he's transported to 2001, Leopold happens upon the finished bridge and is awed to see it still standing, so much so that to an unimpressed sanitation worker he declares, "That, my friend, is a miracle!"

IV
It is a city of miracles upon miracles, and not the least of them that the sky was blue on Sunday afternoon.

from "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" ↩

Birthday Weekend/Pre-St. Patrick's Day New York Jaunt

While I was stuck in Mass, unable to venture far on account of the snow, it seemed like New York City was a thousand miles away.  A little over two hours of driving plus just under an hour on the train is much more reasonable--and also dangerous to know; with that in mind, I'll have a harder time staying away.

From the time I arrived at Grand Central on Saturday morning I had a hard time not smiling at everything.  You're not supposed to smile in New York, you know as well as I do, but I was just so pleased to be there, and excited to be seeing friends, that I couldn't help it.  As I waited for said friends to arrive from just over on Long Island, I joined the other tourists on the west balcony taking pictures of the terminal (and mostly of each other; I saw several selfie sticks).  When my friends showed up we started out by walking a few blocks to the library, where we viewed an exhibit on photography and then went upstairs to see the Gutenberg Bible. 

From the library we headed to the subway and went to SoHo.  Our first stop in the neighborhood was Old St. Patrick's on Mulberry Street.  The cathedral, dating from the early 19th century, was the second Catholic church in Manhattan and the third in the state.  At the moment it's undergoing renovations; a false wall has been installed inside the sanctuary, halving its length.  I'll have to keep an eye out for news on when the restoration is finished, because I'm interested in seeing the cathedral without obstructions.

This panorama of Prince Street outside the cathedral is a little wonky, but I like it.

Our next stop was Katz's Deli.  It was as crowded and delicious as you're probably imagining it to be.  When you enter each person is given a ticket, which you must return upon exiting; this ticket is your bill.  Along one wall is a long counter, with about six workers hard at work making sandwiches behind it.  The guy slices you a few pieces of whatever meat you order and slides it to you on a little plate.  The pastrami was tender and flavorful, and I would have happily shoved a lot of it into my mouth.  I was able to wait until I had my sandwich and side of pickles (dills and half-sours), though.  Once you have your sandwich, the counterman marks your ticket with what you ordered, and on the way out you present it to the cashier and pay.  The deli was busy, though not unreasonably so, and we enjoyed our meal without feeling rushed or jostled.  I noticed the man at the table opposite me when he started to talk, because, as he explained to someone else, he was from Norwich in England.

As we left the Little Cupcake Bakeshop after our sweet course we heard bagpipes and headed toward them.  A pair of pipers were playing at the threshold of Old St. Patrick's, though they finished just as we arrived.  I wish we'd gotten there in time to hear some kind of explanation as to why they were playing; as it is I assumed that it was somehow related to St. Patrick's Day.  Then, since we were in the area, we headed a little further south and east to see my favorite bridge.  We only walked as far as the first tower; on the way back down I saw the people from Norwich again. 

I hadn't been to the World Trade Center site since the memorials or the new buildings were completed, and found it strange to see things built at the complex.  Of course, not everything there is finished, and the fencing that was part of the area for so many years was still there; but One World Trade Center was done, rising into the clouds above and surrounded by heavy-duty anti-car security.  The footprint pools, and the way water pours unceasingly into the earth, help to preserve some of the feeling that something is missing there.  Apparently the thing that looks like a stegosaurus skeleton will be part of the PATH train station.  As it stands now, the design of it strikes me as jarring and very out-of-place in that particular site.

A 4 train took us to Grand Central, and then a 6 to 51st Street, where we visited the newer St. Patrick's.  It smelled of paint and was full of scaffolding, to the extent that even most of the side chapels had some kind of scaffolding and boards and plastic sheeting in them.

I'd forgotten how beautiful some of the chapels were--the only one I could really remember was St. Elizabeth Ann Seton's, which has a patina-bronze backdrop and which was obscured by a sign about the renovations.  Most of the others feature white marble and intricate Gothic-style ornaments that echo the cathedral's architecture.  I was amused to see that the votives to the cathedral's patron saint were in green glass holders, though whether that's a regular feature or special for the holiday I can't recall.  And in the back of the sanctuary there were vending machines, like the one I got my Pope coin from in Krakow, and when I remarked on them my friend bought me a St. Patrick medallion that features the cathedral on the opposite side.

We'd wanted to check out the Campbell Apartment at Grand Central before we parted ways, but it was busy and we were perhaps a mite underdressed and I wasn't keen on paying for that much ambiance, so instead we walked back down 43rd Street to one of the two pubs we'd passed earlier.  One was named Annie Moore's and the other was Patrick Conway's; by that time it was clear we had a theme, so we went into the latter for a bit.  After a round we went our separate ways, and I sat on the New Haven Line train with feet aching but otherwise feeling content.  It was great to see my friends, and ride on trains, and eat and drink good things, and visit churches, and be back in New York again.

Independence

Betsy Ross' house, Philadelphia, summer 2006

World War II memorial, Washington, D.C., November 2005

Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emmanuel Leutze, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, November 2005

Macy's fireworks from FDR Drive, July 4, 2006

At first it's no more than a haze on the horizon. So you watch. You watch. Then it's a smudge, a shadow on the far water. For a day; for another day. The stain slowly spreads along the horizon, taking form, until on the third day you let yourself believe, you dare to whisper the word: Land. Land. Life. Resurrection. The true adventure. Coming out of the vast unknown, the immensity, into new life. That, Your Majesty, is the New World.
Sir Walter Raleigh in "Elizabeth: The Golden Age"

7th Grade Trip

I had the great good fortune last month to chaperone a week-long school trip to the northeast. "Surely you jest," you say. "Good fortune? This was not some kind of horrible punishment for taking weeks to write about a single event and owing the library a dollar for your new card?" Perhaps some years the trip would indeed have been a trial. However, when you have the sterling students we have this year, it was pretty great. Because they are kids, and not technically mine, I won't post any pictures with any of them in it, which takes out a good portion of my pictures; but rest assured, you will have photographs to peruse.

The lead teacher on the trip has a series of worksheets, one for every night, that the kids have to complete. The worksheets help them think about what they've seen, and later, when they work on their scrapbooks, remember all the places they went and what they did. I will now answer the questions from the worksheets. Rest assured I will be more thorough than the students were.

Day One
1. How was the flight? Was security as tough as you'd thought it would be? Did anyone do anything stupid?
Security was pretty reasonable, as far as security goes these days. We left on a Sunday night, which meant the airport wasn't too crowded and that helped. Unfortunately, once we got through security, one of the girls lost her school ID, and one of the boys lost his entire wallet. Luckily for him, the lead teacher had most of his spending money. On the bright side, while we were waiting, we saw Charo get off a plane, which was kind of cool.
The flight itself was not too bad. I got a window seat, for which I was thankful, because I don't like having to get up if other people in my row have to go to the bathroom. Furthermore, the middle seat was empty, so I got to stretch my legs. Some of the students apparently forgot the injunction against flash photography on the airplane, and since I wasn't sitting with them, all I could do was snap my fingers and hiss at them not to use the flash. We took a redeye and landed at Logan around 6:30, and immediately started touring--after stopping at a Dunkin Donuts in Lynn, Massachusetts, that is.

2. What was the first thing you noticed about Boston? Give me your visual impressions.
The very first thing I noticed when we landed was how interchangeable airports are. Waiting for our coach outside, we could have been almost anywhere, had that place been cool and overcast and we could see our breath. Massachusetts is a lot like Connecticut, obviously, in terms of geography and topography. And everything looks older than it does back home.

3. What did you have for dinner? How was it?
At Longfellow's Wayside Tavern we had salad, rolls, pot roast, green beans, mashed potatoes, and apple pie. Some of the rolls were white bread and some were cornbread and some were brown bread, which is what I had. The mashed potatoes were very creamy and good, and the pot roast was really nice.

4. What was the best thing you did today? Okay, what was the best educational thing you did today?
Most of the kids put that eating dinner and/or going to sleep was the best thing they did. We went to the House of the Seven Gables of Hawthorne fame, and saw a play about the supernatural at the Griffen Theater in Salem; we visited Orchard House, where Louisa May Alcott lived; we drove by Thoreau's cabin and Walden Pond; we drilled the militia on Lexington Common, and one of the boys read Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Concord Hymn" in front of the memorial at Concord Bridge; we stopped by Fenway Park. At all the Revolutionary War sites it's amazing to think that a bunch of farmers and tradesmen defeated one of the most powerful armies in the world at the time.

Concord Bridge with the monument; behind me is the minuteman statue.

5. Do people look and dress the same here as they do on our side of the country?
Nope. But I wore the same jeans for 36 hours, and let me tell you, it was amazing to change into my pajamas and fall asleep in Brookline.

Day Two
1. How tired were you this morning? Was it jet lag or did you stay up late chatting?
I wasn't too tired, because we got to bed around 10:30 and woke up around 7. That's a fair amount of sleep. We called home before bed, and I read Johnny Tremain, which is the book I brought with me. I hadn't read it in a while, and I figured it would be good to read in Boston.

2. Is the harbor in Boston anything like the one in [the nearest major port city at home]? How are they the same? How are they different?
First off, we went to Dunkin Donuts for breakfast again this morning, and some of the girls talked to some real Bostonians. Their accents were great. I was proud of the girls for talking to them politely, and the girls learned a lot just from their short conversation.
Of course they're different. Things in Boston seem to be built right up to the water more--there are more condos on what looked to be former piers than here, where things seem to build up more gradually.

3. Could you imagine Massachusetts back in the Beyond the Burning Time era? Why or why not?
I've never read Beyond the Burning Time, although I have read The Witch of Blackbird Pond and The Crucible, so I'll insert those two for the former. In some places it's easier to imagine than others. Salem, for example, still has a lot of old houses, which makes it easier. Lexington Common and Concord Bridge are still pretty much the same as they were during the Revolution. But the place where the Boston Massacre happened is now in the middle of an intersection, and there was a guy breakdancing in front of Faneuil Hall. That sort of thing makes it difficult. (Along the same lines, if it were possible, I'd love to see Manhattan go from woodlands to colony to city to metropolis, in fast motion.)

4. Who did you sit with today? Did they stay awake?
Best student response: "Sit? Ha!" We didn't have the bus at all, so there wasn't much of an opportunity to fall asleep anywhere.

5. Were you a Patriot or a Loyalist in Tea is Brewing? How did you feel about your side? Could you understand the opposing side's point of view?
Tea is Brewing is an interactive program at the Old South Meeting House, where colonists met to discuss what they would do in response to the tea tax. Half the kids were Patriots and half were Loyalists; each was assigned a card with the name of a real person and his opinion on whether or not the cargo of tea should be unloaded and sold in Boston. Some of the Patriots were Sam Adams (pictured), Joseph Warren, and William Molineux; the only Loyalist I can remember was Francis Rotch, who owned the Dartmouth, one of the ships forced to wait in the harbor. Governor Hutchinson wouldn't let the Dartmouth, the Beaver, and the Eleanor return to England, and the Patriots wouldn't let the ships unload. Finally, at the end of a meeting in December 1773, Samuel Adams said, "This meeting can do nothing more to save the country." This was the signal for the Sons of Liberty to destroy the tea.
Although I didn't take part, I could see both sides' points of view. Everyone pretty much roots for the Patriots, because we won, and I do believe taxation without representation is unfair. On the other hand, the tax was only three pence per pound, which was not unbearable, and it did suck for the merchants, especially Rotch, who was only 23 at the time. Ultimately, though, it was the principle and not the three pence that was important. "Boston Harbor a teapot tonight!"

6. What was your favorite thing today? (Extra points if it's insightful and educational.)

Being by/on the water. Specific to Boston, the USS Constitution, and especially when we got a cute young sailor to take pictures with one of the girls while we sang her "Happy Birthday." Then seeing things like Old North Church and Old South Meeting House and Boston Common, places we all read about in history. Eating Boston cream pie at Quincy Market for lunch, and walking around the Common and the Public Gardens.

GO CELTICS, BEAT LA!

Day Three
1. Last night I slept
A. Like a brick!
B. Fitfully, that bathtub is hard and cold
C. OK, but I miss my own bed
D. Sleep? Who could sleep with my roommates' snoring!
Those silly boys absolutely could not have more than one person per bed, so when we went around for room check there was always one little nest on the floor.

2. On the bus ride I
A. Saw many interesting things
B. Got really queasy
C. Fell asleep
D. All of the above

3. What did you think of Plimoth Plantation? Could you have lived there?
I really like living history things, so I thought it was cool. Part of it is the Wampanoag village, where Wampanoag people dress in old-fashioned clothing and do old-fashioned things, but they're not pretending to be anyone from the past. It was interesting to see American Indians in buckskin clothes making porridge and shaping a canoe, but talking with outrageous Massachusetts accents. One of the older women was kind of belligerent with the stupid schoolkids (not ours) asking her stupid questions; she kept saying things like "Use your brain."
Another part of Plimoth was the colonial village. There, the reenactors dress in 17th-century clothing, talk in old school accents, and portray actual colonists. The houses are all wooden, and pretty simple, and they have goats and cows and little gardens. The meeting house has a great view, as it's at the top of a hill. It would be daunting to live there as a colonist--so much unknown and so much hard work. But I could totally do it if I had to.
Furthermore, one of my college friends teaches middle school in New York, and she was on a school trip with her kids at the same time, and we ran into each other in the cafeteria. It was kind of surreal, but cool.

4. What is one important fact about Newport?
It's where I was born!

5. Whose "cottage" did you visit today? Why is it called a cottage?
We went to the Breakers, the Vanderbilts' summer cottage. It's a cottage because it only has 70 rooms, as opposed to the 150-some at their Manhattan mansion, located where Bergdorf Goodman currently is. The Vanderbilts only used the Breakers four to 10 weeks a year during the summer. It was built in the style of an Italian villa, with a loggia on the back that during the summer is open to the backyard. Some of the rooms are in French style, some are Italian, all are ridiculously ornate. In one of the rooms there is silver color on the walls, which was originally thought to be silver leaf; the docent said that a chemical analysis in 2006 had found it to be platinum leaf. That is the level of ridiculousness. Also, Anderson Cooper is part of the Vanderbilt family. The butler's pantry and the kitchen were huge and amazing. It was cool, seeing the summer house of a family who at one time had more money than the US government, but one also thinks that they could have put that money to a little bit better use actually helping people. It's way more impressive in real life than in that little picture.

Day Four
1. What is a Pequot?
A Pequot is an American Indian. The tribe has a casino, Foxwoods, in Connecticut, and a very nice, large museum. The museum is interesting. The Wisconsin Glacier used to cover the Midwest to the East Coast; part of the exhibit goes through a faux glacier, and they have a scale model of the museum in relation to the mile-and-a-half thick ice of the glacier. In another exhibit there's a life-size caribou hunt, and the fan favorite, a giant beaver. One of the most impressive exhibits is the full-size village. Our tour guide was knowledgeable and passionate, and the kids really got a lot out of the museum.

2. How did you like the play? Was Broadway like you had imagined it to be?
We saw "Hairspray" and sat three rows from the stage on the left. It was quite fun. All the kids noticed the energy of the performers. We were close enough to also notice their sweat. The one and only thing that bummed me out about it was that Ashley Parker Angel had been playing Link, but didn't at this performance. I had been so looking forward to seeing Ashley Parker Angel as Link.

3. How was dinner? What did you have?
Dinner was at a restaurant called Hurley's. I had French onion soup, chicken pot pie, and chocolate mousse cake. Hurley's was nice, although we discovered that the books on the shelves were all fake. Some diners were concerned that the chicken pot pie was filling on a plate with a disc of crust perched atop.

4. How many states have you been in on this trip? Have you left anything behind in one of them?
I somehow lost my freakin' brand new hairbrush in New York. There's $4.99 gone.

5. Have you "met" a security guard in his/her professional capacity yet? If so explain.
I had to take some girls down to the front desk of our New York hotel to get new keys because they'd locked theirs in their room. And that was about the worst thing that happened all trip long. In one room in Connecticut the toilet stopped working just before we had to go, and I told the boys to tell the front desk.

6. Can you believe the traffic in the city? How is it different from [the closest major city] and our area?
Traffic in New York City is unbelievable. I have never had any desire to drive in the city. I am not that good a driver. Somehow there are not carcasses left and right from people who have died due to the traffic, but I'm not exactly sure how it's possible.
As for human traffic, there are so many more people walking places than there are anywhere around here.

View from our hotel room.

Day Five
1. Did you see anyone famous anywhere?
A. Yes: we saw Charo in the airport before we left.
B. No, and I am bitterly disappointed
C. Not yet, but there's still tomorrow
Also, one time in JFK I saw Scott Cohen, who played Max on "Gilmore Girls" and Wolf in "The 10th Kingdom."

2. How much money do you have left?
A. All of it, I've been sponging off friends
B. Enough to get me home
C. None! I blew it all on food and cheap souvenirs
D. Not too much, but I got lovely things for my family, especially my mom

3. The Statue of Liberty looked...
A. Bigger in person
B. Smaller in person
C. Exactly like I thought it would

4. How much did you walk today? Did you ride the subway anywhere? What were your impressions of walking in New York or taking public transportation?
We didn't walk too terribly much outside because it was raining. We took the subway to the Met and walked around there, rode the bus somewhere, then took the ferry out to Ellis Island. We had dinner in Chinatown and then rode the subway back up to the hotel. We lucked out big time on the subway--in the morning it was crowded, but not unmanageable, and it was fairly easy getting back in the evening. Boston public transportation was a precursor to the real thing in New York.

5. What was the most impressive thing you saw today?
Having already been to the city, I wasn't really overawed by anything, because I'd seen most of the sites we went to before. But I'm always impressed by the Statue of Liberty, and always saddened by Ellis Island. When you go to Ellis Island and look at the exhibits about its history, and learn about what people had to go through to get into the US, and imagine what it must have been like to wait in that big, echoing room to see if you'd get to stay or be sent back across the ocean, it's overwhelming. I can't even imagine what it must have been like to get all the way there, within sight of the mainland, and then be told that you have to go home, which is what happened to many would-be immigrants. I feel very, very lucky that my ancestors made it all the way through.

6. How was the view from the Top of the Rock?
It was quite good when we actually went the next day. I'd kind of thought it was a tourist trap, and it may be, but it has brilliant views of Central Park to the north and downtown to the south. You can see both rivers and off to New Jersey. I was impressed.

Day Six
1. It's the last day and I...
A. Don't want to go home!
B. Can't wait to go home!
C. Am so tired I don't know where I am or care

2. My favorite thing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art was...
not on display because of their renovations. We wanted the kids to see "Washington Crossing the Delaware" by Leutze and Stuart's portrait of Washington, plus the Tiffany mosaic fountain in the courtyard. None of the above were on display. They did get to see the arms and armor, and we happened upon John Singer Sargent's "Madame X," but I was pretty disappointed in the Met being in such a state of disarray.

3. The weather has been
A. Wonderful!
B. Weird
C. Okay, a little rain never hurt anyone
D. Tell me again why people choose to live on the East Coast
It rained on Friday, the penultimate day, but we had beautiful weather the rest of the time.

4. One thing that surprised me about this trip was...
how much easier it can be with one group of kids than with another. I did part of the same trip two years previous, and while the kids weren't actively bad on the earlier trip, they just weren't as much fun as these kids were. That's partly me and partly the kids, but these guys rocked.

5. One thing that really touched me on this trip was...
how the kids took care of each other. Like I said, they rocked.

Well, that's about it. I got to drink cranberry juice in Massachusetts and see this Chagall stained glass window at the United Nations. It was a pretty great time all around.