USA-C2C.com Site Ratings

TOURO SYNAGOGUE NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE

2006-09-29T14:57:00.000-04:00

Newport, R.I.
NPS Website; Local Website

WHAT IS IT?
Dedicated in 1763, the Touro Synagogue is the oldest synagogue in the United States.

BEAUTY (6/10)
The Synagogue's dullish yellow and brown exterior opens into a gorgeously restored one-room interior chamber. Five golden hanging candelabras sparkle as streaming natural light pours through the arched windows trimmed with olive frames and glistens off the eggshell white walls. 12 two-story Ionic and Corinthian pillars shape the square chamber and give the room a startling centrality and symmetry. The chamber's smallness emits a sense of urgency while its design, despite being largely neo-classical, feels almost exotic.

HISTORICAL INTEREST (8/10)
Touro Synagogue represents, in the National Park Service, American religious tolerance and the freedom to worship. As a symbolic entity, this Site could only exist in Rhode Island, the cradle of religious freedom and the first colony to vehemently separate church and state.

It is no coincidence, that in 1658, fifteen Jewish settlers arrived here, in Newport, with the hope of starting a new life, free from religious persecution and without fear. After worshipping in each other's houses for 100 years, that humble congregation found the means, in 1763, to construct the Synagogue that still stands.

When Rhode Island joined the United States, all of its citizens must have worried about their continued freedom of religion. Neither the Constitution, nor the Declaration of Independence had explicitly spoken about religion. In 1790, the warden of Touro's congregation wrote a letter to President George Washington, asking for assurances of the continued right to worship as he and his congregation pleased.

Washington responded with a remarkable letter stating that the Government of the United States “gives to bigotry no sanction (and) to persecution no assistance”. The Bill of Rights was ratified just one year later; its first amendment guaranteeing the freedom of religion. The Touro Synagogue is the quintessence of this liberal abstract. The Synagogue and its congregation seized a primary role in every stage of religious freedom's 150-year journey from radical concept to a pillar American ideal.

CROWDS (7/10)
We appreciated one fellow tourist's knowledge of Hebrew congregational structure and Jewish-American history. He filled in many of the blanks that our tour guide could not answer. At the same time, there were people in our small group that knew less about Hebrew customs than we did so we weren't embarrassed to ask basic questions.

EASE OF USE/ACCESS (2/5)
The Synagogue is located near the center of Newport, R.I., anywhere from 45 to 60 minutes south of Providence via a slew of winding roads. Take the Downtown Newport Exit from Rhode Island Route 138. Turn left on Touro Street and look for the Synagogue on your left. Park on a side street. Also, acquire a map before you get here; all the roads on the Newport peninsula are narrow and tricky.

Daily tours are given from July 1 through Labor Day every half-hour from 10-5. Good luck the rest of the year. Check ahead for times.

CONCESSIONS/BOOKSTORE (4/5)
What other National Park Site, affiliated or otherwise, can you get a wall clock with Hebrew numbers and a Matisyahu CD? There a lot of interesting book titles for sale and countless items containing portions of George Washington's letter. We enjoyed the bookstore's distinctive personality so much that we bought a Ten Commandments magnet.

COSTS (2/5)
$5 per person. Since this is an affiliate NPS Site, the National Parks Pass is not accepted. The Site's steep entry fee was its primary drawback.

RANGER/GUIDE TO TOURIST RATIO (3/5)
No Rangers. Two teen members of the Synagogue's congregation administered the tours and offered insight that no Ranger could have provided.

TOURS/CLASSES (5/10)
America's separation of church and state is a time-honored and culturally imperative concept. Then again, so is the American freedom of religion. How can the federally-run National Park System (NPS) tell the necessary story of our country's sacred past and its active churches? Through Touro Synagogue, an affiliated National Park Site with no Rangers, no NPS exhibits and no official brochure.

Instead, our teenage Tour Guide read from a personally prepared handwritten speech. She lacked big picture depth but clued us in to many of the Synagogue's design quirks and local legends. She was speaking for the congregation and its self-written history rather than the NPS and its historical mission.

FUN (5/10)
Our visit was much more fun and filled with less gravitas than our review suggests.

WOULD WE RECOMMEND? (4/10)
The Touro Synagogue is a refreshing historic break from the excess incarnate of Newport's Gilded Age mansions. Don't drive to Newport just to see the Synagogue, but if you are here it is a perfect place to remember the unique freedoms that Americans take for granted.

TOTAL 46/80

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© 2004-06

ROGER WILLIAMS NATIONAL MEMORIAL

2006-09-28T14:57:00.000-04:00

Providence, RI
NPS Website

WHAT IS IT?
A one room Visitor Center/Museum located on 4½ acres of landscaped park near the center of Providence, R.I. dedicated to Rhode Island founder Roger Williams and his legacy of religious tolerance.

BEAUTY (2/10)
Neither the narrow blink-and-you’ll-miss-it city park nor the nondescript Visitor Center is anything to write home about. The park does afford a side view of the imposing white marble Rhode Island State Capitol and some shaded patches of lawn should local college greens get too crowded.

The regal Roger Williams Memorial statue stands in Prospect Terrace Park, two blocks east of the NPS site and directly uphill (drive here). Confusingly named, the statue is not a part of the National Park Site. No matter. The statue's high perch offers wide vistas of Providence. From here, Roger Williams still looks over his city and on clear days can probably view his entire state.

HISTORICAL INTEREST (6/10)
Roger Williams was a dogged dissenter and itinerant Seeker of religious enlightenment through God's truth. Naturally, he first angered the Church of England, whom he believed was too Catholic, and later alienated his own Massachusetts Puritans whom he deemed had not done enough to separate the church from the state.

Williams peaceably, if not hurriedly, left England in 1630 and was banished from Massachusetts in 1635 because of his troublesome beliefs and stubborn opinions. Williams, after receiving land from the Narragansett Indians, soon started the colony of Rhode Island as a respite for varying religious beliefs. A place where laws would be made “only in civill things”.

Williams' legacy of religious tolerance legally mandated through the separation of church and state would become a pillar in the creation of an American consciousness and would be made National law by the First Amendment to the US Constitution.

What the current Park Site location has to do with this vitally important history is anybody's guess. Park literature say it is “a common lot of the original settlement” and goes no further. Doesn't all of Providence meet this requirement?

CROWDS (5/10)
Nobody else was inside the Lilliputian Visitor Center. A good thing. The Park, wedged between two busy cross-town Providence streets, is no welcoming expanse.

The few people that we encountered at Prospect Terrace Park did not have Roger Williams and tolerance on their minds. We overheard them discussing how no one should be let in the country if they don't speak English. What would Roger have thought about such exclusionary words spoken just yards from where he founded his colony on the principle of “shelter for persons distressed of conscience?”

EASE OF USE/ACCESS (3/5)
The largely one-way Providence streets can be a little confusing, especially when they skirt the prohibitively steep College Hill. North Main Street runs one-way northward, Canal Street runs one-way southward and Roger Williams NMEM is in between. Just past the Park's northern tip, these two roads converge and diverge, spawn new names, reverse one-way course and defy explanation.

Park literature says take Interstate Exit 23 and follows with a whole bunch of quick turns. We say visually find the Rhode Island State Capitol building. Find the road that goes in front of it: Smith Street. Drive past the Capitol (it will be on your right); turn right onto Canal Street then make a quick left into the small, free parking lot in front of the Visitor Center. There is no parking lot access from North Main Street.

The Visitor Center is accessible to individuals with disabilities. It is not that large so Rangers often travel out to schools or other interested groups to make their presentations.

CONCESSIONS/BOOKSTORE (3/5)
The bookstore offered a nice selection of pen-and-ink and photographed postcards of Providence. The book choice was appeasingly esoteric and included a number of Roger Williams' original texts including Bloudy Tenent and A Key into the Language of America. We were intrigued by the award-winning The Name of War: King Philip's War and the Origins of American Identity and Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650-1750. We did not buy them, but we were intrigued.

COSTS (4/5)
Free, free, free, free, free.

RANGER/GUIDE TO TOURIST RATIO (3/5)
A very friendly Ranger gave us her undivided attention during our 2004 visit. When we returned in 2006, an aloof volunteer had taken the Ranger's place.

TOURS/CLASSES (3/10)
Indoor size constraints allow only for wall-based exhibits panels. The first details Roger Williams’ wayward and influential life: from his birth in England to religious banishment from Massachusetts to his founding of Providence. The exhibit's detail is superficial at best. Read the surprisingly in-depth Park brochure for more info. Better yet, if you stroll down Main Street, you will see a mélange of multi-denominational places of worship and understand Williams’ influence on this fair city.

The other VC exhibit showcases Williams' legacy: the idea and the actualization of religious freedom. Time lines highlight progress and setbacks in American religious tolerance. Panels examine issues like the Constitutional separation of church and state whose importance and immediacy still resonate.

It is a shame that Freedom of Religion via the legal separation of church and state, a crucial, vital and often confusing American idea, gets so little space in the National Park System. Even more troubling was the darkness in the exhibit room during our 2006 visit. The volunteer turned out all the lights “too keep it cooler in here,” thus dimming the displays to almost unreadable. Is there no more light to shed on this subject?

FUN (2/10)
There is nothing to do at Roger Williams NMEM. The Site is a city park. The Park could offer a walking tour that spanned Roger Williams-related sites or point the visitor to historic churches and early settlements. The Park brochure mentions a few sites but contains no map. As it stands, the visitor is left to their own rudderless accord in a sea of Providence confusion. And PS, modern day Rhode Islanders aren’t known for their charm with visitors.

WOULD WE RECOMMEND? (3/10)
Where does Roger Williams NMEM rank among must-see Providence tourist destinations? Not so high. Use the Site’s green space to catch your breath after a climb up to College Hill to see Gab’s alma mater Brown University or the Rhode Island School of Design. Brown’s college green is idyllic and is encircled by lecture halls and buildings designed in every major architectural style. The RISD Museum with its collection of French Impressionist paintings, Greek and Roman sculptures and popular exhibits of contemporary art is particularly noteworthy.

Brown and RISD are among several schools that find their home in tiny Providence, along with countless meeting houses and places of worship whose congregations have been using them for hundreds of years. Federal Hill hosts dozens of Italian eateries and shops. The neighborhoods of Fox Point and East Providence hold on to their Portuguese and Cape Verdean roots. Providence packs in a lot of history and diversity in a small space. Rather than exemplify and celebrate this city trait, Roger Williams NMEM gets lost in the crowd.

TOTAL 34/80

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© 2004--06

NEW BEDFORD WHALING NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK

2006-09-28T14:56:00.000-04:00

New Bedford, Mass.
NPS Website; Local Website; New Bedford Whaling Museum Website

WHAT IS IT?
13 block of New Bedford's cobblestone streets, restored 19th Century buildings and active port and harbor. The Site honors the town's storied whaling industry history through affiliations with private Museums, businesses and churches.

BEAUTY (4/10)
The Park's few square blocks contain quaint, sturdy New England-ish buildings, two imposing neo-classical designs, the U.S. Custom House and the Double Bank Building, and a busy stretch of working harbor. The cobblestone streets, whose bumpiness ably keeps out through traffic, are lined with floral arrangements and surprisingly large front lawns.

The Park's two most astounding sights are inside the Whaling Museum. A 66-foot long blue whale skeleton hangs in the Museum's courtyard and the world's largest ship model, a 1/3-scale replica of a whaling ship is sequestered in the Museum's second floor. If you wish to view the ship, you need to pay the Museum's entry fee; gasping at the skeleton, on the other hand, costs nothing.

HISTORICAL INTEREST (4/10)
The Park's brochure hails New Bedford as the “Whaling Capital of the World”. Nantucket Island might dispute this statement. Nonetheless, we are glad the National Park Service located its whaling history Site here and not a seasonal ferry boat ride away. New Bedford's lasting whale legacy owes equally to the 100-year old New Bedford Whaling Museum (affiliated with the Park) and Herman Melville's Moby Dick, whose opening 13 chapters are set in these very streets.

CROWDS (8/10)
New Bedford residents are so shocked to see tourists in their industrial town that they react with effusive and inquisitive kindness. In 2004, two separate strangers approached us offering suggestions on where to eat and where to go.

In 2006, an incredulous boat captain, just back from a long commercial fishing haul, wondered why we would choose to vacation here at a working waterfront. “Are you guys from the local paper,” he wondered. After we said no, he explained his job and the role of the commercial fisherman for about ten minutes. We could not have asked for a better lesson. He is the modern-day equivalent of the New Bedford whaler that the Park honors.

Regardless, he was still unsure as to why we were here. Our explanations were insufficient. We were not the only ones. His “When I'm done working, I try to get out of here as soon as possible” comment was betrayed by the two cases of beer he was carrying to his boat as well as the impatient, thirsty faces of his deck hands.

EASE OF USE/ACCESS (3/5)
Head for downtown New Bedford. Take Interstate 195 Exit 15 and head south for about one mile along Massachusetts Route 18. Turn right at Elm Street and then left into the cobblestone streets. The Park suggests the Elm Street Parking garage. We do not because the Park offers no validation. There is, however, free two-hour parking located on Bethel Street/Johnny Cake Hill next to the Whaling Museum. Park there. If spots are limited, street parking is only $0.25 per hour. Skip the garage.

The Park's accessibility is severely hampered by the fact that many of its buildings are privately run and not open to the public. Since there are so many establishments (private, fee and free) that fall under the New Bedford Whaling NHP umbrella, it is difficult to ascertain both which ones you should be looking at and what exactly you should do. The Park's multiple maps and brochures help focus your visit but also overwhelm.

Our suggestion is to begin your visit at the Park Visitor Center located at the corner of Second and William. Pick up the Herman Melville New Bedford walking tour brochure, wander the streets with that guide and then spend the remainder of your stay at the Whaling Museum.

CONCESSIONS/BOOKSTORE (5/5)
While the Park VC may stock a manageable array of gifts (we love the Melville dolls) skip it and head straight to the Whaling Museum for your shopping needs. Don't worry about fees, you do not need to buy a Museum ticket to enter its bookstore.

Wow, what a selection. The stores sells over ten different editions of Moby Dick. We prefer the Norton Critical Edition. And that's just the start of the whale tales; the store's total nautical yarns might break four digits. If your looking for a more tangible whaling memory, there is gorgeous carved scrimshaw and other intricately adorned leviathan likenesses.

COSTS (1/5)
New Bedford Whaling NHP's marquee stop is the Whaling Museum, located on Johnny Cake Hill. It costs $10 per person, no National Parks Pass discount, although AAA will help a bit. The Museum existed for 90 years before the National Park Service arrived in 1996. We do not like paying for museums, living in Washington DC spoiled Michael, but there is no point in coming to New Bedford if you skip the Whaling Museum.

Across the street from the Museum is Seamen's Bethel Church, the town's other can't miss attraction. Moby Dick's portentous “Jonah and the whale” sermon occurred here. Non-readers will notice that the church's pulpit is the same one used by Orson Welles in the cinematic retelling of Melville's classic.

RANGER/GUIDE TO TOURIST RATIO (1/5)
Two trips to New Bedford, zero Rangers seen. We twice waited patiently for the 10:30 am Ranger-led walking tour but no one showed up either time.

TOURS/CLASSES (4/10)
The Site does not hurt for educational options. You might need an extra bag to carry all of the Park's provided literature. There are modest exhibits at its two Visitor Centers, three themed walking trail brochures (Herman Melville's New Bedford; the Underground Railroad; and the Working Waterfront Dock Walk) and a free 20-minute movie shown in the Whaling Museum's ornate theater.

All these options are free albeit in-depth, a little dry and attention intensive. The Whaling Museum, while not free and not NPS run, is spectacular.

FUN (7/10)
Moby Dick is Michael’s favorite novel. The book starts out in New Bedford. The first few times he read it, he was eager to get through the first few chapters, out of the city, onto the sea and into adventure. After our first visit, this is how we felt about New Bedford Whaling NHP.

During Michael's last reading of Moby Dick, while we were camping in the solitude of Channel Islands NP, he paid closer attention to the book's opening chapters. Pages that had been an annoying means to an eventual end this time emitted wry humor that was part satire part ribald slapstick. The book's early pages now teemed with rewarding moments. Michael was still ready to search for the white whale but he appreciated the goofy charm of an underappreciated town.

WOULD WE RECOMMEND? (3/10)
Was Melville right when he told visitors to believe that New Bedford has more to offer than “harpooners, cannibals and bumpkins?” Yes, it has a Whaling Museum. Er...that's fits the harpooners category. On the plus side, we saw neither cannibals nor bumpkins.

If whaling history and Melville are your thing, you have probably already been to New Bedford. We cannot come up with a good reason for a neophyte whaling enthusiast or somebody without anti-transcendentalist interests to come here. The cobblestone streets and historic buildings are similar to many other New England coastal towns and no whale watching excursions leave from this port.

TOTAL 40/80

www.usa-c2c.com
© 2004-06

ADAMS NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK

2006-09-28T14:53:00.000-04:00

Quincy, Mass.
NPS Website

WHAT IS IT?
Birthplace and final resting place of both the 2nd and 6th Presidents, John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams. The Site also includes the Old House, home of both Adamses, fully furnished with artwork, books and furniture all owned by some generation of that venerable Quincy family.

BEAUTY (6/10)
The exteriors of Presidents 2 and 6's homes lack the panache and grandeur of their Commander-in-Chief contemporaries'. The Old House is no ostentatious Southern neo-classical plantation mansion. Its gems are inside and not on public display for every horse-drawn (or horse-powered) passerby.

Inside are 78,000 original Adams artifacts arranged for display by John Quincy's grandsons. The tasteful and subdued colors, furniture and artwork speak of a quiet confidence and contained dignity. The house's mood is comfortable and liveable, seemingly unchanged for 200 years. The Old House does not feel like a museum; if John, John Quincy, Abigail, Louisa Catherine or Charles Francis were to magically appear they would not be existentially displaced.

HISTORICAL INTEREST (8/10)
The Adamses are America's most distinguished and most accomplished family. The gravity of the titles held by the Old House's residents would sink the Titanic. US President; US Vice President; US VP Candidate; US Senator; US Congressman; Secretary of State; Ambassador to Great Britain, France, Prussia and Russia; the list just goes on. Nearly every important incident in our country's first 75 years involved someone who lived here.

The home's artifacts are equally astounding. For example, tucked in an unassuming corner in the Old House's first floor is an original 1823 William Stone engraving of the Declaration of Independence. Stone's engraving is the basis for most modern reproductions because of the 1776 copies poor transfer. An 1823 Declaration is America's most treasured and valuable antique; less than forty of the 201 prints are known to be in existence.

Our Ranger assured us that the document on display was one of the prized remaining copies. And why shouldn't it be? As President, John Quincy Adams commissioned the engraving. His father and not Thomas Jefferson, some historian's argue, is the document's primary author. The desk where John Adams may have written the Declaration (and surely wrote his famed correspondences to Jefferson) is upstairs. The Old House lives and breathes the same rarefied American history air as Mount Vernon and Monticello.

CROWDS (5/10)
The narrow corridors and low ceilings of all three Adams abodes felt cramped with just us and a Ranger. A crowded tour could be oppressively claustrophobic. The space limitations and lack of parking around the homes necessitates a Park trolley bus. The mandatory shuttle further constrains your time and enjoyment. We felt rushed during our whole visit.

EASE OF USE/ACCESS (2/5)
After our miserable showing direction-wise in Quincy, we have no business giving you directions. We could blame the streets which seldom meet a right angles or connect with other. We could blame the Adams NHP map which aligns the direction coordinates wrong (North faces leftward). Or we could blame the glut of Dunkin' Donuts which skewed our landmark references (the Dunk started here). Or we could blame ourselves, meaning Gab, the navigator.

Here's what worked. We exited from Interstate 93 onto Massachusetts Route 3 and went towards Quincy Center. Look closely for Adams NHP signs, follow them with care and may the force be with you. The Visitor Center (VC) is located on Hancock Street on the first floor of a commercial complex. There is validated parking in the adjunct garage. You could also take the Boston T (the subway) red line to the Quincy Center Station.

Luckily, a Park trolley takes visitors from the VC to two different stops: the Birthplace Houses and the Old House. Unluckily, the trolly's wheelchair lift was out of service and a fellow tourist and his family were left searching for transportation options. Much of the Old House, including the entire second floor, is wheelchair inaccessible; an unfortunate but unfixable shame.

The Adams NHP is closed for house tours during the long New England winter months of November, December, January, February, March and most of April. We missed its 2004 Patriot's Day opening and had to return in 2006 to visit the Site.

CONCESSIONS/BOOKSTORE (5/5)
The Adams NHP bookstore contains a wealth of wonderful texts, not just David McCullough's recent Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller, John Adams. An entire stack is dedicated to John-Abigail correspondences as well as the voluminous (and long out-of-print) Diary of Charles Francis Adams, on sale at amazon.com for $125 a pop. We wished we would have checked the Adams NHP prices.

The bookstore's gems don't stop with those Diaries. We arrived to the salesperson shelving the racks with two boxes of rare and out-of-print Adams sagas. “We'll go through all of these in a few days,” he assured us. We will quibble about the absence of the masterpiece, The Education of Henry Adams, the Modern Library's best non-fiction book of the 20th Century (He lived here, too) but on the whole the standards and rarities sold here are too good and too numerous.

COSTS (3/5)
Park entry and shuttle service to the Adams home costs $5 per person but it free with the National Parks Pass. If you park in the Visitors Center's adjacent parking garage be sure to validate your parking. One Ranger-administered stamp and your parking is free.

RANGER/GUIDE TO TOURIST RATIO (5/5)
While there, we had trouble keeping track of all the Rangers. Let's try and remember. We saw two at the VC, two at the Birthplace Tour and three at the Old House. No repeaters either.

TOURS/CLASSES (8/10)
The Adams NHP Tour's order and lesson arrangement are perfect. First come the John Adams and John Quincy Adams birthplaces. Inside a Ranger offers a refresher course on the Presidents, speaks of their childhood, reintroduces day-to-day Colonial-era items and whisks you off onto the trolley for the main course, the Old House.

The Old House tour picks up where the Birthplace Tour started but continues wherever you wish to take it. The Guide gauged our level of interest and proceeded to share a wealth of in-depth Adams knowledge. There is so much to see in the Old House and what the Guide chooses to show is based on the visitors' interests. Our learning experience was overwhelming and much too short despite the two-hour length.

Like Thomas Jefferson's Monticello home, there is too much to see and too little time inside the Old House. We probably should have asked for a second tour; we are sure we would have seen completely different things.

FUN (8/10)
The Adams NHP House Tours were wonderfully engaging and full of historic surprises. The original Adams artifacts alone were worth the price of admission. We were taken aback by the value and worth of what we were seeing; perhaps it was because we had just watched an Antiques Roadshow marathon. Regardless, our highlight of the tours was the 12,000+ volume library that Quincy's grandchildren built to store their ancestors' impressive collection.

Make sure that there is enough time between your Old House tour and trolley pick-up time to ensure a look inside the Library. This can be tricky. We unnecessarily rushed ourselves because of the waiting trolley. But had we missed that ride, it would have been at least 30 minutes until the next.

WOULD WE RECOMMEND? (8/10)
The blustery talkers and historical agents from Boston and Cambridge have staked their claim as the center of Massachusetts and, dare we say, American life and accomplishments. The facts show that the rural Adamses of Quincy were the lifeblood of Massachusetts politics. John Adams' diffident nature has unfairly kept him out of the founding fathers pantheon of Washington, Jefferson and Franklin. John Quincy's often icy and irrational behavior has kept him off nearly everybody's beloved Presidents list.

Do not make the mistake of ignoring the Adamses. The Adams NHP offers one of New England's best and most historically significant house tours. You should visit this Site especially if your (Michael's sister) in-laws live just a few miles away in Holbrook, Mass.

TOTAL 58/80

www.usa-c2c.com
© 2004-06

BOSTON HARBOR ISLANDS NATIONAL PARK AREA

2006-09-28T14:50:00.000-04:00

Boston, Mass.
NPS Website; Local Website

WHAT IS IT?
34 islands of various shape, size, origin, accessibility, population and history that dot the Boston’s wide G-shaped harbor.

BEAUTY (5/10)
Boston Harbor is more utilitarian than beautiful. Industry takes precedence both on the water and along the shores. A mild, unfiltered haze hangs over the city even on the clearest and sunniest days. The most accessible islands, Georges and Spectacle, are situated too far from the city skyline to produce awe-inspiring views. In addition, Georges' Fort Warren is in mild disrepair and Spectacle has a long history as a trash dump.

No matter, it is still nice to be out on the water and away from the city's hustle and bustle. The most stunning views on the Boston Harbor Islands tour come early so be alert. When you leave the docks, Boston's surprisingly imposing downtown skyline appears. It looms far more impressively from the water than from land. The cruise also offers the opportunity to spot Boston's famous church steeples. Is that one lamp or two?

HISTORICAL INTEREST (3/10)
History has largely ignored the Boston Harbor Islands but humans have not. Man has hunted, farmed, built on, trashed and, most recently, set aside the land for recreational purposes.

Georges Island's main attraction is Fort Warren, an early 19th Century coastal defense fortification. The Fort never saw a naval attack but it did serve as a Civil War prison camp for Southern VIP detainees. Many of the Islands contain modern civilization's necessities: Little Brewster Island boasts the requisite charming lighthouse; Deer Island has a water treatment plant; and Thompson Island is an Outward Bound-administered destination.

Spectacle Island's twin peaks, the North and South Drumlins, have grown over 60 feet in height in just 15 years. Its hills' newfound augmentation comes as the result of the much derided Boston boondoggle, the Big Dig. This Island was the dumping ground for all the dirt unearthed during the infamous tunneling project.

CROWDS (9/10)
The Boston Harbor Islands are primarily a locals' destination, an excursion unknown to most tourists. The people on Georges and Spectacle Islands had been there before and were excited to return. We toured the Islands on a Sunday. On Georges, large groups staked their claim on the BBQ grills. Spontaneous soccer games started. Wafts of good smells hung in the air. In every directions, kids ran around in circles, screaming with joy trying to catch elusive sea gulls. To hundreds of people, Georges Island was their private weekend fun getaway.

EASE OF USE/ACCESS (1/5)
Unless you have your own boat, you will need use the Harbor Islands Express ferries to get to most of the Park's attractions. Direct ferries leave often from Boston's Long Wharf to both Georges Island and Spectacle Island. Long Wharf is located downtown at the Boston T (subway) Blue Line Aquarium Station.

Island hopping ferries travel to and from Georges and Spectacle Islands. Check the schedule once you get there. If you wish to avoid the city altogether, less frequent ferries leave from Quincy, Mass. to Georges Island daily.

World's End Park, located in the southeastern corner of the harbor, near Hingham, is not even an island and is completely accessible by car. The 274-acre peninsula is a Frederick Law Olmsted landscaped park and has miles of carriage trails.

CONCESSIONS/BOOKSTORE (2/5)
Georges Island's status as a locals destination is reinforced by its lack of a Visitor Center and knick-knack vending bookstore. The tourists here are not interested in Boston reminders, they already live here. The only thing you can buy on Georges is food. Grillers flip hamburgers vigilantly while the fryers stay busy. French fries, steak kabobs and fried dough are not your standard National Park Site fare.

COSTS (1/5)
On weekends, a round-trip ferry ticket (with unlimited island hopping) runs $12 per adult, $7 per child. A family 4-pack (2 adults and 2 kids) costs $32. These prices are not bad, considering a) its a lot cheaper than carting the family to the beach; b) you can take the T to the pier; and c) transport means a Harbor cruise with beautiful views of Boston.

Primitive backcountry camping is available on a few of the more remote islands. Cost per site is $10. If you wish to ensure your spot through online reservation, there is an exorbitant $9.50 transaction charge.

RANGER/GUIDE TO TOURIST RATIO (4/5)
The National Park Service (NPS) has no museum or exhibits on any of the Harbor Islands probably because they do not administer any of the Islands. Confusingly, the Park is a National Park Site. NPS Rangers answer questions at the Pier prior to boarding but we saw none on any of the Islands. An 90-minute long $18.95 per person Ranger-led catamaran cruise leaves three times a day during the summer months.

The Islands themselves are full of State Park Rangers and volunteers. If you have questions, they won't go unanswered.

TOURS/CLASSES (6/10)
During our weekend stop, both Spectacle and Georges Island were veritable tour machines. Fort tours, birdwatching tours and island history tours led by very young volunteers seemed to be going on in all directions.

We lucked into a New England Aquarium Kids Day going on in Fort Warren's unmowed and slowly-going-back-to-nature parade ground. The exhibit brought many of the Aquarium's live animals to the Island. Michael was transfixed by a gorgeous, inquisitive and playful Raven while most of the crowd gravitated to the shellfish and owls.

An interactive State Park-run display room on Spectacle Island recounts its turbulent past as the city's dumping ground and transformation into a wildlife zone. The area between Spectacle's two Drumlins (hills) was reclaimed from the harbor in 1902 and used as a trash heap until 1959. Some accounts say the dumping ceased because the festering trash swallowed a bulldozer. Other accounts say that the underground fires, sparked by the dangerously contained methane gases, had made the situation too dangerous. Today, Spectacle is a much more attractive destination with its gentle hiking trails, countless birds and harbor views.

FUN (8/10)
Fort Warren screams fun. Literally. Its dilapidated interiors are the perfect place for amateur explorers. Children and adults armed only with sputtering flashlights wander its pitch black corridors imagining ghost tales and filling themselves with healthy fear. Their shrieks echo uncontrollably until they emerge from the dark. No other Fort in the National Park System is so dishevelled, so non-OSHA compliant, so ignored and so much fun.

WOULD WE RECOMMEND? (4/10)
The Islands are more of a fun, weekend getaway for city denizens than an out-of-town tourist destination. The trip here is more for relaxation than tourism and if your vacation is about relaxation then why would you be in Boston?

The ferry rides to and from the Islands guarantee your visit will gobble up much of the day. The Park warns against camping on the Islands and spending the day in Boston; the ferry schedule makes that cost-saving strategy difficult. If you absolutely must get out onto the Harbor, the 90-minute Ranger-led catamaran cruise sounds like fun. Call ahead for reservations and enjoy what the Park calls “Boston's best kept secret.”

TOTAL 43/80

www.usa-c2c.com
© 2004-06

JOHN F. KENNEDY LIBRARY & MUSEUM

2006-09-28T08:29:00.000-04:00

Boston, Mass.
Local Website

WHAT IS IT?
The Presidential Library and Museum of our 35th President, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

BEAUTY (7/10)
I.M. Pei's modernist design recalls a historical path that never occurred. His angular white towering structure feels like the space-age, clean, civilized future we imagined would come but never did. The building is anachronistic and progressive at the same time. Like Kennedy, it leaves you with a feeling of “what went wrong”, where did the chaos and uncertainty come from. Weren't we in complete control of our perfect destiny?

The Museum's interior layout casually takes you through the past with style, an ordered past and without confusion. You always know where to go and those places fill you with reassurance. The black-walled corridor adorned only with the date, November 22, 1963 empties into another, larger corridor that shows the achievements of JFK's initiatives, other Kennedy members, and JFK's political heirs.

The final room is a 155-foot tall glass-enclosed pavilion which looks out onto the Harbor and the Boston skyline. Above a gargantuan American flag hangs. The tower speaks of lofty dreams which are belied by the oppressive, criss-crossed girders which even, 155 feet above the ground, limit any further soaring.

HISTORICAL INTEREST (6/10)
The Museum does a terrific job of explaining and evoking Camelot, the romance of a young, charming and handsome President and in the promise that hope brought a modern nation.

CROWDS (7/10)
The memory of JFK and his mythic life still hold powerful sway in New England. The 43 years that have passed since his assassination are reduced to none once you step into his Library. The crowds' lingering love for Kennedy makes the Museum a very emotional, somber and hero-affirming place.

EASE OF USE/ACCESS (5/5)
The JFK Library and Museum is located just off Interstate 93 on the campus of Umass-Boston, about five miles south of downtown Boston. Take either Exit 15 (from the North) or Exit 14 (from the South) onto Morrissey Boulevard. Follow the signs, they are abundant, to the Museum. Parking is free.

From the T (the Boston subway), take the red line to the aptly titled JFK/UMass station. A frequent shuttle ferries museum mavens from the stop to the Library.

CONCESSIONS/BOOKSTORE (2/5)
A first glance at the bookstore reveals classy souvenirs and a slew of books. Further perusals confirm the ritzy knick-knack part: Robert Berks casted JFK busts, stylish Jackie O accessories, sailboat miniatures and lots of scrimshaw. We bought a wonderful large Irish-made teapot for Michael's parents. It is very hard to find nice large teapots.

A second glance proved the book part lacking. 90% of the books are written by a Kennedy family member (or ghostwritten by Ted Sorensen). It is easy to imagine that their books take up two shelves given the Kennedy family's prodigious writing output. What does this have to do with the historical research done at the Library and analysis of JFK's Presidency? Nothing at all.
We have been largely disappointed at the lack of critical books stocked at most modern-day Presidential Libraries: Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Kennedy. Why not stock everything written about the men?

Even more disappointing was the lack of Ernest Hemingway books. Yes, Hemingway. The Kennedy Library manages the entire collection of Hemingway's manuscripts, letters and correspondences. Why no Hemingway rarities for sale and why no Hemingway exhibits in the Museum?

COSTS (1/5)
Entry is $10 per person, making it the second most expensive Presidential Library. The Reagan Library in Simi Valley has undergone a dramatic price hike to $12 per from our $7 visit in May of 2005. Most Presidential Libraries run about $7 per person and also hold significant AAA discount potential.

RANGER/GUIDE TO TOURIST RATIO (1/5)
No one. This tour is fully self-guided.

TOURS/CLASSES (6/10)
The early Kennedy imagery (the Nixon debate and the Inauguration speech) is so ubiquitous, so canonized and so familiar that witnessing them play out on Hi-Def televisions in Disney-esque set-pieces seems natural and immediately acceptable. We were not born until 1974 but it still feels like we were there when these events happened.

Once JFK is elected, the Museum's chronological layout switches from a jumbled walkway surrounding exhibits to a long corridor with topical antechambers. It is with the less familiar material that JFK's aura and lasting sway over the American people becomes clearer. One exhibit space recreates the White House briefing room where a full JFK press conference is replayed on a small 60's cabinet monitor. The literary brilliance of his staff reports and personal correspondences line the walls.

Kennedy's press conference performance is so natural, so charming, so intelligent, so witty, so suave and so confident. He is a polished level-headed representation of our grown-up USA, he is class, he is the promise of a modern, perfect world.

Promise, however, is what the Museum must lean on. Kennedy's accomplishments are beginnings, thoughts, inspirations and legacies. His actions sometimes contradict the mythology and the Museum largely ignores the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the beginnings of Vietnam, the personal peccadilloes and the lack of Civil Rights legislation. The Museum is about the Kennedy dream and romance rather than the Kennedy reality; it is debatable which holds more meaning.

FUN (7/10)
We enjoyed being transported back in time through I.M. Pei's alternate universe spaceship. Back to a time of heroes and legends and of hope and dreams. Back to a time when greatness was the goal, when the future was a part of the plan and when fear was forgotten and dreams were met without cynicism. It felt good to be a part of that world. Knowing that historically it quickly ended and perhaps never even existed was heartbreaking.

WOULD WE RECOMMEND? (7/10)
Jack Kennedy is as Boston as baked beans, Jerry Remy and Faneuil Hall. If you visit Boston, you should travel to the JFK Presidential Library. It is a perfect commemoration of his time as President, especially in remembering the mythology and charm that wooed hundreds of millions of people the world over. Camelot still lives at UMass-Boston.

TOTAL 49/80

www.usa-c2c.com
© 2004-06

BOSTON AFRICAN-AMERICAN NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE

2006-09-15T16:09:00.000-04:00

Boston, Mass.
NPS Website; Local Website; Museum of Afro-American History Website

WHAT IS IT?
Trail through Beacon Hill that commemorates the 19th Century community of freed African-Americans that lived in this section of Boston.

BEAUTY (6/10)
The Boston African-American NHS Heritage Trail begins at its most recognizable site, Augustus Saint-Gaudens' monument to the 54th Regiment, the fighting force of freed African-Americans immortalized in the film, Glory. Saint-Gaudens' stunning masterpiece captures the heroism and grandeur of these groundbreaking soldiers.

The rest of the Trail weaves up and down the streets of Boston's most elite neighborhood, Beacon Hill. The Sites on the Trail are among these stunning and oft-photographed redbrick Federal-style mansions. Trail Stops are largely private homes.

HISTORICAL INTEREST (4/10)
Who and what are being honored at the Boston African-American NHS? It is hard to say given the Site's decentralized approach; there is no Visitor Center (VC) and no accessible National Park Service (NPS) building. If you intend to walk the self-guided Trail you need to ask for the pamphlet while at another Boston-area NPS Site. Complicated stuff.

So who does the Park honor again? The lives of the whole neighborhood of freed African-Americans, the soldiers of the 54th Regiment who might have lived in the area and possibly the white Abolitionists who helped house fugitive slaves. The Site could benefit from some focus. As it is, it just celebrates a neighborhood and its everyday life, a place with as much significance and historical merit as areas in dozens of other northern cities.

CROWDS (7/10)
We were not the only ones milling about Beacon Hill reading the Park Trail brochure aloud to each other. We nearly crashed into a simpatico couple on Joy Street; both of of heads ensconced in the description of the Abiel Smith House. It is nice to know we are not the only history buff crazies. We were both supremely disappointed that the Museum of Afro-American History was closed and that the adjoining African Meeting House was completely encased for construction purposes in a Christos-eque wrapping paper.

EASE OF USE/ACCESS (2/5)
Is Beacon Hill the most difficult American neighborhood to park in for a non-Resident? Yes. Do not drive here. There a a number of T (Subway) stations nearby: Charles/MGH, Bowdoin, and Park Street; each one at the base of one of Beacon Hill's corners.

Beacon Hill is a steep hill with cobblestone pavement and awkwardly quaint sidewalks. They're very historic. The prescribed 1.6-mile long Heritage Trail Route sends you up and then down and then back up the hill again so eat your Wheaties the morning before your trip.

Unlike the highly accessible Freedom Trail, most of the Heritage Trail's attractions are privately-owned and not open to the public. A small, not-so-handy sign outside a door or window is all the explanation you get. We felt uncomfortable taking photographs of peoples' houses and were startled when a retiring-age man in a Brooks Brothers polo shirt opened the door of the Lewis and Harriet Hayden House. We apologized for lingering outside his door and he went about his Sunday business.

CONCESSIONS/BOOKSTORE (4/5)
The Museum of Afro-American History's basement bookstore stocks many interesting and recently published titles, including 2005's Complicity: How the North Promoted, Prolonged, and Profited from Slavery, written by Hartford Courant journalists and Anne Bailey's 2006 African Voices of the Atlantic Slave Trade. The titles we could see focused entirely on antebellum subjects. Because the Museum was closed, our rating took into consideration the shelves that face the outside window and gave the rest the benefit of the doubt.

COSTS (5/5)
Walking around the Boston's unbearably posh Beacon Hill neighborhood is free, although at every turn you half expect a toll collector to appear. From Memorial Day through Labor Day, three free guided Ranger tours on Monday-Saturday depart from the Shaw Memorial at 10, noon and 2.

The privately-run Museum of Afro-American History, located in the Abiel Smith School building, is free and open everyday of the week from 10 to 4 except Sunday.

RANGER/GUIDE TO TOURIST RATIO (2/5)
There we were at the Shaw Memorial, 10 am, waiting. A Boston movie tour passed by, then an Old Town Trolley tour, then a Duck Boat tour. No NPS Ranger. Turns out it was Sunday. Bad luck, us. Our misadventure hammered home the point that there is no Boston African-American NHS Visitor Center and no way to talk to a Ranger from the Site except during their guided tours. Couldn't the Boston NHP VC, located nearby, share some of its space?

TOURS/CLASSES (3/10)
The Park Brochure goes into great depth about each of the stops along the Trail. Its descriptions, while lengthy, are surprisingly lacking in excitement, interesting characters and in plot. Wow, this guy James Scott was a tailor and David Bartlett was a hairdresser. Louis Glapion was a hairdresser too? That's something else. Perhaps the Tour Guide gives these stories some life.

Strangely, a placard on a house on Joy Street declares it as the former residence of David Walker. Now we are getting somewhere. David Walker's Appeal, published in 1829 is one of the most controversial and important documents written by and for antebellum African-Americans.
The 76-page pamphlet called for immediate emancipation, defended and endorsed violent slave revolts, set off a wave of hysteria in Southern states and was castigated as too violent by white abolitionists. Walker was found dead at his Boston doorstep less than a year after the pamphlet's publication. City records site tuberculosis.

For unknown reasons, Walker's house and life is NOT INCLUDED in the Boston African-American NHS brochure or in its Heritage Trail. His omission is akin to the Freedom Trail not including Samuel Adams because his speech was too scurrilous and too revolutionary.

After getting worked up into that lather, it was probably a good thing that the Museum of Afro-American History is closed on Sundays. Its exhibit space, on constant rotation, currently remembers Boston's “Ambassadors of Abolition”. The last thing Michael wanted to hear at that point was a puff piece on the wonders of New England's morally omniscient white abolitionists.

FUN (3/10)
Walking around high-priced real estate taking pictures is not our idea of fun. We are renters, not buyers. The Heritage Trail sounds like a good idea but it suffers from the inevitable comparison to Boston's other Trail, the Freedom one. When one Trail shows you the “Cradle of Liberty” and everything you learned on Pages 45-90 in your history textbooks, it is hard to concentrate on a Trail that recounts the lives of liverymen, hairdressers and chimney sweeps.

WOULD WE RECOMMEND? (3/10)
Only to those already bent on wandering through Beacon Hill. Why not grab a pamphlet and learn something about Boston's freed African-American community while you are trying to figure out in which house John Kerry and Theresa Heinz live. (It is 19 Louisburg Square.)

TOTAL 39/80

www.usa-c2c.com
© 2004-06

LONGFELLOW NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE

2006-09-15T16:06:00.000-04:00

Cambridge, Mass.
NPS Website; Local Website

WHAT IS IT?
The quintessential American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, lived in this yellow Georgian mansion from 1837 to 1882. The house also served as temporary headquarters for George Washington during the Revolutionary War.

BEAUTY (2/10)
In the 1800's painting your house a blandish yellow equated to wealth and success. We are glad that went out of style.

The insides of Longfellow's mansion represent the worst of Victorian-era excesses: unending clutter, elaborate showiness and more marble busts than we could keep track of. Each room we entered got progressively uglier. “It can't get any worse than this one,” we kept thinking. Oh yes it can. Our tour guide's insistence on the room's absolute beauty only made the situation more comical.

HISTORICAL INTEREST (4/10)
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Poet, teacher and creator of American legends through his grand epics Song of Hiawatha, Evangeline and The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.

Or Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Glorified limerick writer, nostalgic, sentimental hack whose ridiculously dumb-downed themes and simplistic rhyme schemes are appropriately read primarily by first graders. We know which judgment we tend towards.

CROWDS (3/10)
Bad news all around. We missed the 11:30 am House tour by 3 minutes and were not allowed to catch up meaning the next tour was at 1:00 pm. We tried to piggy back onto a special college tour after an invitation from two considerate undergrads. No dice. Their leader ratted us out, told us to leave and we were left to wander the sweltering streets of Cambridge. Oh, if eyes could shoot daggers.

EASE OF USE/ACCESS (4/5)
The Site is about a half-mile from the Harvard Square Red Line T (Subway) Station. So that's where we went. We enjoyed our unexpected lunchtime break on the Harvard University's library steps and in a few Cambridge book stores. Time well spent.

Park literature recommends the T because street parking can very very difficult and time limited. From the Harvard Square Stop, travel west on either Church and then right onto Brattle. The House is located at 105 Brattle; the pleasant walk will pass Radcliffe College.

The Site is open only Wednesdays through Sundays from 10 am through 4:30 pm. Six tours leave daily: at 10:30; 11:30; 1; 2; 3; and 4. Harsh Boston weather shuts the Park down from October through the end of May; the Polar Bears and Sabre-toothed Tigers migrate back to Canada around Mother's Day.

CONCESSIONS/BOOKSTORE (3/5)
Its literary merits aside, the title of Harold Bloom's anthology Stories and Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children of All Ages (for sale here) captures the mood of the Longfellow NHS perfectly. Unbearably pompous, condescending and superior despite the fact that its subject matter is meant for children.

The historical fiction novel, The Dante Club, in which Longfellow is a character is on sale here in its best-selling glory as is the more intriguingly-titled Longfellow's Tattoo's which examines the body art and physical art Longfellow's son's collected while living in Japan in 1871.

COSTS (3/5)
Tours of the house run $3 per person, free with the National Parks Pass.

RANGER/GUIDE TO TOURIST RATIO (3/5)
Six Ranger-led tours a day with a max size of 15 is not bad. Unless you are the 16th and 17th persons that is. Walking around Cambridge at noon was nice, it really was.

TOURS/CLASSES (1/10)
We might have forgotten about our meandering time had the tour been worthwhile. But like the Victorian designs, our lessons got laughably worse as we moved from room to room. We were not the only disappointed ones; we think the husband who dragged his pregnant wife onto the tour is still repaying her for her visible anguish.

Did we learn nothing or was there just nothing to learn? The Site has no intro film and no museum to answer that question.

FUN (1/10)
Longfellow NHS successfully completes the trifecta of un-fun Historic Sites: 1) Dubiously distinguished dude; 2) Dreadfully dull discourse; and 3) Disastrously disgusting decor.

WOULD WE RECOMMEND? (1/10)
The 1:00 pm tour was not the first time we had to return to the Longfellow NHS. We came here on a gorgeous April, 2004 afternoon only to find out the Site does not open until May. You, good tourist, don't have to worry about when the Site is open or not open because there is no need to come here.

TOTAL 25/80

www.usa-c2c.com
© 2004-06

BOSTON NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK

2006-09-15T16:04:00.000-04:00

Boston, Mass.
NPS Website; Local Website ; Freedom Trail Foundation Website

WHAT IS IT?
The 2½-mile Freedom Trail. Blazed in Boston’s streets is a redbrick pathway leading from the verdant Boston Common downtown to a 211 foot-high obelisk, the Bunker Hill Monument, in Charlestown. The helpful path guides you (and 1.5 million annually) to 16 sites critical to the birth and early life of our nation.

BEAUTY (9/10)
The redbrick historic structures that make up Boston’s Freedom Trail intermingle well with the surrounding modern buildings. The inner vistas provided by Boston Common’s expansiveness are breathtaking as is its welcoming verdant space.

Many of the historic buildings that skirt the Freedom Trail are archetypical examples of Georgian-style architecture, as in these are the ones shown in textbooks as the most representative and the most beautiful. The State House is an exception as the most famous use of Federalist-style architecture.

No American city's buildings garner more of a powerful historic sense than those in Boston, primarily because they remain vibrant, living among the skyscrapers of today. These structures never died. Most of them still serve the same purpose as they did in the 18th Century.

The Site's numerous graveyards hold their own macabre feeling of beauty. Many of the ancient tombstones hold fancy etched calligraphy and intricate, symbolic designs including sinister skulls, mourning angels and mirthful skeletons. These designs, while pleasantly normal in Puritan New England, would be out-of-place in a modern cemetery.

HISTORICAL INTEREST (10/10)
Downtown Boston and its famous portion of the Freedom Trail are the epitome of American history. It is our self-imagined vision of what American history is: Georgian-style, redbrick buildings; stern men with white wigs saying important things; men with tri-cornered hats on horseback; lots of talking and rabble rousing; serious churches and Revolutionary War success. Our history-deficient country takes history-themed vacations here where we “follow in the footsteps of history” and clamor to listen to high-priced tour guides recount facts we tried not to listen to in school.

What exactly happened along this part of the Freedom Trail? Well, from Stops 1-11 (the downtown section) there was a lot of talking and political planning and a lot of everyday boring activity that occurs in every large city. History remembers many of the important people buried in the cemeteries along the way.

Stops 12-14 (the North End section) are where the fun starts and where the legends were made. OK, stop 10 is the Boston Massacre site but if you blink you'll miss it. Its only marked by a circle of cobblestones and is located next to a busy auto intersection. Where were we? Stop 12 is Paul Revere's House, the oldest house in Boston and Stop 13 is the Old North Church of two lantern lighting fame. If you want the rest of the Patriot's Day story go to Minute Man NHP. Stop 14 is another cemetery.

Stops 15-16 are located in Charlestown, a long walk (bridge crossing included) from downtown Boston. Stop 15 is the USS Constitution, our first and greatest warship and Stop 16 is Bunker Hill, site of the Revolutionary War's first major battle. FYI, the Boston Tea Party ship is NOT a part of the Freedom Trail and the National Park Service but it is within walking distance of downtown and was the sight of a significant historic event.

CROWDS (8/10)
Downtown Boston is perpetually crowded with cars, tourists, workers and everything in between. In addition, Beantown’s streets are maddeningly circuitous, cross at weird angles and make it very easy to get lost. No worries, though, the redbricked and clearly painted Freedom Trail changes everything.

It’s OK to be a tourist and almost impossible to get lost once you get downtown and onto the Trail. You share the walk in this vibrant beautiful city with its citizens and the sightseers around you. There is so much to see and so much to take in. Time quickly becomes irrelevant and the crowds become a joy.

EASE OF USE/ACCESS (3/5)
First, the bad parts. Parking is a nightmare. We tried and it nearly reduced us to tears. We repeat, do not attempt to park on the streets. Parking garages are a pricey but do-able option; the garage under Boston Common runs $6 for the first hour, $18 for up to nine hours. Downtown Hotel self-parking runs about $25 per day. Boston traffic is notoriously bad. The Big Dig collapsing has made things worse.

The good parts. Well, once you get downtown you should have no worries. After testing the car option, we stayed on the outskirts of town, took the subway (the T) in and had no problems. Many Boston tourists choose one of the myriad guided tour trolleys that circumnavigate the historic areas. They allow you unlimited re-boarding privileges and take you to most tourist-friendly parts of town.

CONCESSIONS/BOOKSTORE (2/5)
The National Park Service (NPS) Visitor Center bookstore stocks a half-hearted selection of Revolutionary War-era books. You are better off looking for that perfect title at one of the bookstores in the privately-run Freedom Trail sites. Remember, no admission price is necessary if you are just going to the bookstore.

Freedom Trail Stop 8 used to be the Old Corner Bookstore, once home to Ticknor and Fields the Boston publisher who brought the world Hawthorne, Longfellow, Emerson, Alcott and Stowe, among others. As recently as our 2004 visit, the building housed the Globe Corner Bookstore. No longer. The current resident is the Chicago-based diamond retailing chain, Ultra Diamonds, who have 143 nationwide stores where “you should Never Pay Retail”. Why must one of them be in one of America's most storied literary buildings and a part of the Freedom Trail?

The Globe Corner bookstore is now located across the Charles River in Cambridge. If books are your thing, you might as well go to Cambridge and browse its many clean and well lit bookshops.

COSTS (3/5)
The NPS portion of Boston NHP is free. However, the NPS maintains only a few of the Freedom Trail's attractions. Still, only three of the 16 units charge an entrance fee: the Old South Meeting House, Paul Revere House and the Old State House. Entry into the Trail's three churches is free but a donation is suggested. The USS Constitution Museum, while free, also asks for donations.

Check the listings at the bottom of the review for the following information: Freedom Trail Site and Stop Number; whether the Site is free; if the Site offers free tours; if the Site has a Museum; and with whom the Site is affiliated.

Boston and the Freedom Trail can be as cheap or as expensive as you would like. Just be careful. Staying in the city, parking in the city, visiting all the Freedom Trail stops, taking a guided tour and riding a tourist trolley will make your costs skyrocket. If you stay outside the city, ride the subway in and around town, walk the Freedom Trail, visit only the free sites and take only the NPS, State House and USS Constitution tours your day could be surprisingly inexpensive but also long and tiring.

RANGER/GUIDE TO TOURIST RATIO (2/5)
The NPS presence at Boston NHP takes a back-seat to private and public entities who are, in turn, seen as Park affiliates, as well as the numerous for-hire tour services. There are Rangers here who give tours and talks but unless you are looking for them, as we were, you might not even realize that the Freedom Trail is a National Park Site.

TOURS/CLASSES (7/10)
The Freedom Trail is easy to follow, stacked with informational help and sufficiently self-guided. We skipped the Ranger-led tour along the Freedom Trail but hit two other wonderful (and free) Ranger-led talks which included a humorous look at the history of Faneuil Hall, from inside the so-called “Cradle of Liberty”, and a terrific tour of the USS Constitution.

The tour of the 200 year-old Old Ironsides, still an active warship, is given by the U.S. Navy. Our guide was an active duty sailor. Despite the large group, 80 or so, he answered every question, cracked jokes, and explained everything we could want to know about the ship. He was superb. Arrive early to ensure a spot on the Old Ironsides tour. There is limited access, security checkpoints can be an issue and the waiting queues sometimes grow out of control.

FUN (9/10)
Great free Ranger talks, sunny days, hours spent lounging and reading in Boston Common, easily followed tour paths, superb people watching and gorgeous views made our trips to Boston NHP unforgettable. There are also plenty of restaurants, shopping opportunities and taverns along the Freedom Trail in case you need a break from walking through history.

WOULD WE RECOMMEND? (9/10)
Of course. Walking the Freedom Trail will bring every American History test you have taken come to life. Seriously, though, Boston sits among the pantheon of American cities and the Freedom Trail is a perfectly created tourist center. We prefer the suburban Boston Minute Man NHP but you cannot go wrong in downtown. Just don't forgot to visit the North End and Charlestown portions of the Freedom Trail; the Old North Church and the USS Constitution are Boston NHP's shining gems.

TOTAL 61/80

1. Boston Common; FREE; NO; NO; City of Boston
2. The State House; FREE; YES; NO; Comm. of Mass.
3. Park Street Church; FREE; NO; NO; Self
4. Granary Burying Ground ; FREE; NO; NO; City of Boston
5. King's Chapel; FREE; NO; NO; Self
6. First Public School; FREE; NO; NO; Old City Hall
7. Old South Meeting House; $5; NO; YES; Self
8. Old Corner Bookstore; FREE; NO; NO; Ultra Diamonds
9. Old State House ; $5; NO; YES; Bostonian Society
10. Boston Massacre Site; FREE; NO;NO; City of Boston
11. Faneuil Hall; FREE; YES; NO; NPS
12. Paul Revere House; $3; NO; YES; Self
13. Old North Church; FREE; NO;NO; Self
14. Copp's Hill Burying Ground; FREE; NO; NO; City of Boston
15. USS Constitution; FREE; YES; YES; U.S. Navy
16. Bunker Hill Monument; FREE; YES; YES; NPS

www.usa-c2c.com
© 2004-06

JOHN F. KENNEDY NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE

2006-09-15T16:02:00.000-04:00

Brookline, Mass.
NPS Website

WHAT IS IT?
Birthplace, on May 19, 1917, and boyhood home of our 35th President, John F. (Jack) Kennedy. The Site is a memoriam designed and dedicated by JFK’s mother, Rose Kennedy, consisting almost entirely of items used by her President son during his childhood.

BEAUTY (4/10)
From the outside, it looks just like any other house on the block: front porch, narrow width, two stories and mildly charming if it were not for Boston's high housing costs. We digress.

From the inside, the layout probably looks just like any other house on the block. The difference is that the furnishings are all Kennedy originals. Rose retrieved them from basements and relatives for the sole purpose of reconstructing the House exactly as she had remembered it while living there with young Jack. These included many of Jack's personal items, books, outfits, silverware and baby stuff.

HISTORICAL INTEREST (4/10)
Jack's birth, his sickly youth, his crowded house and stern but loving parental hands serve as the backdrop to the larger story told by Rose and the National Park Service (NPS). It is the story of early 20th Century immigrants, of hard work, of getting your children ahead in life and ultimately of the American dream.

83 Beals Street, the House location, would always be a starter house. Its one bathroom and cramped quarters would never be enough for the burgeoning family. Success was their destiny. A President of the United States would rise from these comfortable but meager Catholic means, would rise as surely as if all the Sibyls of antiquity had guaranteed it.

That success actually occurred is an afterthought. The existence of the dream and the immigrant's hope in America's promise is the point. The Site elicits the unmistakable aura of the Robert DeNiro section of Godfather Part II: the brood of children, the stoic wife, the nostalgic innocence, the quiet yearning for power, the masculine competition and the neighborhood feel.

CROWDS (5/10)
When the Site opened in 1969 it was the primary Kennedy memorial. Tens of thousands flocked here to pay tribute to the slain President. Such is not the case today. The JFK Presidential Library and Museum opened in 1979 and quickly supplanted the Brookline House as Boston's most popular Kennedy attraction. The House's lack of visitors must account for its limited hours and operating schedule.

EASE OF USE/ACCESS (3/5)
The Site is open only from Wednesday through Sunday 10 am-4:30 pm. In addition the House closes its doors to visitors from October through April. Winter must last a long time in Boston. Plan your visit accordingly.

JFK's boyhood home is located in Brookline, Mass. about four miles west of Boston's downtown Freedom Trail attractions. The closest subway (The T) stop is the Green T Coolidge Corner Station. From the bustling Coolidge Corner commercial intersection it is a half-mile walk to JFK NHS.

From Coolidge Corner, walk northwest along Harvard Avenue for two blocks until you reach Beals Street. Turn right. It is green and on the right side. Beals Street is still a residential area. Our stroll was witnessed by dozens of denizens lounging on their front porches. The Park literature warns against driving here but we saw plenty of open street parking places in front of the House.

CONCESSIONS/BOOKSTORE (2/5)
The Site's Visitor Center, Bookstore and Film viewing area all share space in the House's basement. There is little room to house a large Kennedy-related book selection. If its a Kennedy book you want, you should not have a problem finding one in any Boston or Cambridge bookstore.

COSTS (3/5)
$3 per person, free with the National Parks Pass.

RANGER/GUIDE TO TOURIST RATIO (5/5)
Two of us and at least three Rangers. In addition, a guided Ranger tour of the House leaves every half hour.

TOURS/CLASSES (6/10)
JFK's boyhood home tour is subdued. The colors are muted, the memories are poignant and the scale is small. This is a mother remembering her son's youth. The tour guide's stories give little hint of the violent touch football games, the fraternal competition and the cutthroat politics. Instead we see and hear about dinner table discussions, JFK's communion dress, Jack and Joe Jr.'s tiny adjunct dining room table, the formative years, bassinets and Rose's desire for a bigger house.

The tour portrays Joe Sr. as an absent but defining hand, working endlessly but molding the character and dreams of his children by proxy. Joe Sr. had no time for the little stuff and this tour is all about the little stuff. The tragedy that would come remains an unsaid anchor that fuels the sad retellings.

The last room of the tour, the kitchen, is accompanied by a recording of Rose's memories. The tour once consisted entirely of her talking which is now ironically limited to the room into which she legendarily never set foot. Her cracking but prideful voice, while not sad, stirs emotions of loss. The House and the tour still belong to Rose.

FUN (5/10)
The JFK NHS is among the most personal and voyeuristic National Park Sites. There is no detachment from the past. All the artifacts were used by the Kennedy's and all the stories are from Rose. There is no talk of JFK's public life and no historical conclusions. Just family portraits and stories. We enjoyed our time and our tour guide but lacked the personal attachment necessary to fully appreciate Kennedy's youth.

WOULD WE RECOMMEND? (4/10)
Only the most fervent Kennedy worshippers should travel here; that means practically everyone in Massachusetts and a good portion of those who grew up in the 60's. Boston offers too many other stellar visitor attractions (including the JFK Presidential Library Museum) for us to fully endorse a trip out to Brookline.

TOTAL 41/80

www.usa-c2c.com
© 2004-06

MINUTE MAN NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK

2006-09-14T16:07:00.000-04:00

Lexington and Concord, Mass.
NPS Website; Local Website

WHAT IS IT?
Battle Road, Hartwell Tavern, the North Bridge and other sights preserved to commemorate the events of April 19, 1775, Patriots Day. The day that the American Revolution began. Also included at Minute Man NHP is The Wayside, the Concord home of Louisa May Alcott, later purchased by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

BEAUTY (4/10)
Minute Man NHP is situated along Boston’s outskirts, in between the city’s urban sprawl and the beginnings of the Massachusetts countryside. In fact, the Battle Road portion of the Site ends before it reaches Lexington because of U.S. Interstate 95, the road that is effectively Boston’s beltway. The Site itself is not particularly beautiful; it looks like a pleasant suburban park. The significance is historical, not natural, as are the visual draws: the Lexington and Concord Minute Man statues, the oft-rebuilt North Bridge and the period structures that still stand along the Battle Road.

HISTORICAL INTEREST (10/10)
The place where the American Revolution began. That's the popular, understood and correct contextualization of the events of that fateful April day. At the time, however, the event was purely a local phenomenon. A single national consciousness and determination began to form over a year later when the Declaration of Independence was signed. And even then the solidarity was dubious and pragmatic at best.

Bostonians wanted the British out of their backyard. Simple as that. At no time did these unruly and violent rebels see themselves as either a part of a greater national whole or catalysts for a world-quaking governmental revolution. Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, William Dawes and thousands of Bostonians probably never thought they were starting a War. The British only thought they were seizing contraband rifles.

The notion that the United States of America, in every sense, began and exists today due to a few Minute Man who fired back because they (mistakenly) believed the Redcoats were burning their rural town is overwhelming. We wonder if those Minute Man are the epitome of the American spirit: determined, hot-headed, reactionary, delusional, resourceful and stubbornly successful. They started it all, right?

If that is not enough, the Site also includes the house where much of Louisa May Alcott’s novel “Little Women” took place, perhaps America's most beloved children’s novel.

CROWDS (6/10)
Our first visit to Minute Man NHP came on Patriot's Day, 2004. Understandably the crowds were large and the excitement was tangible. A whole lot of people were wearing three-cornered hats. If you can visit Boston during their Patriot's Day holiday, do it.

Our next visit was a lot less hectic, although there were no open spaces in the Minute Man Visitor Center parking lot (too many bus spaces). On Patriot's Day everyone parked on the grass. On a mid-summer weekday, however, the crowd tended more towards babysitters and their obligations, local joggers enjoying their park and (gasp) foreign, even British, tourists.

Most out-of-town Boston vacationers appear to stay downtown where they slog the Freedom Trail, relax at Boston Common and enjoy the city from their centralized hotel. Few venture out to the sticks to see where the Revolution began and that's a shame. But who can blame them, Boston's subway does not drop you off here and the traffic can be horrific.

EASE OF USE/ACCESS (4/5)
The Site's Minute Man VC is located right off U.S. Interstate 95, about 20 miles west of Boston. Take I-95, Exit 30 (Massachusetts Route 2A) and go west. The Minute Man VC will be on your right in about a quarter-mile. The Site continues westward from the Minute Man VC along the Battle Road. A driving route parallels the Battle Road Trail for about four miles until you get to the town of Concord and the North Bridge Visitor Center.

There are five parking lots located along the Battle Road Trail if you wish to walk the historic trail. The trail itself consists of crushed stone and might be difficult in a wheelchair. Both the Hartwell Tavern, a restored tavern that sits along the Battle Road, and The Wayside are only open from May through October.

CONCESSIONS/BOOKSTORE (3/5)
The Minute Man NHP Visitor Centers vend a good selection of Revolutionary War books as well as books by and about the Concord-area writers: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott and Nathaniel Hawthorne.

COSTS (4/5)
Battle Road and all Minute Man related sections of the Park are free. There is a $5 per person charge (free with the National Parks Pass) for entry into The Wayside and the mandatory Ranger-led tour.

RANGER/GUIDE TO TOURIST RATIO (5/5)
The Rangers were working hard on Patriots Day weekend. Most were dressed in period costume. Lectures were plentiful. We spoke to the musket-shooting Ranger about Revolutionary War-era Tavern culture and the events of April 19 for about 20 minutes. After his lecture, we saw him walking with about seven other people explaining incidents along the Trail. He was wonderful. He had a nose for people who wanted to ask questions.

Our second, less eventful visit, happily brought the same level of Ranger surplus and attentiveness. And a few were still dressed in period costume! They probably dress in modern clothing when off-duty. Then again, who knows?

TOURS/CLASSES (7/10)
We really enjoyed the multi-media “Road to Revolution” theater presentation shown at the Minute Man VC. The show, which combines electronic maps with set pieces, video screens and a moving clock, does a terrific job at establishing the complicated geography and time frame of the day's events. Michael had been inculcated with the “one if by land, two if by sea” story since he could read but never fully grasped its complete topographic meaning before the multi-media presentation. Start your visit here.

The best part of the Site is that Minute Man NHP posts a few of its Rangers at the important Battle Road locations, instead of just at the Visitor Centers. We love this method and wish that more Parks would put there knowledgeable staff at the places where the questions are sparked. The Rangers at Minute Man NHP know their history and are immediately engaging. Our interactions delved into historical theory, legend creation and 18th Century tavern life. And yeah, they all shoot muskets too!

We were disappointed by the confusing, abstract designs of the Minute Man VC and in the lack of substantial learning opportunities at the North Bridge VC but the Rangers and the intro film more than made up for any static display shortcomings. The Wayside Tour was a little under whelming and very slow; perhaps the privately-run Concord area writers' museums (Louisa May Alcott's The Orchard House and Nathaniel Hawthorne's Old Manse) offer more engaging tours.

FUN (9/10)
Pictures of the North Bridge and Daniel Chester French's Minute Man statue are so ubiquitous in tourist photos and history text books that seeing them in person feels revelatory. The distant past, the reckless bravery, the fiery chase down the Battle Road, the manic urgency and the epic drama become inescapably real. The 'Shot Heard Round the World' is instantly imagined; this is a place where the World's political path irrevocably changed, moving towards a system of representative government and away from the monarchy not because of political decisions, voting solutions or protracted thought but because an angry farmer fired a rifle.

WOULD WE RECOMMEND? (10/10)
The Battle Road from Lexington to Concord, with its leafy shade, forested turns, restored buildings, oft-pictured statues and famous bridge, is the real Freedom Trail. Don't be distracted by the moniker of downtown Boston's wonderful tourist walk. No visit to New England is complete without a visit to Minute Man NHP and no place offers a better visceral understanding of the American Revolution and the American character.

TOTAL 62/80

www.usa-c2c.com
© 2004-06

SAINT-GAUDENS NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE

2006-09-13T07:52:00.000-04:00

Cornish, N.H.
NPS Website; Local Website

WHAT IS IT?
Sprawling estate and studio of one of America’s most celebrated sculptors, Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907).

BEAUTY (8/10)
Now this is what an artists' colony should look like. Dramatic views of the solitary and volcanic-shaped Mt. Ascutney, swaths of manicured green grass surrounded by a thick white pine forest, formal hedge gardens that showcase astounding sculptures, a half-dozen utlitarian detached buildings born again as studios and a stately white main house.

The grounds' endearing allure is its countless nooks and many offerings of solitude amidst man-made and natural beauty. The Site also houses casts of all Saint-Gaudens most famous sculptures. These works range from evocative complex portraits of historic heroes (statues of General Sherman, President Lincoln and the Shaw Memorial) to displays of mythologic elegance (Diana and Nike) to sublime understandings of the profound (the Adams Memorial).

Casts of these masterpieces are standouts in public space throughout the United States. New York's Central Park, Boston Common, DC's Rock Creek Park and Lincoln Park in Chicago. Saint-Gaudens NHS offers the wonderful opportunity to see all of these without amassing frequent flier miles.

HISTORICAL INTEREST (4/10)
Augustus Saint-Gaudens was just six months old when he and his French shoemaker father and Irish mother immigrated to the United States in 1848 from Dublin. Augustus' fathers chic French shoe store thrived in New York City and he was able to send his talented 19-year old son to the famed Beaux-Artes School in Paris, the preeminent art school of the era. While in Paris, Augustus insisted on the Americanized pronunciation of his name (SAINT-GAW-dens).

Saint-Gaudens first major public work was his monument to Civil War hero, Admiral David Farragut, unveiled in New York City's Madison Square in 1881. Farragut's heroic, gritty, non-classical portrayal initiated a wave of similarly themed work for Saint-Gaudens and other realist Civil War soldier commemerators. Augustus did much of his sculpting here in Cornish. His estate served as a popular magnet for writers, poets, painters and fellow sculptors.

Saint Gaudens' works have remained etched in our collective artistic conscience and he can fairly be compared to his famed sculpting contemporary Augustus Rodin.

CROWDS (6/10)
The day's rain, the Site's remoteness and Saint-Gaudens unjust obscurity could all be responsible for the Park's light vistitor turnout. But even if there were many guests, it would still be very easy to lose yourself amidst one of the artist's many works without anyone there to spoil your serenity.

EASE OF USE/ACCESS (2/5)
Saint-Gaudens NHS is located in west-central New Hampshire, a stone's throw from the White River and just across the border from Windsor, Vermont. The bridge that crosses from Windsor over to New Hampshire is covered. No lie. As you would imagine, the nearest large cities (Albany, Hartford and Boston) are all over 120 miles away.

Interstates 89 and 91 both drop you off about 15 miles from the Site. The most direct route would be I-89, Exit 20 and then south on New Hampshire Route 12A for 12 miles. The Site's entrance is on the eastern side of Route 12A.

Come in summer. Harsh New Hampshire winters close the site from October through late May.

CONCESSIONS/BOOKSTORE (4/5)
The Site's has a thin but compelling selection of books, including an entire stack of rare and/or out-of-print Saint-Gaudens books. Michael was tempted by Erik Larson's bestseller Devil in the White City in which Saint-Gaudens makes a cameo (pardon the pun). Has anybody out there read it?

We also liked the site-specific charmers that included fancy Diana brooches, make-your-first sculpture starter kits, maple syrup and replicas of Saint-Gaudens famous coin designs.

COSTS (3/5)
Entry is $5 per person, free with the National Parks Pass.

RANGER/GUIDE TO TOURIST RATIO (4/5)
The Site's Rangers, most of which were on the young side, tended to appear stealthfully and suddenly from the Park's many niches. We were grateful for the effusive guidance from the Ranger posted at the fee-station kiosk. He suggested a route through the Site and made us aware of the Ranger talks. Without his help, the large grounds could have been intimidating.

TOURS/CLASSES (6/10)
Every inch of the Site's grounds can fairly be called museum space; everywhere you look there are casts, sculptures, gardens, fountains and attractions. None of these exhibits, however, are accompanied by any self-directed panels or explanations.

No matter, Saint-Gaudens NHS says. That is why, during the summer, six Ranger-led tours are scheduled per day. In addition, the Site has a Sculptor-in-Residence stationed at the Ravine Studio and ready all day (except lunch-time) to answer your sculpture technique questions.

We took in an excellent 10-minute lecuture about the Farragut Memorial and continued on to the remaining sculptures by ourselves. Saint-Gaudens' works are intimate, powerful and deeply moving. Sometimes listening to the art is preferable to learning trivia and historical datum.

FUN (7/10)
We had a terrific day wandering from studio to studio appreciating the stunning surroundings, enjoying Saint-Gaudens' life and works. We even liked the rotating modern photography and sculpture exhbits although, judging from the comment book, we were the only ones. We were not there to enjoy the Park's Sunday afternoon summer classical music concerts but we would be hard pressed to come up with a more perfect setting.

WOULD WE RECOMMEND? (5/10)
Only to the hardcore art tourist. I mean, when was the last time you found yourself in Cornish, New Hampshire? You have probably seen and admired Saint-Gaudens sculptures and not even realized it. His work has a place in a few major East Coast cities.

If you are in New England and don't want to make the drive to New Hampshire, be sure to stop in Boston and admire the Shaw Memorial across from the Massachusetts State House. The Memorial commemorates the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Regiment, the first official African-American unit in the United States Army. Their story was told in the 1989 Denzel Washington movie, Glory. You might remember Saint-Gaudens' work from the film; it was featured in the credits.

TOTAL 49/80

MARSH-BILLINGS-ROCKEFELLER NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK

2006-09-08T08:26:00.000-04:00

Woodstock, Vt.
NPS Website; Local Website

WHAT IS IT?
Site dedicated to the three generations of American families (ID'd in the Park's name) who inhabited the estate’s Richardson Romanesque mansion and the adjacent 555 acres of managed forest. Next door to the National Park Site is the privately-run and better known Billings Farm and Museum, which tells the story of Vermont farm life.

BEAUTY (7/10)
The Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller NHP consists of two distinct parts: the area in and around the Billings Mansion (permissible only with a tour ticket) and the surrounding forest (accessible for free via carriage road trails).

The insides of the Mansion hold nearly all of the Park's charm and beauty; Mr. Billings was one tasteful railroad baron. Up until his death in 1890, Billings amassed what still ranks among the finest private collections of 19th Century American art. Amazingly, Billings bought all but three of the paintings from the artists themselves. Coles, Bierstadts and Durands hang throughout the mansion, a perfect representation of American landscape art, our nation's first endemic art form. Billings' decorations are subtle, understated and confident in ways that escape most Victorian-era robber baron mansions; a classy counterpoint to the garishness of the Biltmore in Asheville, N.C. or Newport, R.I.'s countless monstrosities.

The forest is attractive in the same way that golf courses are attractive. Every tree is “managed” by experts, the undergrowth is excessively maintained, many of the trees are transplanted (and, gasp, non-native), it is green and wide carriage roads hustle you to exactly where you need to be. You are in nature but then again you are not in the wild. The outdoor land's centerpiece is the idyllic pond coarsely dubbed The Pogue. The pond's small, peaceful nature is reminiscent of the mind's eye's vision of Thoreau's Walden Pond.

HISTORICAL INTEREST (3/10)
The mansion's first resident, George Perkins Marsh, would certainly be shocked at his historical remembrance, especially considering that he is honored side-by-side with Billings and a member of the Rockefeller clan. He might even be more shocked that they are all remembered under the umbrella of promoting conservation and environmentalism.

During the 1840's Marsh grew increasingly aghast at America's antebellum industrial revolution onslaught. He, akin to the transcendentalist authors of the same period, was repulsed by the widespread ecological destruction done in the name of progress and civilization; loggers were ravenously felling every tree in the Vermont countryside. So, in turn, he obtained a diplomatic post in Italy (during the American Civil War no less), wrote a dry tome, apparently a precursor the environmental movement, entitled Man and Nature and never returned to the United States.

When Frederick Billings purchased the Mansion in 1869 the surrounding countryside had been ravaged by loggers. So, in turn, he planted a few trees in his backyard, managed its contents and started a small dairy farm. We remain unclear as to what this has to do with conservation. The Site also never delved into the environmental ramifications wrought by the expansion of Billings' Northern Pacific Railroad through Montana, Idaho and into Washington State, all, post-Northern Pacific's expansion, lumber-intensive states.

And what can you say about Laurence Rockefeller, grandson of the Standard Oil Founder, and husband to Billings' granddaughter? Evidently, only gushing plaudits while in Woodstock. The Park Rangers and town denizens view him as a unimaginably benevelont patrician and do not take kindly to even the slightest perceived denigration. Trust us, we know. His monetary kindness towards his summer home community has brought its residents carriage road trails, five-star restaurants, off-the-chart property values and a snooty faux-quaint chicness.

CROWDS (6/10)
We enjoyed our 8 am Carriage Road hike up to The Pogue in glorious solitude and appreciated the pond with a trancendentalist-esque stupor. We picked the right time. By 9:30am dozens passed us while we headed to a Mansion Tour. The Park's website warns that tours fill up given their 12-person limit. Be vigilant.

EASE OF USE/ACCESS (2/5)
The Site is located directly off Vermont Route 12, just north of Woodstock, Vt. The intersection of Interstates 89 and 91 is just 15 miles to the east along U.S. Route 4. Woodstock is not particularly close to any population centers. Boston, Mass., Hartford, Conn. and Albany, N.Y. are all about three hours away. But who comes to Vermont to be near people? Many come here to ski and the famed Killington ski resort is just 20 miles west of Woodstock. It is a shame that the Park and its Mansion tours are only open from Memorial Day through Halloween.

CONCESSIONS/BOOKSTORE (4/5)
The bookstore sells a terrific selection of conservation-related books. Even better is the wonderful adjecent library that contains an even better selection of green books. Read through them at the sturdy wood table, decide which one you want to take home, walk two steps over to the for-sale bookshelf and take said book home. Poof, Bob's your Uncle.

COSTS (2/5)
Mansion tours run $6 per person, half price with the National Parks Pass. All special Ranger-led tours, held on the weekends, also cost $6 per person. A combo ticket with the Billings Farm and Museum costs $14. For a Site endowed and maintained by a Rockefeller's estate, the tours sure cost a lot of money.

RANGER/GUIDE TO TOURIST RATIO (3/5)
Enough Rangers to give a house tour every hour from 10-4 but not enough to staff the Carriage House Visitor Center from 8-10 am despite its doors being left wide open.

TOURS/CLASSES (3/10)
The Carriage House Visitor Center hosts a few new exhibit panels. The 30-minute long intro movie was nominated for an Academy Award in 1999.

We were vexed and frustrated by our Mansion tour guide's typically New England just so stubbornness and steadfast obstinancy. Why did we spend 40 minutes of a 60 minute mansion tour talking about the wonderful artwork and musing about the stunning designs WHILE SITTING ON THE FRONT PORCH? Who knows? Our numerous pleadings of “can we go inside” were skillfully ignored with our Ranger's that's-just-how-it-is look.

Once we got inside, our host ably ran down the artist, school and style of most paintings and offered brief stories about a few quirky artifacts. But the time given inside allowed us neither the time to inquire in-depth about the paintings nor the ability to spend more than a few seconds looking at the works of art.

FUN (3/10)
After spending ten minutes of porch time explaining the wonder of the Billings Mansion Garden, our host received a call on his walkie talkie. A local film crew was filming there and our entry was forbidden. “The roses are stunning, world-class” he assured us at least ten more times throughout the house tour. “Look out this window, it might be your only chance to see them.”

When we finished the tour, the TV crew was lounging on a garden bench, tripods folded up and cameras on the ground. They were done. A seperately-led Italian-speaking tour group was meandering through the flowers. “Can we go know?” we asked. “Nope, its not allowed until I get a call.” “But...” “That's just how it is” his disapproving look told us.

So we left our group, joined the Italians and were wholly underwhelmed by the gardens. Rebels, us. Five minutes later, our Ranger got a walkie talkie call. “You guys can go up there now,” he announced to our patiently waiting group within our garden departing earshot.

WOULD WE RECOMMEND? (4/10)
We loved our time in Vermont from Lake Champlain to Burlington through the Green Mountains and amidst its wonderful small towns. We were disappointed by Woodstock because it claimed to be the epitome of Vermont but felt exclusionary and had urban air despite its sparse population. The Billings Farm labels itself as the “Gateway to Vermont's Rural Heritage” which is accurate. Start here and continue your travels northward.

Do not come here expecting an in-depth examination of the American conservation movement. This Park is about three families, no more no less, and their legacy towards the environment is contradictory and confusing. Managing the forest might allow us to reinforce our lust for disposable paper products but it hardly seems like a natural solution.

Mankind has attempted to manage and domesticate plant and animal life for the geological blip of about 10,000 years. In that span, we have produced mass extinctions, created deserts where life once bloomed and done amounts of harm equaled historically only by catastrophic seismic events and asteroid impacts.

So, yeah. Tour Vermont. Its green and really pretty. We had fun. Yes, yes lots of fun. Maple syrup, green mountains and Ben and Jerry's.

TOTAL 37/80

SARATOGA NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK

2006-09-06T09:59:00.000-04:00

Stillwater, N.Y.
NPS Website; Local Website

WHAT IS IT?
Site of two pivotal 1777 Revolutionary War battles.

BEAUTY (5/10)
Hills mixed with forested terrain and open fields characterize the main portion of Saratoga NHP, the approximately 3000-acre battlefield site. A 10-mile self-guided auto tour route scurries the visitor around the countryside to the time-honored places of interest with able battlefield park aplomb. Helpful red and blue stakes throughout the Site remind the visitor of the battle lines held by the British and American soldiers respectively in 1777.

Once you leave the pavement and set off on foot, the landscape’s historical power sinks in. The up-and-down hike from Chatfield Farm to the Balcarres Redoubt delves into the forest, crosses a mild ravine and eventually delivers you to the Barber Wheatfield, and open field where hours of fierce fighting occurred.

The path is the same trail that the American soldiers took over 225 years ago. When you edge out of the forest and see the cannons pointed toward you and the British fortification stakes it is not hard to be transported back in time.

The Schuyler House and the Saratoga Monument sit eight miles northeast of the Saratoga Battlefield grounds and share the small New York town ambiance of their host, Schuylersville. The Schuyler House, country home of General and patroon Philip Schuyler, is a typical two-story yellow Colonial Georgian design, fully restored and ready to tour. The 155-foot tall Saratoga Monument is a surprisingly ornate obelisk that offers spectacular views of the not so spectacular scenery.

HISTORICAL INTEREST (9/10)
The National Parks Guidebook ranks the Battle at Saratoga as one of the 15 most decisive battles in World History. It was our nation’s first significant victory of the Revolution. A Park Brochure states that in 1999 the New York Times Magazine called it the “most crucial battle of the 1000 years.” We are not going to succumb to that kind of hyperbole.

Nevertheless, had we not won, the Britons would have effectively cut New England from the remainder of the breakaway nation, dooming our chances for success. From the victory came French support and perhaps most importantly an impetus to France to rekindle war efforts in Europe against England. No Saratoga victory, no United States.

CROWDS (8/10)
During our first visit, in March of 2004, we saw very few people, just locals walking their dogs and joggers enjoying their isolated park. In March, the auto tour road had not even opened for travel. You can use your car only from April through November.

In August, however, the Saratoga area becomes a tourist mecca with the beginning of Saratoga Spring’s racing season and jam-packed waters of nearby Lake George. Given the season, the Site’s crowds were still not as large as expected. We had the hikes and the auto tour road largely to ourselves.

EASE OF USE/ACCESS (3/5)
Schuylerville, N.Y. is ten miles west of Saratoga Springs and I-87, Exit 14 via the winding New York Route 29. The Battlefield is a further eight miles south on U.S. Route 4. Once the auto tour road is opened, the Battlefield is very accessible. But during any time of the year you owe it to yourself to get out of the auto tour rut and walk. Short paved trails to and through the Redoubts make your excursion easy.

CONCESSIONS/BOOKSTORE (3/5)
As would be imagined, the Store stocks a good selection of Revolutionary War texts. We bought a nice postcard of Thaddeus Kosciuszko, the handsomest man of the War and designer of the Saratoga Battlefield’s redoubt defense system.

We are pretty sure no other National Park Site vends bottled Saratoga spring water outside its Visitor Center.

COSTS (3/5)
Entry is $5 per car into the Battlefield portion of the Park. Admission is free with the National Parks Pass and free from November through March (when the roads are closed).
The Schuylerville sites are both free. You can climb Saratoga Monument and tour the Schuyler House without spending one penny. What a bargain!

RANGER/GUIDE TO TOURIST RATIO (4/5)
There are very helpful Rangers at the Battlefield Visitor Center. Once you get out on the auto tour, however, you are on your own.

It is a different story in Schuylerville where stellar, knowledgeable Rangers spew Revolutionary info at both its attractions.

TOURS/CLASSES (7/10)
The Saratoga NHP Visitor Center Museum has seen a flurry of recent additions. In 2002, a new film debuted while in 2005 the Museum welcomed a gargantuan fiber-optic map and new exhibit panels. We were not overly impressed by any of the improvements, especially the 15-minute+ electric map program, which would have been perfect with a good deal of editing.

The Site’s educational forte is its Rangers. Their talks and understandings are indispensable. Our Ranger-led tour of the Schuyler House was one of the most skilled, subtle and perfect historical teaching talks of our entire trip. A different Ranger, posted at the Saratoga Monument, talked our socks off about Benedict Arnold, the Monument’s quirks, answered dozens of our questions and enchanted us with his vibrant personality.

FUN (8/10)
When we came through Saratoga NHP the first time, we thought a 5-mile hike through the battlefield was sufficient. We were wrong. While we may have gotten the gist of the battles, we missed out on a great house tour and an equally impressive monument, each with their own stories. We made the right choice stopping in Schuylerville this time around.

We toured the Schuylerville sites with wonderful fellow central Pennsylvania tourists and a set of friendly New York history buffs and golfing enthusiasts. Our conversations and laughter with our traveling cohorts were the highlights of our return visit and made us thankful that we had given this Site another chance.

WOULD WE RECOMMEND? (8/10)
Yes. It is such an important part of American history. If you are in the delightful and historic town Saratoga Springs for the races in August, definitely come. If not, Saratoga NHP deserves far more pilgrimages than it receives. At least as many people as the throngs that flock to Gettysburg.

TOTAL 58/80

www.usa-c2c.com
© 2004-06

THOMAS COLE NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE

2006-08-22T08:59:00.000-04:00

Catskill, N.Y.
Local Website

WHAT IS IT?
Cedar Grove. The home of Thomas Cole, America’s earliest and most renowned landscape painter and founder of the Hudson River school style of art.

BEAUTY (3/10)
Thomas Cole’s home, Cedar Grove, fails to provoke the grandeur of his large canvasses or the scope of his ambitious themes. Heck, the grounds do not even provide a vista of the Hudson River; instead they face the Catskill Mountains which are currently obscured by encroaching trees.

The Federal-style mansion’s yellow exterior, while lovingly restored, is a bit of a yawner. The insides are much of the same. Most of the items are either reproductions of the originals or just time-period pieces. An upstairs room contains a few original Cole sketches but our tour guide scurried us out before we could even stop to look.

HISTORICAL INTEREST (5/10)
Art books and historians often cite Thomas Cole as the first truly American artist, the first to portray a uniquely American perspective which spoke of our country’s place in the world. Cole’s painting used large canvasses and sweeping landscape, eschewing the British portraiture aesthetic utilized by most artists working in America at that time.

Cole and his fellow Hudson River school painters were the visual equivalent of the period’s transcendental writers, notably Emerson and Thoreau, the American romantics. They found beauty in America’s boundless nature and profound beauty.

Cole’s famed five-piece Course of Empire places his modern-day America at stage two of the cycle, The Pastoral State, from The Savage State to Desolation. Cole places America along the same course as the great Roman and Greek Civilizations of the past. We are their heirs. Cole would easily place today’s America at the opulent third stage, The Consummation. How close are we to The Destruction and subsequent Desolation? Who knows, but Cole proves that high-budget dystopian sagas are just as American as apple pie.

CROWDS (8/10)
Thomas Cole NHS sits just across the Hudson River from Hudson, N.Y. a small New York city whose downtown has recently seen an economic revival resulting in dozens of boutiques, galleries and fancy restaurants. As a result, the Thomas Cole NHS brings in a well-versed, artistic crowd.

Our tour was no exception. One visitor, a painter, discussed sunlight tones at different times of the day and explained how Cole would have mixed his pigments. Another tourist, an avid antique-hunter, helped our group with understanding restoration techniques. Our fellow visitors filled in a lot of loose ends and answered artistic questions that our guide was unable to resolve.

EASE OF USE/ACCESS (3/5)
Cedar Grove is located just off the New York Thruway, I-87, 35 miles south of Albany and 40 miles north of New Paltz. From the Thruway take exit 21. Make a left at the stop sign and a quick left onto Route 23 East. Go two miles. At Spring Street make a right. (If you miss this right turn you will go onto the Rip Van Winkle Bridge. Bad news because it’s a toll bridge in that direction). After the right onto Spring Street make a quick left into the Site’s driveway. There is a sign.

If you are coming from Hudson, cross the Rip Van Winkle Bridge, turn left at the first stoplight and make a left into the Site. The Site is only open from May through late October. You must take a guided tour in order to see the house.

CONCESSIONS/BOOKSTORE (3/5)
The book carries a small selection of elaborate 19th Century American art coffee table books, some of which the Site says are rare and out of print. The pictures inside them were enchanting and glossy but somehow not worth their books’ $50+ price tags.

Also on sale were framed and matted photographs of the places that inspired the Hudson River School artists taken by modern day local artists. We thought the theme of art as a collective continuous community commodity was a cool idea.

COSTS (2/5)
Entry is $7 per person. Your National Parks Pass will not get you free admission, Cedar Grove is owned by the Greene County Historical Society rather than the NPS, but it will lop the tour price in half to $3.50 per. 2 for 1, not a bad deal.

RANGER/GUIDE TO TOURIST RATIO (4/5)
40-minute tours leave once every hour from 10 am to 4 pm and are limited to 12 visitors.

TOURS/CLASSES (5/10)
Local, non-Park Service-related docents offer a different set of skill sets than Rangers. Our docent had lived in Catskill her entire life. She serves on the Site’s Board of Governors and was present during the infamous 1970’s Cedar Grove front lawn auction when much of Cole’s estate was sold at shocking prices, including an original Cole painting for less than $1,000.

She was sincerely amazed and appreciative of the House’s incredible restoration because she had witnessed its nadir of disrepair in 1998 and instilled in her tour group her profound sense of Cole’s importance and personal appreciation. A Park Ranger might have been able to shed a greater light on Cole’s historical role, American context or artistic milieu but could not have given us a more localized viewpoint.

FUN (5/10)
Cedar Grove has been on our “must (not forget to) visit” list for well over two years, ever since we arrived in New York too soon in the season to see it. We saw Cole’s influence across the U.S. in landscapes of the American West done by the second and third generations of the Hudson River School. We heard his name mentioned in dozens of National Park sites. We have had time to ponder Cole, his historical significance and develop some preconceived notions about how his home and studio might look.

We were shocked to realize that he didn’t awake every morning to views of the Hudson.

WOULD WE RECOMMEND? (5/10)
The Hudson River Valley makes for a good travel destination for American art and literature lovers alike, both forms debatably began here, with Cole’s art and Washington Irving’s stories. The Hudson River School Art Trail travels around the region to places that inspired the famed painters and might make for a fulfilling day.

The Olana State Historic Site, home of Cole student Frederic Edwin Church is reportedly wonderful. Dozens of people told us to go there. Then they added, “Well not this summer because it’s under construction.” Another day perusing Hudson’s Warren Street shops and boutiques and dining in its chic restaurants could complete an artsy rural getaway from New York City.

TOTAL 43/80

www.usa-c2c.com
© 2004-06

MARTIN VAN BUREN NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE

2006-08-22T08:51:00.000-04:00

Kinderhook, N.Y.
NPS Website; Local Website

WHAT IS IT?
Lindenwald, the longtime home and farm of our 8th President, Martin Van Buren.

BEAUTY (3/10)
Lindenwald is a sinfully ugly yellow mishmash of unfortunate architectural styles: Italianate, Gothic, Palladian and Georgian because each renovation and addition to the house ushered in a new style. Couldn’t they just decide on one?

Lindenwald’s interior holds greater interest than the dismal exterior not because of spellbinding design but because it breathes the personality of old Marty, a son of a tavern keeper unsuccessfully hoping to be remembered as wealthy, learned man of manners and genius. A man of the people hoping that money could transform him into an aristocrat or a patrician.

The most stunning example of his social desires is the formal dining room, located in what would be the receiving lobby in most mansions of the time period. The wallpaper surrounding the 15-foot long dining table depicts an elaborate fox hunt presumably taking place in a rich Tuscan landscape.

HISTORICAL INTEREST (5/10)
Martin Van Buren NHS describes its honoree as the first President born an American (meaning post-1776), the creator of the Albany Regency, New York first political machine, and an important contributor to the birth of the two-party American political system.

While these legacies may be lasting, they are in stunning contrast to the republican vision (unrelated to today’s Republicans) of the Founding Fathers. Andrew Jackson and Van Buren, his Vice President, were the first two American Presidents born to neither Virginia landowners nor Massachusetts patricians. But personality-wise, Van Buren was no Andrew Jackson.

Martin’s one term in office saw few positives, the worst of which being the Panic of 1837, America’s direst financial crisis to that date.

CROWDS (7/10)
We were the only two people who traveled to Lindenwald that rainy summer morning. Our unique interest meant a private extended Ranger tour where we learned every possible thing we could ever want to know about Martin Van Buren.

EASE OF USE/ACCESS (2/5)
Martin Van Buren NHS is located in Kinderhook, N.Y., about 20 miles south of Albany and only six miles south of I-90 exit B1 along New York Route 9H, the same road I-90 exits onto. Should be easy to get to, right? Wrong.

Route 9H weaves in out and even becomes U.S. Route 9. There’s traffic circles, forks in the road and lots of confusion. Our advice: drive slowly, look for the signs and stay on 9H.

In addition, nearby are New York Routes 9J, 9G and 9W. These are three different and largely unrelated roads. Do not confuse them or mix and match them. You will get lost. Also, Martin Van Buren NHS is open for house tours only half the year, from mid-May through October. We missed out in April 2004 and had to come back.

CONCESSIONS/BOOKSTORE (3/5)
There have not been many historical treatises to remember Mr. Van Buren. The Site carries all five of the texts that are currently in print. There is not much else for sale here aside from some Dover Thrift Edition of early 19th Century literary classics (a nice touch) and a few books on the history of the Presidency. We also liked the pen and ink reproductions of Van Buren-related political cartoons. But we didn’t buy any; where would we put them?

COSTS (3/5)
Entry is $4 per person or $9 per family. Entry is free with the National Parks Pass.

RANGER/GUIDE TO TOURIST RATIO (5/5)
We ran into three different Rangers at Marty World (what the Home of FDR NHS Rangers called this place) and enjoyed great conversations with all. We hardly minded the Site’s makeshift Visitor Center/Bookstore: a converted portable classroom unit.

TOURS/CLASSES (7/10)
We relaxed in the portable unit, watching the brief introductory film and chatting with Ranger #1 until Ranger #2 came to fetch us for the house tour. Since the rain had stopped, we lingered outside as he briefed us on some Van Buren basics. Conversation soon turned to the cultivation of political machines and parties, an explanation of the term “patroon” and the aesthetics or lack thereof of the Albany Egg. Almost an hour later, we needed to gently prod our Ranger back on track and into the house.

The house tour was equally tangential and fun. We aren’t sure whether our customized tour followed the usual room pattern. We are fairly certain that we saw every nook and cranny of Marty World. The next tour group was just coming in as our Ranger excitedly asked, “do you guys want to see the basement?” And with that we scurried down the stairs to check out the unfinished kitchen, some servants’ rooms and piles and piles of what must have been meticulously catalogued period pieces that had yet to be unwrapped and placed in the main rooms of the house. Martin van Buren: Behind the Scenes. How cool!

FUN (7/10)
We had a terrific time because of our terrific guided Ranger tour. Often at National Park Sites, as the historical personality or incident becomes more obscure, the Rangers on duty delve into the history, its obscure facts and grander scope, with greater fervor. They understand that you just don’t happen upon Martin Van Buren’s country home. At Lindenwald, our historical curiosity was rewarded with high level discussion and earnest answers to our many questions. The Rangers even told us the best place to buy the area’s culinary contribution to the world: apple cider doughnuts.

WOULD WE RECOMMEND? (3/10)
Is there any reason to make the special trip up the Hudson to visit Marty World? Not really. But then again, where else can you learn about Martin Van Buren, the first forgettable American President.

TOTAL 45/80

www.usa-c2c.com
© 2004-06

UPPER DELAWARE SCENIC AND RECREATIONAL RIVER

2006-08-21T07:50:00.000-04:00

northeastern Pa. , southwestern N.Y. border
NPS Website; Local Website

WHAT IS IT?
73 miles of the Delaware River that flows unobstructed from Hancock, N.Y. down to Port Jervis, N.Y.

BEAUTY (7/10)
Dense, forested rolling hills line the banks of the gently rippling Delaware River. The remarkably crystalline water beckons canoers, fly-fishermen, tubers and swimmers alike. Crossing the River near Lackawaxen, N.Y. is Brooklyn Bridge designer John Roebling’s Delaware Aqueduct Bridge, a one-lane, U-shaped wooden construction with high side walls and little resemblance to any automotive bridges. In fact, Roebling’s bridge was built for canal traffic and once filled with water; a watery crossing over water.

Further up the Delaware is the two-block long town of Narrowsburg. The town has a quaint, upscale charm and more bistros, wine stores and art galleries than any hamlet, population 414, should enjoy.

HISTORICAL INTEREST (4/10)
Excepting the Roebling Bridge, all of the Site’s historic attractions have been ravaged by a recent occurrence: the Delaware River flooding of June and July, 2006. The Delaware and Hudson Canal trails and the Zane Grey House are closed. Yes, America’s iconic millionaire playboy author, Zane Grey, lived and wrote his rollicking westerns, including the Mormon bashing Riders of the Purple Sage, back East, alongside the Delaware.

In July, the first floor of the Zane Grey House was completely underwater. Luckily, Park staff and volunteers rushed all his memorabilia to the house’s top floors just before the water’s came. To many, the Park itself holds culpability for the flooding, which the NY Times estimated did over $1 billion worth of damage. The 1968 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, of which the Upper Delaware is a part, restricts dam building. After three disastrous floods in 21 months, some wonder if the positives of a protective dam would outweigh the loss of breathtaking scenery.

CROWDS (7/10)
Echoes of laughter bounced off the Delaware’s banks, emanated from joyful canoes. Their siren song even beckoned us to wade into the water. Gab needed less persuasion than Michael. Visitors flock to the Upper Delaware and the surrounding Pocono Mountains happy to escape their urban (and suburban) jungles.

Getting away from it all back East, however, is a relative term. Our panorama shot of the Delaware from atop the Roebling Bridge shows over twenty canoes, a few sunbathers and two focused fly-fishermen. But compared to the packed Interstate-84, we had the world to ourselves.

EASE OF USE/ACCESS (2/5)
The Park’s southern terminus, River Mile Marker 258 is located a few miles north of Interstate 84 at Port Jervis, N.Y., Exit 1 in New York or Exit 53 in Pennsylvania. New York Route 97 parallels the River for the Park’s entire 73 miles, from Port Jervis to Hancock. The Zane Grey House and the Roebling Bridge are near Lackawaxen, Pa., at Mile Marker 278. NPS Headquarters is in Narrowsburg, Mile Marker 290.

Canoe put-ins and private campgrounds scatter the River’s banks until Hancock. There are no public campsites, no NPS hiking trails and no traditional Visitor Center. Besides the (closed) Zane Grey House, the only National Park land is the River itself.

CONCESSIONS/BOOKSTORE (2/5)
The Upper Delaware SRR Visitor Center bookstore in Narrowsburg, N.Y. carries a small but focused set of titles covering the following categories: Bald Eagles (they’ve returned to the area); historic bridges, canals and aqueducts; and the Lenape Indians. What’s missing? Of course, Zane Grey books. We combed the store but found none. Perhaps they are only stocked at the now closed Grey House. Our interest was piqued after reading Riders of the Purple Sage. We want more!

COSTS (2/5)
Just looking at the River is free. Canoeing and camping is not free. There are no NPS campgrounds to keep the prices down. Private outfitters charge anywhere from $13 to $17 per person! Most have mandatory multi-day stays and some charge extra for parking. While New Yorkers may expect New York prices we are Pennsylvanians and those rates are ridiculous. Canoe rentals run between $30 and $40 a day, which is not too bad.

RANGER/GUIDE TO TOURIST RATIO (3/5)
An SCA volunteer stationed in a small kiosk in the parking lot and boat put-in at Lackawaxen gave us the 411 on the Zane Gray house and tried to make us feel better by saying it was closed for at least the rest of the season. An equally young Ranger eagerly tried to assist us at the Narrowsburg VC, but since there were no NPS campsites nearby and we had already seen the river, we couldn’t think of anything else we wanted to ask or any reasons to linger longer.

TOURS/CLASSES (3/10)
Being a Scenic and Recreational River, we don’t fault the Upper Delaware for its lack of educational activities. Having the Zane Gray Museum as part of the NPS area is a bonus. Sadly, with Gray’s belongings safely stashed on the second floor and the door of his house firmly shut, there were no opportunities to learn more about the author on this trip.

FUN (5/10)
Wave after wave of hardly working canoers were having lots of fun. The Delaware runs at an easily manageable pace, requires little paddling and few worries. Although we did see one canoe intentionally capsized. Who would capsize a canoe? A boatload of pre-adolescent boys, that’s who; most likely boys from the nearby Ten Mile River Scout Camps, a 12,000-acre facility that must pour hundreds of kids into the Delaware every summer.

Our best chance of seeing Bald Eagles was around the Roebling Bridge. Alas, vultures were the only large birds in our sights.

WOULD WE RECOMMEND? (4/10)
Admittedly, the boys were having a lot more fun than us. We neither had the desire to canoe aimlessly through the gorgeous scenery nor hole up in a rainy, flood-prone campground for two-plus days with vacationing New Yorkers and Boy Scouts. We imagine the Delaware Water Gap NRA located south of Port Jervis to be more user-friendly.

The Upper Delaware SRR caters towards those with second homes in the area and/or a history of vacationing nearby. For us, the rewards the River offers were not big enough to warrant the long and necessary examination on how to reap them.

Had the Zane Grey Museum been open, however, his House would have been a nice, short detour from the monotonous I-84 slog.

TOTAL 39/80

www.usa-c2c.com
© 2004-06

STEAMTOWN NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE

2006-08-13T10:20:00.000-04:00

Scranton, Pa.
NPS Website; Local Website

WHAT IS IT?
Museum, large collection of steam locomotives, working turntable and roundhouse located on an old railroad yard near downtown Scranton, PA and The Mall at Steamtown.

BEAUTY (2/10)
Steamtown NHS’s official brochure includes no present-day pictures of the Site, only skillful pen and ink illustrations. Bad sign. Only the most eccentric trainspotter could find beauty at Steamtown.

Scores of freight cars, passenger cars, and steam locomotives sit on rows of train tracks which border the utilitarian rectangular architecture of The Mall at Steamtown and its parking garage. A long board-walked pedestrian ramp conveniently leads from the Mall’s Food Court to the Park. The Mall Ramp gives you a stellar close-up view of the rolling stock collection.

Perhaps too close. This intimate view fully reveals the cars’ dilapidated state. Generous amounts of rust, frayed wood and sympathy-inducing disrepair are the norm.

HISTORICAL INTEREST (2/10)
The Steamtown NHS’s claim to historical significance is dubious at best: the yard may have been represented in George Inness’s classic American landscape painting “The Lackawanna Valley”.

Ironically, the painting’s juggernaut iron horse and indelible train tracks, themselves a symbol of the coming industrial revolution and unstoppable progress, had to be reintroduced to the Lackawanna Valley in 1985 by a US Congressman. The trains had been living in Vermont.

The Scranton Yard was never a particularly central or important cog in our nation’s railroad network. The Yard has probably seen more attention since becoming a Park Site. Sadly, its notoriety is linked to “pork barrel” politics. The Park is oft-cited as a dastardly example of federal tax dollars pouring into an economically depressed city for pie-in-the-sky urban renewal purposes.

The Site’s lack of tangible historical significance, Canadian engines and proximity to its namesake Mall do not garner a positive national public image.

CROWDS (6/10)
The Site was not empty but also was not as crowded as The Mall at Steamtown. We saw our sentiments of why exactly are we here? echoed on the faces of a model railroading club’s members, here on a team vacation to Pennsylvania railroad sites; their route was listed on the back of their T-shirts, rock concert tour style. Steamtown seemed like their least-fun destination.

EASE OF USE/ACCESS (4/5)
The Site is located in downtown Scranton, a few miles from Interstate 81. Take Exit 185, the Central Scranton Expressway. Turn left at the first stoplight and follow this road, Lackawanna Avenue, past seven sets of traffic lights to Cliff Avenue. Turn left into the Site’s vast parking lot. There are lots of signs.

After spending the morning looking for the Scranton AAA, we followed the wrong signs: the ones pointing us towards The Mall at Steamtown rather than Steamtown NHS. We parked in the Mall’s garage and perused the shops before traveling down the Mall Ramp to the Park Site.

The Park’s two-story museum is located in a series of roundhouse buildings which circle the working turntable. We got disoriented going up and down various steps of stairs and into buildings and rail cars we were not sure we should have entered.

CONCESSIONS/BOOKSTORE (4/5)
Plaques, pins, posters and prints commemorating almost all the Mid Atlantic regional railroads in their various ages of mergers and rebirths are for sale here. And if we wanted to begin lives as trainspotters, the Steamtown bookstore offers what appear to be some good primer texts: Trainspotting Hot Spots, 2006 Tourist Trains, a Guide to North American Steam Locomotives and scores of color guides dedicated to the C&O, Lehigh and Hudson, Penn Central and Erie Lackawanna lines.

There is an entire aisle of children’s books and plenty of Thomas the Tank Engine merchandise for little ones. If you were looking for a wooden train whistle, you could pick one up at Steamtown. A nice museum store, but we were a little disappointed at the lack of authentic memorabilia and region-centric selection.

COSTS (2/5)
The Park Museum entry fee is $6 per person, free with the National Parks Pass. A short railroad trip around the Park’s grounds runs $3. Longer excursions to Moscow, Pa. and Tobyhanna, Pa run $21 and $31 respectively.

RANGER/GUIDE TO TOURIST RATIO (2/5)
A Ranger made a brief appearance in the VC vestibule to orient one of the recently arrived train enthusiast groups. We may have seen another Ranger boarding a train that was preparing to leave for an excursion. If we had questions that delved beyond the static displays, we would have been hard pressed to find someone to ask.

TOURS/CLASSES (3/10)
The exhibits were too basic for the train enthusiast but too esoteric, too wordy, too numerous and not interactive enough for the casual visitor. We were simultaneously bored and overwhelmed.

FUN (3/10)
We arrived at Steamtown NHS with peaking levels of cynicism and disdain. Naturally, Michael descended into a rambling self-righteous monologue. How dare the National Park Service sully its name with a pork barrel Site especially when an important railroading place like Golden Spike NHS gets so little Appropriations love?

Mostly though, we were both angry because our Fodor’s Official National Park Guide Book told us that our National Parks Pass would not be honored. But when the ticket collector told us our Pass was good and that we would not have to pay $12 we felt a lot better. Maybe this place is not so bad at all. Let’s give it a chance. And we did.

We even enjoyed ourselves. We hopped on train cars, watched the film, snapped some photos, read some panels and decided to have a great time. Gradually, the incredulity regarding the Park’s existence returned as we learned more about the Site’s history.

What do you mean all the working locomotives are Canadian!!! Really, all the trains were bought from a failing Museum in Vermont and moved to Scranton in the early 80’s AND then failed in Scranton until the feds came in and made it a Park Site. Shocking.

It could be worse, tax paying tsk tskers. Scranton could have had the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania buy it a $400M baseball stadium and then say that it cannot afford to buy new players and then trade Bobby Abreu for four minor leaguers.

Less tangentially, the Steamtown NHS Museum stopped gaining our interest because the exhibits were boring and generic. Only the Park’s infamous history grabbed for our attention. Our fun levels had fittingly come full circle at the Roundhouse-based Site.

WOULD WE RECOMMEND? (3/10)
There are too many fun and interesting railroad excursions and/or museums in Pennsylvania to make Steamtown NHS your priority. The East Broad Top Railroad chugs up America’s oldest stretch of narrow gauge track near Mount Union, PA, the elegant Horseshoe Curve amazes near Altoona and the Strasburg Railroad and Museum in Amish Country Lancaster houses an impressive collection of locomotives. You can even hop on a Strasburg train and take the beautiful Journey to Paradise, a much more desirable destination than Moscow, Pa. Just kidding, Aunt Helen.

TOTAL 31/80

www.usa-c2c.com
© 2004-06

FORD’S THEATRE NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE and PETERSEN HOUSE

2006-08-13T09:59:00.000-04:00

Washington, DC
NPS Website; Local Website

WHAT IS IT?
Ford’s Theatre is an active theatre infamously remembered as the place where, on April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth shot and killed President Abraham Lincoln during a performance of Our American Cousin. Once shot, Lincoln was carried next door to the Peterson House where he would later die.

BEAUTY (3/10)
Neither Ford’s Theatre nor the Peterson House has a striking exterior. Be thankful for the signs, Rangers and the steady stream of entering tourists to distinguish them from the other bricked buildings on 10th street.

The interiors of both have been carefully reconstructed to their 1865 appearances. Lots of dark colors and velvet-y drapes in the theatre; plenty of uncomfortable looking furniture and narrow hallways at Peterson. We are guessing that little has been done to alter the appearance of the Peterson House since its most famous guest passed away.

HISTORICAL INTEREST (8/10)
In the Peterson House, a/k/a House Where Lincoln Died, a/k/a HWLD, you can see the Bed Where Lincoln Died (BWLD) in the Room Where Lincoln Died (RWLD) overlooking the Courtyard of the House Where Lincoln Died (COTHWLD).

Did the fateful shot at Ford’s Theatre save Lincoln from being associated with the failures of Reconstruction, or did it steal a great leader away from a nation when it needed him most? Either way, Ford’s Theatre was the backdrop for a tragedy that altered the history of the United States.

A very popular 1860s venue, Ford’s Theatre was closed down by the Federal Government during the investigation and subsequent trial of the conspirators. After that, John Ford was allowed to reopen but was plagued with threats of arson and destruction. The War Department temporarily shut down the Theatre, leased the building from Ford as office space and then finally decided to take it off his hands for $100,000 in 1865. The collection of Lincoln memorabilia was added in 1926 and restoration efforts began in earnest in the 1960s. Today, the Theatre enjoys life as both a National Historic Site and a fully functioning theatre for contemporary American drama.

CROWDS (7/10)
Being a site for public gatherings and stage performances, Ford’s Theatre by its very nature can handle a good deal of people without problems. Exhibits in the basement museum are all encased in clear rectangular columns to allow for optimum viewing by the largest number of people possible.

Enjoy your elbow room at the Theatre because the Peterson House is another story. Crowds, and by crowds we mean any more than 3 people, can easily clog the house’s narrow hall and limit your views of the parlors and famous BWLD. You may want to coordinate your entrance to the number of people you see exit.

EASE OF USE/ACCESS (5/5)
Ford’s Theatre NHS is less than three blocks from all five DC Metro rail lines. The nearest station is Metro Center (blue, orange and red lines), located two blocks to the west. Gallery Place-Chinatown (green, yellow and red lines) is three blocks to the northeast.

Street parking could get tricky but there are plenty of nearby parking garages.

CONCESSIONS/BOOKSTORE (4/5)
Full shelves carry over a hundred stories about the Civil War, the Assassination and all other aspects of old Abe. There is a much better selection here than at the Lincoln Memorial; more room to move too. Posters, photos and guides of the Capital city round out the bookstore offerings. Be sure to save room in your Passport Book for the FOUR stamps you can get here.

COSTS (5/5)
What’s the best part about Washington, DC? Nearly every museum is free!

Our visits to Ford’s Theatre have always been greeted by impromptu (and free) Ranger tours, programs and talks.

RANGER/GUIDE TO TOURIST RATIO (5/5)
Open the door to Ford’s Theatre and you will see at least three Rangers ready to answer your “how much does it cost” question with a smile and “nothing at all!” We heard the cost inquiry at least a half-dozen times; these Rangers make so many people feel happy every day.

TOURS/CLASSES (8/10)
Ford’s Theatre remains the same. Plays are still held, the balcony still provides the same views of the stage and American flags are still draped over the President’s box. So it becomes pleasantly disconcerting when you climb the stairs and see a man in period costume recounting, in convincing first-person as the DC Chief of Police, the assassination and the subsequent hunt for conspirators. Waves of tourists blasted the Ranger with an endless and fascinated stream of questions. What a perfect way to learn about the case’s basic facts.

The Ford’s Theatre basement museum is a treat for history buffs and CSI-watchers alike. It must hold the most macabre set of artifacts in all of DC including: Lincoln’s blood stained overcoat; the guns Booth carried and presumably the one he shot Lincoln with; ticket stubs from the April 14, 1865 performance; the hoods worn by Booth’s co-conspirators when they were hung and; the knife with which Booth stabbed Henry Rathbone. Amazingly, they are all originals.

FUN (8/10)
A visit to Ford’s Theatre NHS and the HWLD is low effort, high reward. Two free sites in a one block radius, close to Metro stops and many lunchtime options. It doesn’t get easier than this. Heck, you might not have even meant to come here but found yourself beckoned inside by one of many Rangers as you were walking to an event at the MCI Center or to the newly reopened Portrait Gallery. Go in! Go in! We were highly entertained by the highly biased retelling from the DC Chief of Police and were amazed once again by the vast collection of original items downstairs. The Peterson House is so close by that it is a mandatory stop. You can’t watch just half the plot, can you?

WOULD WE RECOMMEND? (9/10)
You bet. Ford’s Theatre NHS and the Peterson House (HWLD for those in the know) are two of the more interesting DC sites – something actually happened here. You can get your fill of crime, tragedy, intrigue and justice all without leaving the Theatre; the HWLD is a subdued denouement to the action. The shooting of Lincoln and capture of Booth and his colleagues plays out just like a modern day police drama. In his death, the martyred hero loses his faults and becomes larger than life and the bad guys get caught.

TOTAL 62/80

www.usa-c2c.com
© 2004-06

DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR MUSEUM

2006-08-06T09:03:00.000-04:00

Washington, DC
Local Website

WHAT IS IT?
Museum dedicated to the history of the United States Department of Interior, the Cabinet department responsible for the administration of the National Park Service.

BEAUTY (4/10)
The Museum lives on the first floor of a federal office building, not exactly a good aesthetic sign.

Once inside the automatic glass doors, the Museum is nicely laid out, with a lot of open space and room to move between dioramas and displays, many of which feature maps and kitschy artwork from the museum’s and the Department’s early days.

HISTORICAL INTEREST (6/10)
Completed in 1936, the DOI building was the first building built by the FDR administration. From that point on, every National Parks and Department of Interior decision ostensibly occurred here. This may not be a particularly glamorous history, but the federal bureaucracy is what gets things done. Right?

CROWDS (6/10)
We were the only visitors to the Museum. Most likely a good thing since we vocalized our opinions about nearly every exhibit.

EASE OF USE/ACCESS (2/5)
The DOI Museum is located at the corner of 18th and C Streets NW, four blocks to the southwest of the White House or five blocks south of the Farragut West Metro station. Good luck trying to find parking within the restrictive metered mélange of 15-minute parking, diplomat-only parking and reserved for VIP parking. Spaces can be found, but good luck.

Getting into the Museum is a more arduous process than most DC landmarks. We waited for about 10 minutes to sign in at the front desk as an official visitor. After passing through the metal detectors, we had to wear an ID badge and restrict our movement to the bookstore and museum. None of this was unexpected or a problem; federal security restrictions are stringent nowadays.

FYI, if you want the NPS Passport stamp you either need an escort to travel to the 7th floor or (not sure how Gab pulled this off) need to have the 7th floor escort bring the stamp to the DOI entranceway where they will stamp your book. We never traveled up to the 7th floor which, we later read, holds copies of every single National Park Site brochure. Just thinking about that bounty elicits Pavlovian dog levels of drool.

CONCESSIONS/BOOKSTORE (5/5)
Not many sites can boast a registered historic landmark as their bookstore. The Indian Craft Store lies just across the hall from the Museum and serves as the Site’s bookstore and showcase for Native American arts and crafts from across the nation. The shop has existed in this location since 1938 and owes its landmark status to wall murals painted by Native American artists Allan Houser and Gerald Nailor.

Its small size is deceiving. The Store’s phenomenal cache of books related to every Native American craft and its graceful Sculpture Garden (all works are for sale) are not immediately apparent. Every possible display space is used yet the Craft Store does not feel cramped.

If you need to take a crash course on artwork indigenous to North America, come here. And bring your wallet. We could not leave without buying at least a magnet.

COSTS (4/5)
Entrance to the Museum and Craft Store are free.

RANGER/GUIDE TO TOURIST RATIO (1/5)
Would you believe us if we told you we saw no Rangers at the Department of Interior? Of course, we didn’t venture up to the Park Headquarters on the 7th floor. Like we said, you need to request a personal escort for that. And we couldn’t decide what we would do once we got up there.

TOURS/CLASSES (8/10)
Guided tours of the Museum and other parts of the Department of Interior building are available by appointment (202-208-4743). But we found the Museum to be self-explanatory. This museum is dedicated to interpreting how the Department of Interior has interpreted its constantly changing role in the formation of America.

Most of the museum’s ten galleries offer modern presentations of the dated displays which hung in the museum when it opened in the 1930s: these are, essentially, museum exhibits explaining what the museum exhibited.

This blend of 1930’s style dioramas and dated data with changing modern exhibits is familiar to us; we have seen it in many of the NPS Visitors Centers that are in the process of updating their displays. This process is usually long and drawn out since it is dependent upon federal funding. The difference, however, is that once the VCs acquire the needed money, it is understood that the old stuff will probably end up in a closet somewhere, not part of the new exhibit.

Maps of western expansion, projected plans and blueprints for dams and mines and explanations of the evolving U.S. presence in territories like Guam and the Marshall Islands mesmerized us. Do you know into how many places the Department of Interior reaches its fingers? It is no accident it is called the “Mother of all Departments.”

FUN (8/10)
Gab could have spent several more hours in the Museum’s air-conditioned halls, but then again she reads much slower than Michael.

The Museum’s guest book documents the range of responses it elicits from its limited number of visitors: “Fascinating!” “boring!” “A hidden treasure!” “VERY boring.” Looks like not everyone finds it as interesting as we do.

WOULD WE RECOMMEND? (3/10)
Only if you are captivated by the infrastructure of the federal government or are finishing a two-year journey of 380 National Park Sites under the purview of the Department of the Interior.

TOTAL 47/80

www.usa-c2c.com
© 2004-06

KOREAN WAR VETERANS MEMORIAL and VIETNAM VETERANS MEMORIAL

2006-08-06T08:58:00.000-04:00

Washington, DC
NPS Korean War MEM Website; Local Korean War MEM Website; NPS Vietnam MEM Website; Local Vietnam MEM Website; NPS National Mall Website; Local National Mall Website

WHAT IS IT?
Two Memorials located on the western edge of the National Mall and Memorial Parks that honor the soldiers who served in two Asian wars fought between 1950 and 1975, Korea and Vietnam.

BEAUTY (4/10)
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in undeniably evocative. The simple, diagonally shaped black granite wall etched with the names of the fallen has become the touchstone for modern War Memorial design. The Korean War Veterans Memorial’s copycat black wall confirms this notion.

While they are solemn, thought provoking and poignant neither Memorial is particularly beautiful. We wish, however, that the Korean MEM had further copied Vietnam Memorial’s minimalist simplicity. Instead, its mishmash of 19 haunting statues, diagonal black granite wall, Asian shrubbery, etched troop statistics, inscribed quotes and a shallow pool meant for quiet remembrance feels far too busy.

HISTORICAL INTEREST (7/10)
The 1982 opening of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial marked a profound shift in American historical commemoration. The National Mall is our country’s avenue of heroes, our tribute to lasting and eternal greatness. Until 1982, all of the Mall’s major memorials had been dedicated to individuals of genius and political impact: Ulysses Grant, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Thomas Jefferson. Grand soldiers’ memorials had been reserved for the Arlington National Cemetery, located across the Potomac in Virginia.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial changed that line of thinking, reflecting a more populist historical vision. In its wake, America honored Korean War veterans in 1995 and World War II veterans in 2004 with their own tributes on the Mall.

You are not going to learn any specifics about either the Vietnam or the Korean War at their Memorials. The Memorials are both powerful abstractions. In fact, we overheard dozens of parents, some more eloquent than others, struggling to explain the circumstances and events of both Wars to their children.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, the organization that generated the funds and political weight to create the Memorial in 1982, is currently raising funds to build a museum, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Center, underneath the Memorial itself. On August 3, 2006 the National Park Service approved the proposed location. Actual construction is years away.

Perhaps upon the Museum’s completion, the American public and Memorial visitors will be able to achieve a better understanding of the events of America’s longest war.

CROWDS (7/10)
Hundreds of people move slowly along the Vietnam Veterans Memorial’s walls and alongside the life-sized soldiers of the Korean War Memorial. The sustained silence around the Vietnam Memorial is rarely punctuated by any voice louder than a murmur.

The Korean War Veterans Memorial aims for a similar reverence but doesn’t quite get there. Most folks pause briefly for a photo or two before moving on to the next site.

EASE OF USE/ACCESS (4/5)
The easiest way to visit is via the Tourmobile® Sightseeing buses. Your $20.00 per adult all day ticket drops you off in front of the both the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the nearby Lincoln Memorial and every other National Mall-area attraction.

These two Memorials are located on the western edge of the National Mall, just south of a dense conglomeration of federal offices. The more adventurous (or masochistic) tourist could find a metered street parking space among this mess of barricaded one-ways streets, diplomat-only meters and tricky diagonal intersections. We do not recommend it.

The nearest DC Metro stop is Foggy-Bottom-GWU, located three-quarters of a mile to the north at the intersection of 23rd and I Streets. This downhill concrete walk always seems longer than the distance indicates.

CONCESSIONS/BOOKSTORE (2/5)
There are no NPS bookstores dedicated to either Memorial; a very limited selection of titles can be found within walking distance at the Lincoln Memorial bookstore.

COSTS (4/5)
There is no entry fee. We missed free Ranger talks at both memorials by a few minutes.

RANGER/GUIDE TO TOURIST RATIO (4/5)
Several young Rangers were clustered together on the walkways between the two Memorials. More were stationed at the circular information kiosks adjacent to the Site. Rangers are there if you need them; you just need to seek them out.

TOURS/CLASSES (3/10)
What did we learn from our visits to the Memorials? With its prominently chiseled motto, the Korean War Memorial told us that “Freedom Is Not Free.” The engraved numbers adding up those who served, were wounded and died in the Korean War as well as the endless sea of names on the Vietnam War Memorial are a portion of the total bill.

We question whether one Ranger-led tour a day is sufficient given the amount of people who visit these Memorials, especially during the summer months. Perhaps the Memorials are meant to be more introspective than informative.

We asked one Ranger at an NPS kiosk about the proposed Vietnam Veterans Memorial Center museum that would be located underneath the current Vietnam War Memorial (see History). He knew of no such plans, but did direct our attention to the podiums lining the walkway which invited visitors to comment on the Memorial. He told us those papers were collected nightly and were archived with the intention of eventually displaying them. They have volumes.

FUN (5/10)
Reading the names of 58,249 Americans killed in Vietnam is not a fun experience. Neither is reading the engraved stats telling you 36,516 Americans died in the Korean War. Everybody has their own reasons for visiting these Memorials; carefree enjoyment is not one of them.

WOULD WE RECOMMEND? (9/10)
Unlike the sites dedicated to Lincoln, Jefferson or Washington, these two Memorials commemorate not only individuals but the collective effort of enlisted men and women performing duties on behalf of their country. The events are so current visitors usually don’t need to go beyond one or two degrees of separation to find someone they know who is memorialized here.

TOTAL 49/80

www.usa-c2c.com
© 2004-06

THOMAS JEFFERSON MEMORIAL and GEORGE MASON MEMORIAL

2006-08-06T08:47:00.000-04:00

Washington, DC
NPS Jefferson MEM Website; Local Jefferson MEM Website; NPS George Mason MEM Website

WHAT IS IT?
Two Memorials located at the south-central edge of the National Mall and Memorial Parks that honor the lives of two distinguished Virginian Founding Fathers.

BEAUTY (5/10)
The Jefferson Memorial is a mishmash of Roman architectural styles meant to recall Jefferson’s own designs. If you are looking for Jeffersonian brilliance, you are better off traveling to Charlottesville. His DC Memorial looks and feels too much like the Lincoln Memorial. Old TJ deserved better. Thankfully, every spring the surrounding Japanese cherry trees bloom and make even this tired neo-classical design look interesting.

The George Mason Memorial offers quiet charm. Its lovely flower beds encircle a path leading to a larger than life rendition of a seated Mr. Mason. George is surrounded by walls of quotes and flanked by personal affects and volumes of Locke and Rousseau.

HISTORICAL INTEREST (3/10)
This Tidal Basin-bordering, southern portion of West Potomac Park has always been an historic afterthought; its most important historic event being the 1912 planting of the first Japanese cherry trees.

CROWDS (6/10)
In Season Three of The Simpsons, the family travels to Washington DC where Lisa is a finalist for an essay contest. While visiting the Jefferson Memorial, TJ’s statue pleads with Lisa to stay because he is lonely. No one ever visits him. Things haven’t changed much since 1991.

George Mason, on the other hand, probably does not mind the sparse crowds. He looks content lounging in his personal trophy garden, reading the works of Enlightenment philosophers.

EASE OF USE/ACCESS (4/5)
The easiest way to visit is via the Tourmobile® Sightseeing buses. Your $20.00 per adult all day ticket drops you off in front of these two Memorials and every other National Mall-area attraction.

The nearest DC Metro stop is Smithsonian, located nearly one mile to the northeast. The long distance walk to the Jefferson Memorial is one of Michael’s lasting memories of his first trip to Washington, DC as a 10-year old. Which explains a) why the Jefferson MEM was his favorite (because it took some effort to get to) and b) why he never visited it again in the four years he went to school at Georgetown.

CONCESSIONS/BOOKSTORE (3/5)
There are two stores underneath the Jefferson Memorial. One carries mostly touristy-type items, such as t-shirts, miniature memorials, ornaments and the like. The other side contains primarily print and audio/visual offerings. Both could use more substance. Like the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial also provides retail room for other DC attractions and monuments. Having been to Monticello, we know there is no lack of material discussing Jefferson, his accomplishments and even his peccadilloes. Why couldn’t we find them here?

George Mason doesn’t get his own bookstore.

COSTS (4/5)
Entrance to both Memorials is 100% free.

RANGER/GUIDE TO TOURIST RATIO (1/5)
We saw no Rangers in the Jefferson-Mason vicinity.

TOURS/CLASSES (4/10)
The superficial representations here of Messrs. Jefferson and Mason are not particularly desirable learning places, especially since both of their plantation homes are terrific tourist destinations and only a hop, skip and a jump from Washington, DC. Jefferson’s Monticello is 115 miles to the southwest in Charlottesville while Mason’s Gunston Hall is only 25 miles to the southwest near Occoquan.

FUN (6/10)
Why oh why did we leave the water bottle in the car? Our fun rating might have been higher had we not realized our thirst at what felt like the farthest distance from a Metro stop or street vendor. Luckily, crowds were not as thick here as at Lincoln’s and there were plenty of places to sit in the shadow of Jefferson’s greatness and cool off.

We spent only a few minutes at the George Mason Memorial but that was enough time to take in the scents of the summer blooms and speculate as to when a character named Mason would join the cast of Lost.

WOULD WE RECOMMEND? (6/10)
Every spring, the Jefferson Memorial takes center stage on the Mall. It serves as the perpetually stunning backdrop to the beautiful pink cherry blossoms. At all other times its serves as the least visited and most forgotten of the National Mall’s four white pillared compass points. Definitely visit the Jefferson Memorial during cherry blossom time. Visit here during the remainder of the year only if you are a National Mall Monument completist and have already purchased the Tourmobile all-day pass.

We enjoyed the George Mason Memorial but recommend it only to the super-completist. On the other hand, Mr. Mason is definitely enjoying an unexpected renaissance with this 2002-dedicated Memorial and the NCAA Final Four appearance of his namesake University. Who knows, perhaps in the near future Mason’s legacy will enjoy untold interest, patrons will flock to Gunston Hall and this Memorial’s beautifully landscaped flowers will become the subject of every tourist’s travel blog. Stranger things have happened.

TOTAL 42/80

www.usa-c2c.com
© 2004-06

NATIONAL WORLD WAR II MEMORIAL, JOHN PAUL JONES MEMORIAL and DC WAR MEMORIAL

2006-08-01T21:27:00.000-04:00

Washington, DC
NPS WWII MEM Website; Local WWII MEM Website; NPS National Mall Website; Local National Mall Website

WHAT IS IT?
Three Memorials to war veterans located in the central portion of the National Mall and Memorial Parks.

BEAUTY (4/10)
It is a bad sign when a memorial’s most glowing praise is “well, it’s not as bad and disruptive as I’d thought it would be.” Such is the fate of the new-kid-on-the-mall National World War II Memorial. After it was opened to the public in April of 2004, architecture magazines and editorial pages lambasted the design with critical glee. Some even stated that the Memorial’s overwrought marble columns and ostentatious pomp better recalled the defeated fascists than any American dream.

The WWII Memorial reminded us of a universally-panned but highly successful blockbuster film. Despite the critics’ strong judgments, the masses love them both and visit in droves. They both cost a lot to make, in the WWII Memorial’s case: $184 Million. They both evoke only visceral reactions and have zero emotional or educational depth. Both leave you with the nagging question of was it really worth all the money spent? But in the end, you accept the mediocrity and enjoy the loudness, the size, the bad script and the astounding special effects.

The John Paul Jones Memorial and the District of Columbia War Memorial are two humble and somewhat hidden remembrances located nearby. Admiral Jones is remembered with a steadfast bronze likeness while DC’s World War I vets are honored with a small Doric temple.

HISTORICAL INTEREST (4/10)
The generation of Americans that helped defeat Nazi Germany deserved a stellar monument and remembrance as well as a place on the National Mall. However, the Congressional decision to place the Memorial between the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument certainly ruffled a lot of feathers. People feared for the sightlines and some were angry at the removal of such a large amount of public space.

Is the World War II Memorial worthy of the soldiers who fought and the millions who sacrificed on the home front and armed a nation? Is the Memorial a fitting tribute? Well, it doesn’t disturb the vistas as much as people thought it would. What else can you say? It is there and it is not going away. We were a little bothered by its inelegance, its over-the-top superficiality and its elephantine proportions. Especially because we attach none of those traits to the generation it aims to honor. Could the Memorial have been better? Absolutely, yes, but then again it could have been a lot worse.

CROWDS (8/10)
The crowds’ general excitement was the best part of the Memorial. Everybody wants to see something new. Our favorite guests were the nine ducklings who had congregated nearby the wall of 4080 gold stars’ reflecting pool. We think they enjoyed the attention.

EASE OF USE/ACCESS (4/5)
DC Metro stops are not particularly kind to the Monuments located in West Potomac Park. The nearest station is Smithsonian, almost ¾-mile walk from the WWII Memorial. The pleasant walk is no problem for the average tourist but older visitors and those with physical challenges might find the distance and oppressive DC summer heat to be troublesome.

Since there is no parking, the easiest way to visit is via the Tourmobile® Sightseeing buses. Your $20.00 per adult all day ticket drops you off in front of the WWII Memorial and every other National Mall-area attraction.

CONCESSIONS/BOOKSTORE (1/5)
No bookstore.

COSTS (4/5)
100% free.

RANGER/GUIDE TO TOURIST RATIO (2/5)
There are a few Rangers posted in the nearby Park Ranger Station (located south of the Memorial) poised to answer questions.

TOURS/CLASSES (2/10)
There are no exhibits and we saw no educational Ranger talks. The Memorial’s pillars and walls are filled with names of battles, bas relief depictions of the War, triumphant quotes and symbolic stars but no explanations and no contextualization of the pictures and words.

FUN (5/10)
Most visitors entered the site with reverence equal to that required for the Vietnam or Korean War Veterans’ Memorials. Somber moods just couldn’t be sustained as kids searched the Memorial’s pillars to find the one that had their state’s name engraved on it or huddled around the ducklings waiting for the little ones to step into the pool. Folks soon realized that the fountains made for nice foregrounds in their photographs of the Capitol or Lincoln Memorial so there was a lot of posing concentrated in the center of the Memorial. The best part of the visit was soaking in the excitement and anticipation of everyone visiting DC’s newest monument.

WOULD WE RECOMMEND? (7/10)
If you’re traveling to Washington, DC of course you’re going to come here. A walking circuit that includes the Lincoln Memorial, the Vietnam Memorial and the Washington Monument is compulsory. The WWII Memorial is located smack dab in the middle of that tour. You couldn’t avoid it if you tried.

TOTAL 41/80

www.usa-c2c.com
© 2004-06

LINCOLN MEMORIAL

2006-07-31T05:50:00.001-04:00

Washington, DC
NPS Website; Local Website

WHAT IS IT?
The instantly recognizable white Georgia marble neo-Classical monument dedicated to our 16th President, Abraham Lincoln.

BEAUTY (9/10)
At the National Mall western end, the Lincoln Memorial stands, a steadfast Greek Temple that emanates greatness and elicits reflexive, earnest tribute. The ascent up its three flights of stairs builds the anticipation, heightens the spirit and takes you to the most fitting tribute any American President has yet to achieve.

Inside Abraham Lincoln sits. His position recalls an imagined recreation of the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Lincoln’s recreation is no less godlike, but instead of the bombast and tyranny of his mythical counterpart, he sits with the wisdom of Athena. Lincoln’s famed melancholy is no more; he sits with self-assuredness. His gaze is more complicated; it speaks of hope and pride but also shows wariness and fear.

Despite its grand scale and lofty symbolism, the Lincoln Memorial is not triumphalist. It shows a man with flaws and sensitivities. It speaks to a hopeful future accompanied by thought and a humble character. It speaks to what America should be.

HISTORICAL INTEREST (8/10)
The Lincoln Memorial has seen historic significance rare to most memorials and monuments. Since soon after its dedication, the Memorial has played host to countless concerts, political demonstrations and speeches. Perhaps the only speech to rival the legend of Lincoln’s own Gettysburg Address occurred here: Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. On that August 28, 1963 day, the Lincoln Memorial grounds served as the centerpiece for the one of the most important (and among the largest) political rallies ever to occur, the 1963 March on Washington.

CROWDS (9/10)
There were a lot of people here! The mass of humanity that was milling about, ascending and descending the stairs and waiting patiently to be photographed next to Lincoln’s knees were all in celebratory, dare we say, jubilant moods despite the heat of the day. This classic American landmark’s grand size can handle all comers with ease.

EASE OF USE/ACCESS (4/5)
The easiest way to visit is via the Tourmobile® Sightseeing buses. Your $20.00 per adult all day ticket drops you off in front of the both the Lincoln Memorial, the nearby Vietnam Veterans and Korean Memorials and every other National Mall-area attraction.

The Lincoln Memorial is located on the western edge of the National Mall, just south of a dense conglomeration of federal offices. The more adventurous (or masochistic) tourist could find a metered street parking space among this mess of barricaded one-ways streets, diplomat-only meters and tricky diagonal intersections but we do not recommended it.

The nearest DC Metro stop is Foggy-Bottom-GWU, located three-quarters of a mile to the north at the intersection of 23rd and I Streets. This downhill concrete walk always seems longer than the distance indicates.

CONCESSIONS/BOOKSTORE (2/5)
Oddly inadequate. The Lincoln Memorial bookstore is tucked away in the inner right corner of the Memorial’s mezzanine. It is far too small to handle its crowd, especially when a baby stroller is pushed into the mix. Shelf space is divvied up between the Lincoln Memorial and other nearby bookstore-less sites, including the Vietnam Veterans and Korean War Memorials. A few books on civil rights and more recent military involvements are scattered in there for good measure.

We could find no rhyme or reason for the bookstore offerings or why some titles were chosen over others. We couldn’t even find a cool magnet. Those looking for substantial information on our 16th President will do much better at the Ford’s Theater National Historic Site.

COSTS (4/5)
Not a penny to see the front and back of a penny.

RANGER/GUIDE TO TOURIST RATIO (1/5)
The area in and around the Lincoln Memorial’s circular perimeter appeared to be a Ranger-free zone. We saw security guards, bookstore clerks and construction workers doing Memorial restoration but no Rangers. Even the tiny downstairs Lincoln museum appeared to be un-staffed.

TOURS/CLASSES (4/10)
Park literature states that there are Park Ranger programs every day at all the National Mall Memorials. Somehow, we missed them all. We understand that the DC experience is primarily visceral; it is about being overwhelmed with larger than life statues and legendarily great men.

The Lincoln Memorial needs no elaboration and no educational help. Old Abe sits on his throne and regally looks over the capital city of the country he reunited (and broke apart according to some). His greatest words, the Gettysburg Address and his Second Inaugural Address, flank him on either side, in their full glory and in complete context.

That is why the Lincoln Museum, located beneath the Memorial, is disappointing. The Museum consists mostly of granite-etched Lincoln quotes regarding equality, freedom, emancipation and the Union. These quotes are mangled and taken out of context in a misguided attempt to portray Lincoln as a fiery abolitionist. The museum exhibits reveal more about the curators and their opinions about Lincoln than Lincoln himself.

FUN (10/10)
From his perch, Abe Lincoln enjoys the best and most classic view in Washington, DC. He overlooks his own reflecting pool, the new World War II Memorial, the soaring obelisk Washington Monument, the National Mall and finally the U.S. Capitol. The vista is stirring at all times and in all seasons. The views and the history will infuse strong patriotic emotions into even the most cynical of Americans. The Lincoln Memorial is a resolute reminder of the positive strength of both humanity and the self.

WOULD WE RECOMMEND? (10/10)
The Lincoln Memorial is Michael’s favorite place in Washington DC. Every time he walks up its steps he feels the same rush of expectation and the same flood of emotions. It is a pilgrimage site and a place to give secular thanks and blessings not just to Mr. Lincoln but to Dr. King and the pioneers of the many human rights organizations that have rallied here. The Lincoln Memorial is a quintessential American icon and a must-see destination for all Americans.

TOTAL 61/80

www.usa-c2c.com
© 2004-06

FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT MEMORIAL

2006-07-26T21:46:00.000-04:00

Washington, DC
NPS Website; Local Website

WHAT IS IT?
Sprawling outdoor granite monument complex dedicated to our 32nd President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

BEAUTY (3/10)
Humongous pink granite stacked walls allegedly separate this ridiculously long memorial into distinctive “rooms”, each of which explain different parts of FDR’s life and the America he shaped. Miniature golf course-worthy waterfalls appear (thematically out of nowhere) in each “room” adding a taunting cruelty to your DC summer visit. What do you mean I can’t stick my head into the waterfall, Mr. Ranger?

In addition to the waterfalls, the “rooms” contain larger-than-life bronze statues of FDR, Eleanor and Fala, bas relief abstract wall art, quotes written in Braille, statues of five guys in a chow line and a statue of a man listening to a radio. The “rooms” adornments are symbolic to the point of absurdity and too numerous and too disjointed to understand as a whole. Maddeningly, there are no pamphlets, no exhibits and no Rangers to explain the artistic minutiae and historic allusions.

Perhaps the Memorial looks better and offers a more pleasant visit in spring when surrounded by blooming cherry blossoms and cooler weather. We can only hope.

HISTORICAL INTEREST (5/10)
It took almost 50 years to bring the current FDR Memorial to reality. Even when it was dedicated in May 1997, some felt it was incomplete.

The latest addition to the Memorial is perhaps the most controversial. In January 2001, a little more than 10 years after the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act, a statue of FDR sitting in his wheelchair was added to the Prologue Room. Its $1.65M construction and placement primarily funded by the National Organization on Disability who advocated for a true representation of the President’s polio-inflicted disability.

Those opposed to the addition argued that FDR had gone to great lengths to conceal his disability and never wanted to be seen as someone “disabled.” Would a man who hid his wheelchair, crutches and inability to walk from photographers appreciate that his assistive devices are now carved indelibly in stone? Do FDR’s decisions reflect denial and shame or unusual strength and determination?

We don’t have the answers, but credit the FDR Memorial and its seated statue for returning the issues of full inclusion for individuals with disabilities to the national table.

CROWDS (3/10)
If you thought 7.5 acres, “four rooms”, 300 trees and 4000 granite blocks would offer a place for quiet reflection or even an isolated experience you would be wrong. Despite the Memorial’s profligate use of public space, we found it impossible to enjoy the Site at our own pace. The crowds all move to the same spots and all take the same pictures. We never thought we would be queuing for ten minutes to take a picture of the bronze FDR and Fala. Sure, we could have moved on sans photo, but that’s not the point. We have principles…and a Chinese tourist-less picture of Fala.

EASE OF USE/ACCESS (3/5)
No place in West Potomac Park or the National Mall is further from a DC Metro stop than the FDR Memorial. The Smithsonian, Foggy Bottom and L’Enfant Plaza stop all are more than one mile away! During DC summers, that one mile feels more like five miles.

Since there is no parking, the easiest way to visit is via the Tourmobile® Sightseeing buses. Your $20.00 per adult all day ticket drops you off in front of the FDR Memorial and every other National Mall-area attraction.

CONCESSIONS/BOOKSTORE (4/5)
Once he is able to say the book’s title ten times really fast, Michael is going to read David Kennedy’s Pulitzer Prize winning, 992-page long Depression-era America tome Freedom from Fear. He swears.

There have been many books written about FDR, WWII, Eleanor and the Depression and this bookstore carries an admirable selection discussing those themes.

COSTS (4/5)
This open-air monstrosity is free although we could think at least one-thousand better places in DC to spend your time.

RANGER/GUIDE TO TOURIST RATIO (2/5)
Gab claims to have seen two Rangers milling about the various “rooms”. Michael cannot corroborate what he thinks were waterfall-induced mirages.

TOURS/CLASSES (2/10)
During our stay, we fruitlessly hoped that a Ranger talk would materialize. Perhaps then we could have understood what we were looking at. We know the history; we just could not come to grips with what the architects were trying to say or what mood they meant to provoke.

Did the waterfalls somehow suggest FDR’s feverish dam building or were they meant to allude to his Hudson River home? What is being said when FDR’s “I Hate War” quote is emblazoned on a wall and then, in a separate display, seen crushed in granite rubble? We can come up with dozens of interpretations, most of them contradictory, anachronistic and ultimately a misreading of FDR’s history and intentions.

FUN (2/10)
We came to the FDR Memorial with a muted anticipation. We loved our time at Hyde Park and have effusive admiration for our 32nd President.

With every step through the Memorial we grew more confused. “What’s the point of that”, we thought, still confused. Then the sarcasm crept in,“oooh, another waterfall”. We walked with a hope the next pink granite corner would signal the Site’s linear end. But the Memorial kept going.

Then came the 10-minute long (or was it 20) FDR photo incident. Thankfully, only trees and the Tidal Basin greeted us around the next corner.

We left the FDR Memorial with audible appreciation that we now had our lives back.

WOULD WE RECOMMEND? (2/10)
Whether apocryphal or not, in 1982 Time Magazine reported that FDR once told Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter that he wanted only a small memorial about the size of his desk. FDR continued, “I want it plain without any ornamentation, with the simple carving, `In memory of . . .’”

FDR’s desired Memorial exists and sits in front of the National Archives building. Why this new FDR Memorial had to be built or, better yet, why $48,500,000 had to be spent on it escapes us. We do know that we will never visit here again but we will return to Hyde Park this July. FDR would probably agree with our decision.

TOTAL 30/80

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© 2004-06