The Magic of Coney Island

The first time that I went to Coney Island, I was in college, fully in the grip of a newfound commitment to intellectualism. I was certain that I was going to be a professor, that I was going to be a prolific and influential author, and that most of the world was consequently not up to my exacting standards of culture, taste, and intelligence.

At that moment in my life, Coney Island struck me as the epitome of everything I hoped to reject. Tacky, cheap, loud, dedicated to the pleasures of the flesh, it was horrifying to me. I did not like the beach, or roller coasters, or even funnel cake. It was too hot, too full of naked skin, too shamelessly mindless. I know that I sound as if I were some sort of dreamy Hamlet, condemned to a layer of Dantean hell, but that is what it felt like. Though it pains me to think of it, I was once invited to a birthday party in Coney Island; and rather than play catch on the beach, I spent the time under the boardwalk, reading James Joyce’s Ulysses (which, to be sure, I completely failed to understand).

And yet, Coney Island is so pure in its embodiment of wanton fun that I was also, against my will, fascinated by it. While I felt superior, the place also made me feel as if I was missing something fundamental about life. It became, for me, a symbol of what I lacked, and that is basically how I described Coney Island in my novel Their Solitary Way.

With age comes wisdom, or at least acceptance. It took me time, a long time, to learn to relax and have fun. Now, a decade and a half after my first visit, I think Coney Island is one of the treasures of New York, something I look forward to every summer.

For about a century now, Coney Island has not been an island. Formerly, the Coney Island Creek separated the island from the landmass of Long Island; but a part of this creek was filled in in the 1920s. However, as “Coney Peninsula” doesn’t have quite the same ring, the original name was retained. Aside from Rockaway, Coney Island is the only beach accessible on the subway (and the ride is significantly shorter), and it is also the only amusement park.

Coney Island has been the playground of New York since the 19th century. This is evidenced by the grandiose Coney Island – Stillwell Avenue station, which is the terminus of lines D, F, N, and Q. With its eight individual tracks, it is more reminiscent of a train station than a lowly subway stop, and is obviously built for high volume.

As you walk around the “island” today, buzzing with beach-goers, dancers, tourists, baseball fans, and teenagers on line for various rides, you might be forgiven for thinking that Coney Island is now in its golden age. But the peak of Coney Island occurred from the 1880s to the Second World War. During that time, with three amusement parks operating—Luna Park, Dreamland, and Steeplechase—it was the largest amusement area in the United States.

An early symbol of Coney Island’s greatness was the Elephantine Colossus, a 122-foot tall wooden building in the shape of (you guessed it) an elephant. It was so big that it could be used as a concert hall, a palace of petty amusements, and even a brothel. Indeed, it was significantly bigger than the earlier Elephant of the Bastille, a plaster model of a planned—but never executed—statue, which became an attraction unto itself. (It is now famous principally for Victor Hugo’s description of it in Les Miserables.) Unfortunately, the wooden structure burned down in 1896; but there is another huge wooden elephant in nearby New Jersey, by the same designer: Lucy the Elephant, in Margate City.

(There is a far darker elephant story connected with Coney Island, that of Topsy the elephant. Topsy was a circus elephant who had a reputation for misbehavior. In 1902 it was decided that the elephant would be executed as a publicity stunt. With the blessing of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Topsy was poisoned, strangled, and electrocuted. Her electrocution was actually caught on film. This film survives, and it is gruesome to watch. Be it noted that Thomas Edison had nothing to do with this particular animal execution, though it was filmed on an Edison camera.)

But the powers that be were not always kind to the island. One way to demonstrate this is the history of the New York Aquarium. This institution was originally housed in Battery Park, in the historic Castle Clinton, and was free to the public. It was a beloved place, visited by millions per year. Yet it attracted the ire of the infamous park commissioner, Robert Moses—who disliked both the aquarium and Coney Island for being too plebeian—who forcibly transferred the aquarium from Castle Clinton to Coney Island.

This had several unfortunate results. For one, the new aquarium was forced to charge admission. (Currently the price is $30, which is so steep that I have never visited.) The aquarium was also unable to safely transfer their animals, leaving them with no choice but to release their collection into the ocean and begin from scratch. And last, the aquarium was deliberately put in real estate previously occupied by the amusement park, Dreamland, in order to reduce the tawdry attractions.

But an even bigger nemesis to the island was Fred Trump—Donald’s father. A real estate developer, Fred eyed the valuable property occupied by the former Steeplechase Park, and eventually acquired it with the aim of putting up high-rise apartments. He made sure to demolish it quickly, and publicly, before it could be given landmark status; but he was ultimately unsuccessful in his building project. Trump eventually sold the property back to the city, and it was duly turned back into an amusement park.

Nowadays, the only remnant of the old Steeplechase Park is the iconic Parachute Jump. This was a ride that consisted of strapping people into a seat, pulling them up to the top of a 250-foot tall tower, and then letting them fall to earth with a parachute. It sounds extremely dangerous, but the ride apparently had a perfect safety record. The now-defunct ride is strangely beautiful—a kind of blooming steel flower.

This information, I should note, was partly gleaned from the Coney Island History Project. As its name implies, this is a non-profit organization, dedicated to exploring, recording, and divulging the history of Coney Island. In the summer months, they run a small stand near the Wonder Wheel, where the visitor can see remnants of old rides (such as the steeplechase), as well as dozens of excellent old photographs.

The center portrays Coney Island as a haven of cheap fun, which had to survive decades of private greed and public neglect in order to serve its vital function to the city of New York. We have already heard about Robert Moses and Fred Trump; but before them, John McKane, a Tammany Hall politician, tried to sell off much of the publicly owned land for profit. (Unlike the corrupt politicians of later eras, McKane ended up in Sing Sing.)

Fred Trump’s demolition of Steeplechase Park, in the 1960s, inaugurated what was perhaps the darkest period in the island’s history. As its popularity among New Yorkers declined—a result of many factors, such as the rise of the automobile, and the new availability of other recreational sites—much of Coney Island was rezoned and redeveloped for urban housing, with large buildings constructed for lower-income residents. This was followed, predictably, by an increase in crime and a consequent decrease in legitimate business.

It was only in the late 80s that a movement got underway to protect and revitalize the area. The Coney Island Cyclone, the Parachute Drop, and the Wonder Wheel were declared landmarks, and plans were made to construct a minor league baseball stadium on the former site of Steeplechase Park. Of this stadium, more later. First, I want to pay my respects to the classic rides of Coney Island.

The oldest continually operating attraction on the island is the Wonder Wheel. Built in 1920, it has operated every year except 2020, during the pandemic (unfortunately, its centennial). Its design is unlike a standard Ferris wheel, in that some of the compartments can slide around between the rim and the hub. Despite being next to the larger Luna Park—which operates all of the major roller coasters—the Wonder Wheel belongs to its own separate amusement park, Deno’s. Named for Deno Vourderis, who acquired the wheel in 1983, this is a family-run amusement park, still operated by his two sons.

Only slightly younger than the Wonder Wheel is the Coney Island Cyclone. Built in 1927, it was actually the third of the great wooden roller coasters, after the Thunderbolt (1925) and Tornado (1926). The former stopped operating in 1982, but was not demolished until 2001; the latter was destroyed by arson in the 70s. The Cyclone narrowly escaped destruction, too, after it was acquired by the city in order to provide land for an expansion of the Aquarium. The Coney Island Chamber of Commerce fought the aquarium to a standstill, and the plan was eventually scrapped.

*The original Thunderbolt rollercoaster, awaiting destruction.*

The Cyclone is now the star attraction of Luna Park. Despite its age (or, rather, because of it), the ride holds up. Reaching a maximum speed of 60 miles per hour, it manages to be quite terrifying, as the loud clackety-clack of the car, careening over the spiderweb of ancient wood, gives the sensation of imminent collapse. The sense of riding a rickety antique provides a thrill no modern technology could duplicate.

The current Luna Park is a reincarnation. The original was opened in 1903; and judging from the photos and illustrations, it was a sensational place. With over a million lights—changing color every second—it had every sort of entertainment conceivable. Its name comes from its first and most iconic ride, “A Trip to the Moon.” In this, visitors would travel on a strange spacecraft, as scenes of earth and space were projected on the walls. Then, they would “land” on a papier-mâché moon, where the Man in the Moon would dance for them. It sounds pretty awesome.

*A colorized photo of Luna Park in its heyday.*

(This brings us back to the unfortunate life of Topsy the elephant. This elephant was acquired by the owners of Luna Park in 1902, and used to advertize the construction of the new park. This included hauling the “spaceship” used in A Trip to the Moon. However, the drunken handler started stabbing Topsy with a pitchfork during the move. The police intervened, and the handler responded by turning the elephant loose, causing predictable havoc. Two months later, this dangerous man rode Topsy directly into the police station—again, causing predictable havoc. Topsy’s execution was thus framed as “penance,” though it was timed as a morbid publicity stunt for the park’s opening. The past wasn’t always such a charming place.)

The Luna Park that exists today only shares its name with that original park, which closed in 1944. The current rendition opened quite recently, in 2010. It has dozens of rides, from spinning teacups to terrifying slingshots (which I would never try). Among these is the new Thunderbolt. Opened in 2014, this is a modern-style rollercoaster, with a completely vertical lift hill (possibly the scariest part of the ride), and four sections when you are momentarily upside-down. Surprisingly, its top speed is a hair under the Cyclone’s; and the comforting impression of modern engineering makes it ever-so-slightly less terrifying.

But an amusement park isn’t just rides and roller coasters. An essential element are the carnival games. Coney Island is teeming with such amusements, from Whac-A-Mole, to the ring toss, to miniature basketball free-throws. When I was younger, I steered clear of these games, put off by their vaguely unscrupulous aura. Yet now I think a couple dollars is a fair price for the pleasure of spasmodically attempting to bludgeon some plastic vermin. And I was pleasantly surprised when I actually won a game of water racer (in which you have to fill a container using a water pistol), and was awarded an enormous pillow featuring the likeness of Lebron James. The world may not always be fair, but sometimes you get lucky.

Yet there are pleasures even more acute than these. On a whim, after a long day on the island, we decided to dip into the Eldorado Bumper Cars, on Surf Avenue. It was like walking into a nightclub. Dancehall music blared deafeningly from the speakers as we blinked in the neon darkness. Deliriously, I handed over my ticket, and was directed to one of the waiting cars. The power was switched on and I lurched into motion, careening endlessly around a track, while a teenage boy clipped me from behind with an inscrutable smirk on his face. It was a blast.

As it happens, this bumper car establishment is next to a Coney Island institution: Nathan’s Famous. This is the original location of what is now a hot dog empire. It was founded in 1916 by Nathan Handwerker, though the hot dog recipe was created by his wife, Ida—who, in turn, got the spice blend from her grandmother. Nathan was a Jewish immigrant from Poland, who used his entire life savings—a grand total of $300—to open a hot dog stand with his wife. The hot dogs were all beef, though they were technically not kosher (the animal has to be slaughtered and prepared a specific way) leading Handwerker to dub them “kosher-style.”

Over a century later, Handwerker’s small stand has expanded into a city block, and in the summer months it is consistently packed. Yet with cashiers and counters on three sides of the building, service is surprisingly fast. Now, I am not normally a huge fan of hot dogs—in flavor, color, and texture, they are so processed as to be food-adjacent—but Coney Island, the mecca of mindless fun, is the perfect setting to stop worrying and love the glizzies (as they kids call them nowadays). And insofar as such things can be judged, I actually do think the Nathan’s frank, with mustard and sauerkraut, is a cut above the average wiener.

Nathan’s is also famous for being the site of one of America’s most barbarous rituals: its July 4th Hot Dog Eating Contest. The contest has a mythical origin story, in which four immigrants decided to test their patriotism with an impromptu contest, all the way back in 1916. But the contest really dates from 1972, when it was dreamed up as a promotional event. Though it began rather informally, the contest is now the World Series of the professional eating world. Indeed, for something as silly as an eating contest, there is a surprising amount of drama in the “sport.”

For years, the contest was dominated by Takeru Kobayashi, a Japanese legend who broke record after record, winning from 2001 to 2006. But the food tsunami hasn’t participated since 2009, since he refuses to sign an exclusive contract with Major League Eating. Indeed, the depraved tidal wave was arrested in 2010 when he jumped onto the stage after the contest. Meanwhile, Kobayashi’s arch-rival, Joey Chestnut was barred from the contest in 2024 after he signed an advertising contract with Impossible Foods, which sells plant-based hot dogs. Chestnut still holds the world record for downing a stomach-exploding 76 hot dogs in 10 minutes; but in his absence, Patrick “Deep Dish” Bertoletti took home the 2024 Mustard Belt with a very respectable 58 franks.

Now, I have described the subway stop, the carnival games, the rides, the history, the hot dogs (and the animal cruelty); but Coney Island is, above all, a beach. The experience of visiting Coney Island, for me, inevitably involves walking up and down the boardwalk, taking in the ambience. Indeed, the almost complete lack of shade on the boardwalk never fails to put me in a semi-sunstroked state, giving the scene a kind of mirage-like sheen.

It seems only right and natural that there should be a boardwalk and a beach at Coney Island. Yet like all good things in this world, it had to be fought for.

At the beginning of the 20th century, most of the beachfront property was in private hands, and so access to the ocean was severely restricted. Many poor New Yorkers could only look longingly at the waves through the links in a fence. It was not until 1921 that the city forcibly acquired the land facing the sea, and work began on the boardwalk the following year. It was named in honor of Edward J. Riegelmann, the Brooklyn borough president, who was in charge of the project. He himself opposed the name, preferring the simple “Coney Island Boardwalk,” but his contemporaries were so grateful to him that he was overruled.

Like everything else at Coney Island, the beach is wholly artificial. The beautiful white sand that covers the shore is all imported from beaches in Rockaway or New Jersey. Because the island is shielded from the waves by Breezy Point, in Queens, sand (a product of water erosion) does not naturally form here in large quantities. As recently as the 90s, the US Army Corps of Engineers was called in to add more sand to the beach—in part, to fill in the area underneath the boardwalk, which had become an impromptu shelter for the homeless, as well as a site of frequent crime.

When I was younger, a stroll along the boardwalk was akin to Dante’s voyage through hell. It was a series of activities that actively repelled me. Nowadays, I find a strange comfort in the fact that, on any given summer day, Coney Island will have the same eternal elements.

There are, of course, the thousands sunning themselves on the beach—bronzed and glistening skin, of every imaginable shade, contrasting with the gaudy colors of their swimsuits. At various points along the boardwalk, aspiring DJs have set up speakers, and are pumping out loud dance music for the passersby. Usually there are only a few actual dancers, though they flail with enough enthusiasm to make up for the lack of participants. Further down, there is the snake crew, who carry their limbless, listless reptiles on their shoulders. Presumably they make money by allowing others to pose with the snakes, though I’ve never seen any cash change hands. I have no idea how to care for a serpent; but I can’t help suspecting that so much handling isn’t good for them.

Drinking in public is illegal in the United States. Yet in the bacchanal that is Coney Island, the rules appear to be suspended. Vendors freely sell beer to pedestrians, who drink it without even the formality of a paper bag. On my last visit, a man in an electric wheelchair zoomed around yelling “Corona! Modelo!” to all and sundry. If someone took him up on the offer, he led them to a Latino man with a cooler, who presumably gives his energetic advertizer a cut of the profits.

But to be truly adventurous, one must try a nutcracker. This is a mixed drink with no set recipe, but which usually consists of vodka or tequila mixed with something sweet and fruity, like Kool-Aid. They are sold in plastic bags and drunk through a straw. There is manifestly a lot of leeway for bad actors. Some vendors may save money by watering down their drinks, and a crazy person could easily mix in poison. In my experience, however, the drinks are sugary and strong.

Strolling along the boardwalk, the visitor passes by something all too infrequent in New York City: public bathrooms. The beach is amply provided with “comfort stations,” as they are politely called, some of them quite new and futuristic. Keep going, and you pass by The First Symphony of the Sea, a wall relief by Toshio Sasaki, created to adorn the wall outside the Aquarium. Further down, you leave Coney Island behind completely. The crowds thin out, and there is hardly anyone on the sand. This is Brighton Beach, the tranquil neighbor of Coney Island. It is notable for being the city’s Russian neighborhood. There are several boardwalk restaurants where you can order borscht or pickled herring, and the shop signs are in Cyrillic script.

Turn around now and head back towards Coney Island. The tangled metal profiles of rides loom up in the distance, and the garrulous facades of amusement park eateries—selling fried chicken, hot dogs, oysters, and the like—adorn the boardwalk. Overhead, planes drag huge ads through the sky (even beaches have commercials in America), and the crowds become thick and noisy. Finally, the towering Parachute Jump appears, and next to it the great pier jutting out into the water. Nearby is a large stadium. You have finally arrived at Maimonides Park.

Opened in 2001, this is the most recent addition to the variety of entertainment options available at Coney Island. And it is perfect. Now, the visitor can spend the day sunbathing, eat a hot dog and chase it with a beach beer, ride a roller coaster and win a stuffed animal at the Whac-A-Mole, and then complete the evening with a baseball game. It is America at its finest.

(The historically astute reader may find it curious that a baseball stadium in Brooklyn is named after a medieval Jewish philosopher who lived on the Iberian Peninsula. This is simply due to its being sponsored by the Maimonides Medical Center, a non-sectarian hospital with Jewish roots.)

Maimonides Park is the home of the Brooklyn Cyclones, a minor-league team. You see, each team in Major League Baseball has what are called “farm teams,” where young talent is trained and cultivated. The Cyclones is the farm team of the New York Mets—one of several, actually—whose players earn a small fraction of the money of their major league colleagues, living in the hopes of advancement. As a result, tickets to see the Cyclones are also a small fraction of the price of major league tickets. The last time I went, I paid a bit more than twenty dollars.

The biggest night in Maimonides Park is, by all accounts, Seinfeld Night. It has become an informal holiday. This is the only day of the season when all 7,000 seats of the stadium sell out, as fans line up for a chance to get a Seinfeld bobblehead (usually of George Costanza). The Cyclones go up against their arch-rival, the Hudson Valley Renegades (a farm team for the yankees), and even become, temporarily, another team entirely: the Bubble Boys. Obscure Seinfeld references abound, as show-themes contests are held between innings, and even a few minor actors from the show make guest appearances.

When I last went, the Cyclones—sorry, the Bubbles Boys—lost 0-3 in a rather disappointing game. But the real event began after the game ended: the Dance Like Elaine Contest. For those who haven’t seen the show (and I should shamefacedly admit that this includes me), this is a dance modeled on Elaine’s spasmodic dance moves, famously described by George as “A full-body dry-heave set to music.” Dozens of people dress up in Elaine’s boxy eighties outfits and dance with arhythmic vehemence, as the crowd votes through their cheers. This year, a young woman from Brooklyn, Shannon, took home the gold with a convincingly convulsive performance.

After the contest ended, and we poured out onto the street, I couldn’t help but feel a bit wistful. Coney Island has become an integral part of my summers, something that marks a time of total freedom. More than that, Coney Island is a living embodiment of the carnival spirit, a place where traditional values are suspended or inverted, where any notion of refinement, decorum, or even of a healthy diet do not apply. Indeed, this is partly why Coney Island has had so many enemies throughout the years, from Robert Moses, to Fred Trump, and even to an immature Roy Lotz. It has been attacked as crass, neglected as unimportant, and continually assayed by businessmen trying to privatize sun, sand, and waves.

But one way to judge a thing is by its enemies. By that standard, Coney Island is one of the treasures of New York City—a monument to the prospect that everyone should be able to have a little fun.

Historic Hudson Homes: Lyndhurst & Untermyer Gardens

This is part of a series on Historic Hudson Homes. For the other posts, see below:

Washington Irving’s Sunnyside
John D. Rockefeller’s Kykuit
Alexander Hamilton’s Grange
FDR’s Springwood & Vanderbilt Mansion
Thomas Cole’s Cedar Grove and Frederic Church’s Olana
Jay Gould’s Lyndhurst & Untermyer Garden

It should perhaps come as no surprise that the Hudson Valley is full of the former (and current) homes of the exceptionally wealthy. It is ideally situated to serve as a kind of country retreat for the rich—within a stone’s throw of New York City, but surprisingly green and bucolic.

In the stretch of Route 9 between Irvington and Tarrytown there is a conspicuous concentration of opulent residences. The most famous is arguably Sunnyside, the house of Washington Irving, which now seems like a cottage compared to its neighbors. Nearby is the Belvedere Estate, which once belonged to Samuel Bronfman, owner of Seagram Company, of Canadian whisky fame—though it now serves as the headquarters for the Unificationists, a Korean-Christian version of scientology. And there is also Shadowbrook, a Gilded Age mansion owned by famed jazz saxophonist Stan Getz.

More historical is Villa Lewaro, an Italianate mansion owned by Madam C. J. Walker, the first female self-made millionaire in America—a feat even more impressive considering that she was an African American, living at the turn of the century. She made her wealth by selling beauty products marketed for black women, and then became a noted philanthropist. During her life, Villa Lewaro became an important meeting place for black intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance.

But the grandest of all of these mansions is Lyndhurst. Rising like a misplaced cathedral over the Hudson, Lyndhurst is a spectacular example of neo-gothic architecture. It was first built for William Paulding, mayor of New York City, and a relative of both John Paulding (the Revolutionary War hero who caught the treasonous Major John André) and, through his sister’s marriage, of Washington Irving. Its extravagant style led locals to deem it “Paulding’s Folly,” though the subsequent owner, George Merrit, expanded the house and made it even more fanciful. Both the original house and the expansion were designed by Alexander Jackson Davis, one of the most sought after architects of his day.

Yet the name most associated with Lyndhurst is that of Jay Gould. It is a name that was widely columniated during his life, and his reputation has hardly improved since his death in 1892. Gould was one of the most famous and despised robber barons, who manipulated markets, bribed politicians, and bent and broke the law in order to maintain his dominance. Unlike Cornelius Vanderbilt, say, Gould’s opulence was not due to his founding a useful business. He was more like Warren Buffet than Bill Gates—an investor, not an entrepreneur. Still, in his defense it must be admitted that, like Vanderbilt or Rockefeller or Carnegie, Gould was a self-made man, born into poverty. (Unlike Rockefeller or Carnegie, however, Gould never became a prominent philanthropist.)

Lyndhurst, as it stands today, is much as Gould left it. The visit begins in the old Carriage House, where there is a gift shop, an informational film, and where you sign up for the tour. (The house can only be visited with a guide.) The interior continues the gothic theme of the facade. The ceilings are vaulted, and the narrow windows curve into a pointed arch (making some rooms of the house rather dark). Imitations of gothic tracery even adorn some of the walls. The furniture, too, is in keeping with the severity of the aesthetic, but several lovely examples of Tiffany stained glass do help to alleviate the stuffy atmosphere.

A curious detail, pointed out by the guide, is the use of paint to imitate other materials. While many surfaces appear at first glance to be marble, they are, in reality, painted wood. Meanwhile, the gothic ceilings, window panes, and tracery are made of wood and plaster rather than real stone. This would seem rather counterintuitive, since Gould certainly could afford any medium he wished. But at the time it was considered both fashionable and luxurious to use faux materials. (There is a fine line, apparently, between extreme luxury and garbage.)

The second floor of the house is dominated by a central gallery, which is brightened by the large windows. This is filled with oil paintings—by lesser-known European masters—most of which can loosely be described as 18th century Romantic realism. Among the collection, however, is a rendering of the Jay Gould Memorial Chapel, a beautiful stone church he helped to reconstruct, as well as a study for the Tiffany stained glass windows to be installed in the chapel. There is also a portrait of Gould himself, who always comes across to me as a misplaced barfly, with his unkempt beard and surly expression.

The two opulent master bedrooms open out into this sun-filled art gallery, making a sharp contrast with the dark, almost church-like ground floor. I would feel rather depressed eating in the pseudo-cathedral of a dining room, but quite happy waking up to such a beautiful, open space.

With its strange mixture of neo-gothic, faux-materials, and ersatz religion, Lyndhurst is one of the most memorable of the great Hudson Valley mansions—surpassed in extravagance, perhaps, only by Frederic Church’s Olana. However, as with so many of these great houses, the gardens are ultimately the pleasanter place.

On its great lawn, jazz concerts are held in the summer, organized by Jazz Forum Arts, which hosts performances all along the Hudson Valley. It is crossed by two prominent trails, the Old Croton Aqueduct and the newer Westchester RiverWalk. There, the walker can enjoy the rose garden, which is reliably swarming with bees and other pollinators, and take in the ruins of the old Greenhouse, which once contained over 40,000 plants, but is now just an empty frame.

If you continue walking south along the Old Croton Aqueduct for about two hours—or, alternately, if you drive twenty minutes down Route 9—you will reach yet another grand Hudson estate. This one, however, is conspicuously lacking the mansion. Much like William Rockefeller’s Rockwood, the resplendent Greystone has long since been demolished (leaving only its name in the nearby Metro-North station). But what survived is arguably better than even the finest old residence. It is perhaps the loveliest garden in the Hudson Valley.

I am referring, of course, to the Untermyer Park and Gardens. Samuel Untermyer was another colorful figure from a bygone age. A lawyer by profession, he somehow made his fortune by fighting against corporate interests. He was an enemy of trusts and monopolies, an advocate of stock market regulation, and instrumental in the establishment of the Federal Reserve. He was also, as it happens, an avid botanist, who wanted to create gardens that would outshine even the landscape at John D. Rockefeller’s Kykuit. Thus, he hired the French-trained architect and designer William W. Bosworth—indeed, the same one the Rockefeller’s hired—to make him the finest gardens that money could buy.

The result is something unlike any other garden I have visited. It is surrounded by high walls, apparently in imitation of old Persian models. After passing under two shady weeping beeches, the central waterway leads the visitor’s eye down the highly symmetrical space. In its focus on flowing water, the garden is indeed reminiscent of its Moorish counterparts in the Alhambra, though the wet climate of the Hudson Valley allows for a proliferation of plant life—rhododendrons, lilies, hollies, hydrangea, amid much else—that is wholly unlike its Islamic models. This central space terminates in a large reflecting pool, over which two sphinxes preside.

After exploring this space (the pseudo-Greek Temple of the Sky was closed when I visited), you can walk down the long, cedar-lined stairway to the Overlook. This may be the best spot on the Hudson to enjoy the palisades, as the view somehow presents the illusion of a wholly undeveloped river, with no human habitation in sight. From there, a path leads to another pseudo-Greek edifice, the Temple of Love—sitting on top of an artificial rocky outcropping, from which a stream trickles down. It would, indeed, be a good place to take someone on a date—scenic, romantic, and free of charge.

It is heartening to see the gardens in such fine shape, as they suffered long periods of neglect after Untermyer’s passing in 1940. He wished to will both the mansion and the gardens to the public, but the cost of upkeep proved so daunting that the property was refused by New York State and Westchester County. The city of Yonkers eventually agreed to accept a small parcel of the original estate, though it quickly fell into disrepair and suffered vandalism. In the 1990s, community leaders began advocating for the purchase of more land, and in 2011 the Untermyer Gardens Conservancy started restoring the park to its former glory.

Even now, however, the beautiful gardens are only a shadow of what they once were. During Untermyer’s life, they had sixty greenhouses, tended by sixty gardeners, and was considered one of the centers of botany in the country. Yet what is left is remarkable enough—and all the more remarkable that it is free and open to the public.

Historic Hudson Homes: Cedar Grove & Olana

This is part of a series on Historic Hudson Homes. For the other posts, see below:

Washington Irving’s Sunnyside
John D. Rockefeller’s Kykuit
Alexander Hamilton’s Grange
FDR’s Springwood & Vanderbilt Mansion
Thomas Cole’s Cedar Grove and Frederic Church’s Olana
Jay Gould’s Lyndhurst & Untermyer Garden

Before the advent of “modern art” in the 20th century, the United States was considered something of a backwater as far as painting was concerned. Any American painter with an ounce of ambition had to travel to Paris and spend time copying masterpieces in the Louvre in order to become respectable.

This is precisely what Samuel Morse did. For two years he worked on what was supposed to be his masterpiece, The Gallery of the Louvre, in which he painstakingly reproduced several European masterworks in miniature. This technical tour de force, proof of his hard-earned artistic prowess, earned him—well, very little, which is why he quit painting thereafter and went into the telegraph business. Thus the eponymous code.

Of the American artists who did achieve success during this time, such as Mary Cassat, John Singer Sargent, and James McNeil Whistler, they all spent formative years in Paris and worked in thoroughly European modes.

But one school of genuinely American painting emerged in the 19th century which owed relatively little to the Old World. This was the Hudson River School. This consisted of grand, sweeping landscapes, capturing the relatively (to Europe) wild and untouched countryside. And though artists in this school would eventually paint all over the United States—and beyond—it is named for the place it began: the Hudson Valley.

It took a foreigner to see the beauty in the American landscape, and the potential to turn it into a new sort of painting. Having grown up in grimy, gritty England—in the throes of the industrial revolution—and moved to the United States as a young man, Thomas Cole (1801 – 1848) was deeply impressed by the endless green hills of the Hudson Valley.

Cole arrived in Catskill, New York, in his early 30s, and rented a room in Cedar Grove, the home of the Thomsons, a prosperous local family. A few years later he married Maria Bartow, a niece of the paterfamilias, and made the house his permanent home. What is now the Thomas Cole National Historic Site is, therefore, the ancestral Thomson residence.

The main house is a beautiful building in the Federal-style, constructed in the early days of the nation, with a lovely porch that wraps around the front. The view from the porch is, indeed, worthy of a picture, with the green-blue profile of the Catskills rolling in the distance. It is not difficult to see why the painter chose to live here. While the Catskills lack the dramatic rocky ridges of the great European mountain chains, the soft, undulating green carpet seems to embody the gentleness of nature.

Due to a navigation error, my mother and I arrived late for the “Deep Dive” tour of the house. Still, we got plenty of information. The house is well-conserved and presented. There are reproductions of many of Cole’s letters and journal entries scattered about, as well as several original paintings. The majority of Cole’s paintings portray rugged landscapes where small figures are dwarfed by nature, though at times he included wild architectural fancies, such as a blue pyramid in The Architect’s Dream.

Upstairs, the museum has the last painting that Cole ever worked on, still unfinished. A cloudy blue sky hovers over a featureless brown landscape, revealing the painter’s process—painting from top to bottom. The only clue as to what he intended to paint below are two figures holding a cross, scratched roughly into the paint. Yet still more eye-catching is his Diagram of Contrasts, a color wheel painted over a black background, which looks startling like a work of contemporary abstract art. Indeed, Cole’s description of the work in his diary is reminiscent of Kandinsky:

It is what may be called the music of colours. I believe that colours are capable of affecting the mind, by combination, degree, and arrangement, like sound.

My favorite part of the visit was a video in Thomas Cole’s original studio (a room which he hated, since its only light source was a window facing north). Using his diaries, the museum recreated a hike that he took in the Catskills, juxtaposing his sketches and paintings with photos of the scene now. Cole’s final product may not compare favorably with, say, The Last Supper; but it would never have occurred to that Italian genius—or, indeed, to any major European painter up to this time—to use hiking as a basis of artistic inspiration. It was a major innovation.

The Thomas Cole National Historic Site includes not only the main house, but several other buildings on the property. There is the visitor center, of course, and also two buildings that Cole designed himself: the Old and the New Studios. The Old Studio—which Cole used for the most productive years of his life—is little more than an adjunct to an old barn, with extra windows for good lighting. The New Studio was wholly designed by Cole, but was demolished in the 70s. It has since been reconstructed according to his design and now serves as an art gallery.

Thomas Cole died young, at the age of 47. But the movement he founded culminated in the work of his star pupil, Frederic Edwin Church (1826 – 1900). As a young artist, Church was a frequent visitor to Cole’s home; and it is easy to picture the young artist admiring the green hillside on the other side of the Hudson. After achieving both fame and wealth far beyond anything Cole could have dreamed of, Church bought himself a huge estate, and erected one of the most startling buildings in the Hudson Valley: Olana.

This property can be spotted from Cedar Grove, as a red dot among the green hills. Indeed, as of 2018, visitors can even walk from Cedar Grove to Olana, thanks to a pedestrian walkway that was affixed to the Rip Van Winkle Bridge. I walked part of the way and recommend the experience, if only for the wonderful views of the river and the Catskills beyond.

*Olana amid the hills, seen from across the river, with the Rip Van Winkle Bridge to the left.*

*Here is the reverse view, from the porch of Olana.*

(Curious motorists may notice that the road from the bridge curves somewhat awkwardly on the western side. This was precisely to avoid disturbing Thomas Cole’s historic residence.)

Olana presents a startling vision to the new visitor. You see, Church was a remarkably well-traveled man, especially considering that he lived before the age of air-travel. He designed Olana—in collaboration with famed architect, Calvert Vaux—after returning from the Middle East, basing both the design and the name on Persian models. (In this, he resembles an earlier Hudson Valley resident, Washington Irving, who built his Sunnyside after returning from Spain.)

Historically, painting has been a poorly remunerated profession. Van Gogh famously died penniless, but even the great Rembrandt was considered as little more than skilled craftsman. Of course, most aspiring painters still carry the cross of poverty; but in the 20th century it became at least possible for the most successful artists to become independently wealthy.

So how was Church able to afford such an ostentatious house on one of the most attractive bluffs overlooking the Hudson Valley? This was partly the result of an innovative business practice. In addition to having wealthy patrons who supported him and bought his work—the life-blood of artists for centuries—Church hit upon the idea of touring with his paintings. That is, he sold admission to his works, which would be exhibited in well-lit rooms complete with benches, from which the eager audience could view the painting with opera glasses. At the time, it must have been like a trip to the movies.

This idea worked because of how and what Church painted. Like his mentor, Cole, Church was primarily a landscape painter; but he worked on a grander scale—painting enormous canvasses that could occupy the entire wall—and traveled to far more “exotic” landscapes.

His most famous painting, In the Heart of the Andes, is an excellent example. Inspired by the naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, Church traveled to a land where few Westerners had dared to go, and took painstaking care to accurately capture it all on his canvass—from plant species to climate zones. At a time before color photography, when long-distance travel was inaccessible to the vast majority, the painting must have been a startling window into a distant, alien world. It was a David Attenborough documentary for the 19th century. (You can see this enormous canvass in the Met, where it still may steal your breath.)

The house at Olana unites Church’s dominant interests: landscape, art, and travel. The many arched windows open out onto views of the Hudson Valley and the Catskills that are, indeed, worthy of a painting. And in addition to the house’s odd profile—a kind of Victorian imitation of Persian design, altered to suit a cold climate—it is further distinguished by the many stenciled designs that run along the walls, inside and out. Church designed these stencils himself; and along with striped awnings and colorful roof tiles, they serve to give the house a visual flair quite foreign to most American mansions.

The furnishing of the house reflects Church’s wide travels, as various knicknacks from Mexico and the Middle East are scattered among the elegant furniture. But the main thing the visitor sees are paintings. There are dozens of them—not only by Church, but also Cole and other artist acquaintances. The vast majority of these are landscapes, which again demonstrate both his immaculate technique and his wide travels. Compared to Cole’s more staid style, Church is a cinematic painter, whose landscapes transport you into another world. I would certainly have paid admission to see one.

In addition to Church’s home, the visitor can enjoy his estate, which must be one of the most attractive pieces of property in the entire Hudson Valley. But as it happened, we had to go west on the day we visited; so instead of strolling on the carriage roads, we got in the car and headed to a site on the Hudson River Art Trail: Kaaterskill Falls.

The name of this waterfall—like the name of the Catskills themselves—comes from “cat” (as in bobcat, which presumably were more common in earlier times) and “kill,” an old Dutch term for a stream. Indeed, throughout New York, the curious visitor will find many streams bearing ominous names, like the Sing Sing Kill or Beaverkill.

The falls are magnificent. A stream of water plunges down over 200 feet from a sheer cliff, making them taller than Niagara Falls, if orders of magnitude less powerful. It was largely thanks to Thomas Cole that the falls became a popular tourist attraction in the early United States, who was the first of many to popularize the cascade in paintings. On the day we visited, there were people swimming in the murky pool below, while dozens looked on, awestruck. It is easy to see how Cole was inspired to start a new artistic movement by this landscape.

*Thomas* *Cole’s rendering of the falls.*

Manhattan: Top to Bottom

One Hundred Famous Views of New York

“What kinda photos you take?”

The guy at the bagel store had noticed my camera. I was in Inwood, far uptown, waiting for my friend Greg.

“Oh, you know. A bit of everything, I guess.”

“Got any kind of social media I can follow?”

Very flattered, I typed in my Instagram on his proffered phone.

“I’m not famous or anything,” I said, and took another bite of my bagel—everything, with lox, cream cheese, and onions. A New York classic.

“I’m sure you got a lotta stories with these photos, boss,” he said, very kindly.

I tried to say “thank you” but, mid chew, only managed “thnnn ynnn.”

Greg arrived five minutes later. After ordering something for himself—“There is only one type of bagel,” he proclaimed: “everything”—we headed out. We were starting our walk to the bottom of Manhattan.

At my insistence, we had started late. I hate getting up early on the weekend, and so I set our rendezvous for 1 p.m.—which, of course, meant that we didn’t get moving until 1:30.

*Where I began the walk, at Marble Hill, walking over the East River.*

It was a brilliant summer day, hot but not too hot, and blessedly not humid. Our plan, if it deserved the name, was to follow Broadway all the way from the East River to The Battery. However, we also had an agreement—nearly fatal—that we would stop at anything that caught our eye. This happened almost immediately.

To our right, we noticed an old wooden house that looked jarringly out of place. A sign proclaimed it Dyckman Farm, the oldest—and possibly, the only—extant farmhouse on the island of Manhattan. Naturally, we had to visit.

The Dyckman family was of old Dutch stock, having arrived in the 1600s. During the Revolutionary War, however, they fled upstate to avoid the British occupation, returning later to find their original property destroyed. Thus, the current structure dates from around 1785.

Yet the description did not focus exclusively on this family, instead devoting ample space to the many enslaved people who worked and lived on the property, as well as the indigenous people who lived here before. “This is definitely not how it would’ve been described when we were kids,” Greg remarked, quite truly.

The visit cost us $3 and was short and sweet. Two things stick out in my memory. One was a small exhibit about the games that were played by the family, including a playable set of nine men’s morris—a board game even older than chess—with rules printed on the wall. If we had more time, we would’ve had a go. Upstairs, in the bedroom, the walls were decorated with “samplers,” which were embroidered fabrics meant to showcase the skill, class, and devotion of a young woman, in order to secure a favorable match. Tinder profiles seem more efficient, though perhaps less worthy to be deemed family heirlooms.

Yet, for me, the most startling item on display had nothing to do with the farm at all. It was a photograph of the construction of the Dyckman Street subway station, from 1905. What is striking about the image is the almost complete lack of a visible urban presence. It is a stunning reminder of how recent the city’s explosive growth has been. (The photo also intrigues for the apparently nonsensical decision to build public transit into empty land—a paradox resolved by the assurance that the land would be quickly populated once the subway was up and running.)

*It is hard to believe that Manhattan ever looked like this.*

Our walk continued. Broadway took us alongside Fort Tryon Park, a lovely green space overlooking the Hudson River. We briefly considered visiting the Met Cloisters, which sits atop the large hill, but wisely decided it would take too much time.

Now we were in the Heights. Manhattan above Harlem hardly feels like Manhattan at all. It is another world, an outer borough. With a few exceptions, the buildings are just a few stories tall, and there are virtually no tourists to speak of. This part of town is predominantly Latino. You see just as much Spanish as English in store windows, and hear more of it spoken in the streets. Men in tank tops, sitting on folding chairs, play dominoes on the sidewalk as if it were their front lawn. At one point, we passed by a family having a full-blown cookout, with giant trays of spaghetti and rice and beans. The food looked so good that I was a millimeter away from asking for a plate—when my better judgment forced my legs to keep walking.

On any walk through Manhattan, there are some sights that are unavoidable. A fire hydrant leaking water into the streets, for example, or some pigeons having a feeding frenzy. Rats dart from beneath giant mounds of reeking garbage bags. Orange funnels in the street ooze steam into the air—a byproduct of Con Edison’s massive steam heating system belowground—and identical wooden water towers sit inexplicably above every tall building.

But perhaps the most omnipresent Manhattan sight is scaffolding. There are about 400 miles of it in New York City, on seemingly every other building. Remarking on this, Greg recommended John Wilson’s episode on scaffolding, which is a deep dive into the surprisingly strange world of pedestrian protection. I second the recommendation. But here is the short version.

*Scaffolding: a ubiquitous sight in Manhattan*

In 1979, Grace Gold, a freshman student at Barnard College, was tragically killed when a piece of debris fell off a building, striking her in the head. This led her older sister, Lori, to a dogged campaign to prevent further tragedies, culminating in the passing of Local Law 11. This mandates the inspection and maintenance of the façades of buildings over six floors tall, every five years. During this work, scaffolds (also called sidewalk sheds) are put up to protect pedestrians below.

The scaffolds present a kind of obstacle course for the pedestrian. Sometimes they provide needed shade, or a place to lean and hang out; and for many New Yorkers, they become a kind of outdoor living room. They can also narrow the sidewalk and cut off pathways, creating annoying detours and bottlenecks. Businesses hate them for decreasing foot traffic, and tourists for ruining photos of iconic buildings.

This time around, it struck me how nearly all of these classic elements of the city—the garbage bags, the water towers, the steam vents, the scaffolds, and even the fire escapes—are absent from the other city I know best: Madrid. Indeed, they are absent from most other American cities, too. Yet when I lived in New York, it never even occurred to me that these features could be unique or identifying.

Now, I have created my own detour, and must return to the walk.

Our first major city landmark was the George Washington Bridge. We passed underneath the busiest bridge in the world and were immediately waylaid by some street vendors. Greg got himself a ring and an outrageous bracelet—successfully bargaining down the price—and we were off again, heading towards Harlem.

Broadway does not take you through any of the most iconic spots in Harlem, which are further east. But it does run by one of the most grandiose and least-known museums in the city: the Hispanic Society of America.

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, its name is somewhat misleading. Though it is in a “hispanic” neighborhood, the museum is mainly devoted to Spanish cultural heritage; and is not, and has never been, a learned “society.”

The museum is housed in Audubon Terrace, a beautiful beaux-arts complex of buildings. And though it is still not fully open after its years-long renovation, it is free to visit, and was a very pleasant place to cool off for a few minutes. For me, it is a measure of the city’s internationalism that, on top of all of the cultures and countries represented in its boroughs and neighborhoods, I can find a panoramic series of paintings depicting all of the regions of my new homeland—by one of Spain’s greatest painters.

Broadway took us within striking distance of two other Harlem landmarks—Hamilton’s Grange and City College’s magnificent neogothic campus—but we powered on, down to 125th street, where we knew a bar with an excellent happy-hour deal on wine. My brother, Jay (who had previously done this walk, and so didn’t want to subject himself to it again), would meet us there, as Greg and I tried to limit our wine intake so as not to sabotage the journey.

This is, coincidentally, one of the most picturesque stretches of Broadway. The street dips low and then rises up again, which forces the adjacent Subway Line 1 to briefly become elevated above-ground. A century ago, Manhattan actually resembled Chicago in its plethora of elevated metro lines; but most train lines have since been moved underground.

For my part, though I can understand hating the noise and resenting the obstructed views, I think there is something remarkably charming about these elevated lines. The criss-crossing steel beams, looming overhead, evoke a moment in industrial history when technology was both gritty and excitingly new. And the view from the train is certainly better. In any case, the large arch over West 125th Street is worthy of a poem.

As you get into Harlem, one sight becomes omnipresent: public housing. These mainly take the form of square, red-brick buildings, surrounded by small grassy lawns. Admittedly, most of my knowledge of these housing projects comes from reading The Power Broker, wherein Caro describes how Robert Moses destroyed old neighborhoods to make way for soulless housing that was, in many respects, worse than what it replaced. But as the city—and, especially, Manhattan—confronts an ever-worsening housing crisis, it occurs to me that we may have to give the idea of public housing another look.

At one point on the walk, the sidewalk narrowed into a kind of tunnel, due to construction on the building next door. And for whatever reason, the pavement was littered with the lifeless bodies of spotted lanternflies. This is an insect pest, originally from southeast Asia, which has spread far and wide due to human activity (they lay their eggs on pieces of wood, which then get transported). Though the insect is actually quite beautiful—with brilliant red wings and an attractive spotted pattern—and though it poses no direct threat to people, New Yorkers were encouraged to kill them on sight for the threat they pose to agriculture and the environment generally.

By now, they’ve probably multiplied to such an extent that killing them doesn’t do any good; but we still did our part and murdered the three or four remaining living insects on the sidewalk.

“It’s like a level of a video game,” Greg joked, as we exited the lanternfly tunnel.

*The best picture I’ve managed to get of a lanternfly, taken from inside a bodega.*

Now we were entering the vicinity of Columbia University, whose presence stretches far beyond its main campus. One obvious sign that we were entering its orbit was the proliferation of bookstores and book stands. This was perilous for the both of us. Anyone who knows me is aware of my fondness for the written word. And Greg, well… he’s a history professor. If our odyssey was like a video game, then this level was far more challenging than the lanternflies. We had to resist the pull of knowledge.

*Greg looking phenomenal next to a strange statue adorning an empty parking lot.*

I did, however, take the opportunity to buy Greg a book I’d been recommending him for some time: Times Square Red, Times Square Blue, by science fiction writer Samuel R. Delany.

Now, to give you some background, Rudy Giuliani’s campaign to clean up Times Square has often been celebrated as an example of successful urban redevelopment. Before Giuliani’s stint as mayor—that is, from the 1960s to the early 90s—Times Square was considered a rather seedy area, full of porn theaters, peep shows, and nightclubs. Far from a tourist attraction, it was an area most people tried to avoid. Its transformation from a symbol of the city’s decline to its star attraction is thus usually heralded as a triumph.

Delany calls into question this basic narrative, and he does so with stories of his own explorations—and sexual adventures—in the old, sordid Times Square. For a sex-positive, anti-gentrification, urban studies academic, and a proud New Yorker to boot (in other words, my friend Greg), this seemed like the perfect read.

The real highlight of this part of town was a visit to Tom’s Restaurant, the diner featured on Seinfeld. For such an iconic spot, it is wonderfully unpretentious, with reasonable prices and a classic diner atmosphere. We took the opportunity to order some milkshakes, and I heartily recommend the same to anyone in the area.

We kept going, moving out of Harlem and into the Upper West Side. This is easily one of the architectural highlights of the city, mainly due to the many ostentatious apartment hotels—the Dakota, the San Remo, the Hotel Belleclaire—that were built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, by architects such as Emery Roth. Indeed, this part of Manhattan could easily rival the heart of Paris for its elegance and beauty. Even the subway station at 72nd street is a monument. Rather than try to explain any more myself, however, I will recommend this excellent video by Architectural Digest—as well as their YouTube channel generally. It is some of the best content available about the city.

But I will pause to savor the pizza we had at one of my favorite New York spots: Freddie & Pepper’s. All of us ordered the same thing: a slice with tomato, basil, and fresh mozzarella. It was exactly what we needed to continue our walk.

Now, I would like to take a moment to consider the smells of the city. Though some, like pizza, are conspicuously good, for the most part Manhattan is malodorous: hot garbage, urine, car exhaust, bodies covered in sweat… But lately a new smell has taken over: marijuana. It is not exactly the most pleasant odor (at times it can smell remarkably like a skunk), but it is certainly omnipresent since the legalization, in 2021, of recreational cannabis.

One of the ideas behind legalization was to treat cannabis like wine or liquor, selling it at licensed stores. However, since the unlicensed distribution network was already (shall we say) quite robust, unlicensed stores and stands popped up throughout the city before the legal venues could get a foothold, much to the embarrassment of politicians. Indeed, a major government crackdown was taking place during the week of our walk, leading to the shutdown of over 750 illegal stores. Crackdowns notwithstanding, the city has certainly taken to legal weed with gusto.

The last major sight in the Upper West that we passed was Lincoln Center. We sat down to rest in the nearby Richard Tucker Park, while a bored-looking young woman sang operatic arias—quite well, really—in order to “fund her education.” Puccini and Verdi notwithstanding, I had the music of West Side Story in my head. It was here, after all, that the original movie was filmed—in the ruins of the demolished San Juan Hill neighborhood—and where the Steven Spielberg remake was set.

*Greg, looking very serious about this walk.*

Robert Moses enters this story once again, as it was the notorious commissioner who spearheaded the project—seizing the land from the working-class, multi-ethnic residents of the neighborhood, and then razing the property in order to make way for the city’s new bougie performing arts center. In other words, it was yet another chapter in the long history of Manhattan’s gentrification. At least Lincoln Center looks good.

Finally, as Broadway slowly bent eastward, we hit the next major landmark on our walk: Columbus Circle. This meant that we had finally gotten below Central Park, and were officially entering Midtown Manhattan. The entrance to the park was bustling with activity, as hot dog vendors and the drivers of horse-drawn carriages and pedicabs vied for the tourist’s attention (and money). Yet what struck our collective attention was the large monument on the park’s southwest corner. We stared at it, wondering at its significance, until Jay looked it up on his phone:

“It’s a monument to the USS Maine!”

Now, you may be forgiven for not remembering the significance of this ship. This was an armored cruiser that exploded and sank in Havana’s harbor in 1898, with the loss of 268 sailors. And though the evidence that it had been deliberately attacked by the Spanish was weak at best, the ship’s sinking became a cause célèbre which led to the Spanish American War. Nowadays, neither the Maine nor the war itself (which was basically an American colonial power-grab) are much remembered or remarked upon by Americans. Enormous monuments notwithstanding, the war had a more lasting cultural impact in Spain, as the country’s embarrassing loss to the upstart United States prompted severe self-doubt among its intellectuals, who were dubbed the Generation of ‘98.

Above us, some of the tallest buildings in Manhattan soared off into the sky. This is Billionaire’s Row, a collection of supertall, pencil-thin, ultra-luxury apartment buildings at the bottom of Central Park. For me, though the skyscrapers are impressive as feats of engineering, the buildings make a dubious addition to Manhattan’s skyline—imposingly tall, but not particularly pretty. And, of course, it is rather depressing to have the city’s silhouette dominated by properties to be used as investments for the super rich.

Almost as soon as we left Columbus Circle, we entered Times Square. Far from a discrete part of the city, Times Square seemed to spread impossibly far, its bright and suffocating tentacles strangling block after block. It seems unnecessary to describe the scene—the smothering crowds of gaping tourists, the blinding lights and flashing signs, the street acrobats occupying the sidewalks, the Elmos and Marios and Mickey Mouses (some with their helmets off, smoking a cigarette)—but I do want to mention the religious fanatic, who was standing on a street corner and yelling that Christianity had abandoned Jesus Christ. A man in a wifebeater stopped to shout “Fake news!” nonsensically at the preacher, and his young son did the same.

Greg and Jay took off like rockets—or, should I say, like real New Yorkers—once we hit Times Square, weaving and bobbing through the crowd like professional boxers. I could hardly keep up, though I did my best. It is a truth universally acknowledged by native New Yorkers that Times Square is to be avoided at all costs. And I have to admit that, by the time we got to the end of it—power walking in sullen silence through the crowds—I yearned for a few porn theaters or gogo bars to scare away the tourists. In other words, Samuel R. Delany may have had a point.

Right as we were approaching the southern end of Times Square, and the limit of our tolerance, we passed by a glowing neon American Flag, in front of which a drag queen was yelling into a megaphone, leading a boisterous anti-Trump rally. Just across the street there was a decidedly smaller pro-Trump rally, trying in vain to maintain a similar energy-level. My favorite character was a very calm black man who stood next to the Trumpers, casually holding a Black Lives Matter sign and chatting to his friend.

From here on, the walk entered its most grueling phase. The sun had set and we were all tired—especially me. In perfect frankness, I was suffering from an affliction that often plagues me during my summers in New York: chafing. Suffice to say that, by the time we got past 42nd street, every step I took was a minor agony. Added to this, I had chosen badly and worn my sandals for the walk, which meant my toes were grinding against pebbles and dirt, covering the sides of my feet in blisters.

By the time we got to 30th street, I was waddling like a duck, and in no mood to appreciate architectural treasures. In any case, the city was quite dark by now—and surprisingly dead. From 42nd street to 14th, we did not pass by a single store that attracted our attention. And though it was a Saturday in midtown Manhattan, the streets were surprisingly empty, mostly consisting of people dressed up for expensive outings elsewhere.

*A silent rave we passed, in Herald Square*

Finally, the Flatiron Building came into view. But something else attracted our attention, a large circular TV monitor. This was the New York-Dublin Portal, an art installation by Benediktas Gylys that opened this year. It is a simple but intriguing concept: a two-way video call so that residents of the two cities can wave at one another. But bad behavior shut down the portal for a week in May. People from both cities couldn’t resist exposing themselves, and a few on the Dublin side had the bright idea to display images of the September 11 attacks.

I was looking forward to waving to some Dubliners (despite the risk of getting flashed). Unfortunately for us, by the time we arrived the portal was closed for the day.

We did at least pause for a drink at an outdoor food stand. It was well past nine o’clock at night and we were all pretty ragged. The prospect of accepting defeat was seriously raised. We did not have much more in the tank. For my part, I badly wanted a shower and to change out of my sticky, stinky clothes. But I wanted to finish the walk even more. And when we saw on our phones that we had just over an hour to go, we decided we had to finish what we started.

Back on our feet—though walking slow—we got to Union Square. In normal times, this is one of my favorite parts of Manhattan (which is generally lacking in green space away from Central Park), but now I just felt a sense of relief that we were recognizably downtown.

I did pause to look up at Metronome, an art installation at the bottom of the park. It consists of a hole that periodically blows smoke rings, next to a series of numbers which don’t make any obvious sense. For years, I would wonder what the numbers might mean, to no avail. It turns out that the digits are a strange kind of clock, displaying (from left to right) the hours, minutes, and seconds from the last midnight, and then the seconds, minutes, and hours to the next one. Not particularly useful, I’d say.

However, since 2020 the display has been repurposed to make a Climate Clock, which counts down years and days to 1.5°C of warming—a number considered to be a threshold for many of the worst effects of climate change. As of this writing, we’re slated to pass over this threshhold on July 21, 2029. Yikes.

Just down the street we passed by one of my favorite spots in the whole city: The Strand Bookstore. It was probably fortunate that, by the time we limped by, it was closed for the day. We couldn’t have survived another delay.

This was the final stretch. The street numbers were falling, 4th, 3rd… until the numbers ceased, and all of the streets had names. We crossed Houston street (pronounced “Howston” in contrast to the city of “Hyooston”) and into SoHo. This was Old Manhattan, Dutch Manhattan, New Amsterdam—the original, chaotic colony, whose criss-crossing streets contrast sharply with the ordered grid of the city’s later expansion northward.

We walked on in relative silence. There was nothing more to say—except complaints. By now I looked as bad as I felt, hobbling down the sidewalk, trying my best to tune out the pain from my lower limbs. I did not have the mental energy to contemplate the African Burial Grounds National Monument, nor to even register City Hall, St. Paul’s Chapel, or Trinity Church…

It was only when we got to the financial district, and passed the iconic Bull Statue, that my spirits lifted. I could smell the water now. We were close.

The final stretch felt like a triumphal march, as we walked through the “Canyon of Heroes.” These are black granite plaques commemorating all of the ticker-tape parades held in New York’s history. You see, it used to be customary to fête important visitors with large parades, in which shredded paper would be thrown everywhere. The tradition started as a spontaneous celebration of the Statue of Liberty’s dedication. Most of the celebrants were visiting dignitaries, heads of state, military heroes, and—most prominently—great aviators. It is a rather charming reminder of the intense excitement of the early days of trans-Atlantic flight.

We finally exited Broadway and entered the Battery. The air was notably cooler, the sounds of the city mixed with crickets. There were surprisingly few people about. We turned a corner and, in the distance, Lady Liberty herself came into view—on the other side of a chain-link fence (a rather depressing image, really). I sat down heavily on a bench, too tired and sore to feel much of anything but relief. But we had made it, from the top to the bottom. It had only taken us 10 hours.

As an epilogue, I wanted to pay my respects to perhaps an unlikely hero of this post: Utagawa Hiroshige. A few weeks previous to this walk, the three of us—Greg, Jay, and I—had seen an exhibit in the Brooklyn Museum of Hiroshige’s celebrated series of woodblock prints, One Hundred Famous Views of Edo.

What impressed me most in those images was Hiroshige’s ability to display so many different aspects of the city that would become Tokyo: its parks, its seasons, its festivals, its streets and buildings, and its people—from priests to prostitutes. It struck me as remarkable that Hiroshige was able to find such beauty in familiar surroundings. But perhaps all he needed for inspiration was a very long walk.

Historic Hudson Homes: Springwood & Vanderbilt Mansion

This is part of a series on Historic Hudson Homes. For the other posts, see below:

Washington Irving’s Sunnyside
John D. Rockefeller’s Kykuit
Alexander Hamilton’s Grange
FDR’s Springwood & Vanderbilt Mansion
Thomas Cole’s Cedar Grove and Frederic Church’s Olana
Jay Gould’s Lyndhurst & Untermyer Garden

Of the many famous names associated with the Hudson Valley—John D. Rockefeller, Alexander Hamilton, Washington Irving, just to name a few—one name looms over them all: Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He needs no introduction. As president, he guided the nation through two existential threats; and he did much of his work from the home where he was born, overlooking the Hudson River.

The young cousin of the great Teddy Roosevelt—whose own stately home Long Island, Sagamore Hill, has also been turned into a monument—Franklin was from a wealthy family. His father, James, had a degree in law but chose to stop practicing, having received an ample inheritance. It was James who purchased the property in 1866, which he dubbed “Springwood” (a fairly bland name, if you ask me). And it was here, on January 30th, 1882, that his son Franklin was born.

When Franklin himself inherited the house, in 1900, he set about expanding and improving the place. Children notwithstanding, the extra space was mainly to house his collections of books, prints, model ships, stuffed birds, and other paraphernalia. He was apparently something of a packrat. But the result of this remodeling is a beautiful neoclassical structure—grand, without being grandiose.

Having been donated to the government two years before his death, the furnishings of the house are perfectly preserved. Often these are just the sort of things one might expect to see in the house of a patrician: fine furniture, oil paintings, expensive pottery. But a few things stick out in my memory. The most impressive room in the house is Franklin’s library, a beautiful space with dark, polished oak bookshelves filled to the brim. Other rooms are surprising for their simplicity. The bedrooms are anything but luxurious; and the dining room, though elegant, hardly seems big enough for the entourage of the head of state.

Undoubtedly the loveliest aspect of the house is its location. The view of the Hudson Valley from its upper floors could hardly be improved. It is no wonder that the young Franklin came to have a keen appreciation for natural scenery—doing more to expand America’s national parks than even his mustachioed cousin.

The tour of the house is relatively brief. After that, the visitor is free to explore the grounds. Nearby are the stables (Franklin’s father was an avid horse breeder), and I was amused to find a plaque for a horse named “New Deal.”

*My mom and my brother, who was in his pandemic mustache phase*

But the most moving spot on the entire property is Franklin’s tomb. As per his instructions, he is buried in his garden, where a sundial used to stand, encircled by roses. His tombstone is plain white marble, devoid of any decorations. The president died unexpectedly at the age of 63, of a brain hemorrhage, after being elected a record four times. His body was carried in a grand and somber procession to this place, as the shocked nation mourned his loss.

Interred with him is his wife, Eleanor, who died seventeen years later, in 1962. She was just as much a revolutionary as her husband, and transformed what it meant to be First Lady. If I had properly done my research, I would have gone to see her famous residence, Val-Kill, which is about two miles east of Springwood. Eleanor purchased this property along with two women’s rights activists, Nancy Cook and Marion Dickerman. There, they put into practice their idea of handicrafts (heavily influenced by the art critic John Ruskin), teaching locals to make pewter and furniture.

The site is perhaps more interesting for its LGBT history, as Cook and Marion were romantic partners, and Eleanor herself had a long relationship with the journalist Lorena Hickok. (FDR, for his part, had a prolonged affair with Lucy Mercer Rutherford, Eleanor’s social secretary. You can say that they had a modern marriage.)

Closeby is Top Cottage. Aside from Jefferson’s architectural wonders in Virginia, this is actually the only building designed by a sitting president. It is certainly not a showpiece. Indeed, the cottage was primarily designed to be more wheelchair accessible, after his bout with polio in 1921 left FDR’s legs paralyzed. Curiously, then, Val-Kill and Top Cottage reveal how two normally marginalized groups—the LGBT and the disabled communities—were connected to the center of power during one of the country’s most perilous periods.

To get back to Springwood, however, no visit to the property is complete without the museum, located in the Henry A. Wallace Center. Now, normally I am not a fan of exhibits which consist mainly of long texts with historical photos. It always strikes me that the information would be better displayed in a book or magazine, rather than distributed throughout a building. Even so, I enjoyed the long biographical exposition of FDR’s life, and learned a great deal.

The visit culminates in the basement, with FDR’s iconic Ford Phaeton. It was modified to allow him to drive with his hands, and he keenly enjoyed driving. There is an excellent chapter in Winston Churchill’s memoirs of the Second World War, in which he describes a visit to Springwood, where he was terrified by Franklin’s tendency to race around the country lanes. But Churchill had nothing but praise for the hospitality he received in Hyde Park.

Now, a visit to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Historic Site would be more than enough to fill a day. But the visitor is spoiled by being able to also pay a visit to the Vanderbilt Mansion, which is located just up the Albany Post Road.

The name Vanderbilt is nearly as synonymous with old money as Rockefeller. The dynasty began with Cornelius Vanderbilt (1764 – 1877), who managed to transform his father’s modest ferry business into a railroad empire. Upon his death he bequeathed the vast majority of his riches to his oldest son, William Henry, often called “Billy.” Understandably, the other Vanderbilt descendents were not happy with this arrangement, and this led to a lengthy court battle—which Billy eventually won, thereby becoming the richest man in America.

Billy was a careful guardian of his father’s empire. Though he survived his father by just nine short years, he managed to double the family’s wealth during that time. But he did not decide to imitate his father in leaving all of his wealth to his oldest son. Rather, he split his money between his eight children. While admirably equitable, this fairly well ended the Vanderbilt Empire, as his children proceeded to squander the family fortune, leaving very little for the next generation.

As a case in point, while Cornelius and Billy lived in (comparatively) modest circumstances, the grandchildren built a series of mansions across the United States. All told, they left 40 elaborate dwellings, many of which have become monuments. Among the best-known are Marble House, Rough Point, and The Breakers, all in Newport, Rhode Island. And the most famous of them all: Biltmore Estate, still the largest privately-owned residence in the United States, in Asheville, North Carolina.

The Vanderbilt Mansion in Hyde Park belonged to Frederick William Vanderbilt. Of all of the grandchildren, he was perhaps the most reserved and upright. The ostentatious mansion notwithstanding, he managed to preserve his inheritance and lived free of scandal, quietly devoted to his wife Louise.

But there is nothing quiet about this house. It is palatial, making the Roosevelts’ Springwood look puny by comparison. Every room is decorated to the highest standards of Gilded Age taste—the American nouveau riche imitating European aristocrats. As far as furnishings go, it is a convincing copy: a photo of the interior could easily pass for the house of an English country squire.

My clearest memory of the tour was the guide’s description of their daily routine. It was leisure elevated into a formal art, with rigid rules. Men and women both had different attires for different times of the day—for some light outdoor sport, then for cocktails, then for dinner—and each hour came with its specific sort of alcohol. I imagine mustachioed men in tuxedos, drinking copious quantities of port wine and filling the room with cigar smoke, while their wives sat on the divan in the next room, sipping sherry in elegant ball gowns. It was the transmutation of alcoholism into sophistication.

The tour ended in the servants quarters in the basement—shockingly bare and utilitarian compared with the extravagant luxury in the house above. It was a stark reminder of the huge staff whose (poorly remunerated) work was necessary to make a life like this possible.

When Frederick Vanderbilt died in 1938—having survived his wife by twelve years, and never having had children—he bequeathed his estate to his niece, Margaret. Yet by this time, the huge Gilded Age mansion was a relic from another age; and his niece understandably had little interest either in living on the property or in paying for the upkeep. Her neighbor Franklin thus easily persuaded Margaret to donate the mansion and its property to the United States government (for the token sum of $1) to be turned into a national monument. In fact, FDR occasionally used the property to house his secret service and some visiting guests.

At the end of the tour, we asked the guide (who was excellent) where we could get a local bite to eat. He recommended the nearby Eveready Diner. And as I took a bite of my hamburger, I reflected that I’d just had a wonderful—and a wonderfully American—day in the Hudson Valley.

Chicago: Sewage and Synchronicity

For years, one of my closest childhood friends, Greg, was living in Chicago as he completed his Ph.D. in history. In the summer of 2021, he was at work on his dissertation, which meant the window to visit him was narrowing. So my brother and I made the journey from New York for a long weekend in the windy city.

As the plane broke through the high, wispy clouds, the city came into view. What was revealed was an astonishingly flat landscape divided into grids as far as the eye could see. We touched down in O’Hare Airport, where we caught the blue line train to the city center. It was a long ride with quite a lot of racket; but complaining about functional public transport in the United States is in bad taste. Slow and loud as it may have been, the “El” trains got us out to Hyde Park (where Greg lives) for a very affordable price. I am grateful.

Since we spent half our time just hanging out, I will not attempt any sort of chronological account of our trip, and will instead simply focus on the major sights we saw while there.

The most logical place to begin is right in the center of the city. Compared with New York, Chicago is a fairly dispersed city, having no natural boundaries to its expansion besides Lake Michigan. Thus, much of Chicago is not particularly dense—indeed, can seem almost suburban in its layout. However, the heart of the city is rivaled in America only by Manhattan in the height and splendor of its skyscrapers.

These buildings are gathered on either side of the Chicago River, which flows through the city center and into Lake Michigan. (It is this river that the Chicagoans dye green every St. Patrick’s Day, to the delight of the fish.)

Or, well, the river is supposed to flow into the lake; but in 1900, the flow of the river was reversed by city engineers. This was a highly controversial move, as it was done because all of the sewage and garbage deposited into the river was flowing into Lake Michigan, the city’s main water source—an obviously unsanitary situation that provoked outbreaks of typhoid and cholera. Through the use of canal locks, the river was made to flow backwards, thus bringing the tainted water via the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal (an enormous engineering feat in itself) to the Des Plaines River, which eventually reaches all the way to the Mississippi River.

But you can imagine that, however popular this reversal may have been in the city of Chicago, it was decidedly unpopular for those further downstream. Indeed, in 1906 the state of Missouri eventually took the issue all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of Illinois (though it does not seem especially fair to me).

While we are on the topic of sewage and the Chicago River, there is another story that I must relate. This is the infamous Dave Matthews Band Chicago River incident of 2004, in which a tour bus belonging to the band dumped the bus’s “blackwater tank” (in other words, the sewage) while crossing a bridge over the Chicago River. The driver apparently thought that he could get away with such a maneuver. But unfortunately, the bridge had a grated metal bottom which let the vile liquid through. At just that moment, a boat was passing underneath giving an architecture tour, and the passengers were doused in “blackwater.”

Having said all this, I suppose the fish have more to worry about than green dye.

But to return to my original point, the Chicago River—if not the most appealing body of water—is surrounded by some magnificent architecture. Surely neither you nor I have the patience to go through every single building in the city of Chicago, so I will only mention a few that caught my eye.

One I particularly liked is the Wrigley Building, which features a tower styled after the Giralda in Seville. Built at almost the same time (the 1920s) was the Tribune Tower, which has an elaborate neo-gothic style, with fake flying buttresses adorning the top. Somewhat similar is the neo-gothic Mather Tower, which is so tall and slender that it is sometimes likened by Chicagoans to an upside-town telescope. And completing the rounds of neo-gothic skyscrapers, we have the First United Methodist Church, which looks like a beautiful church spire had been cut off and attached to a bland office building. Of course, the entire thing is not used as a church—but if it were, it would be the tallest church building in the world.

I must begrudgingly mention the Trump Tower, which is one of the most notable buildings in the Chicago skyline. As one might expect of the former president, he wanted to have the tallest building in the world. The plans were considerably scaled back, however, after the September 11 attacks, though Trump’s ego may have been assuaged by the enormous TRUMP sign on the side of the building. (The same architect who designed this building, Adrian Smith, went on to design the Burj Khalifa, which indeed is the tallest building in the world.) On the subject of tall buildings, I must of course mention the big momma of Chicago skyscrapers, the Willis Tower (though you may know it by its former name, the Sears Tower.) This 110-story mammoth is the dominant feature of the Chicago skyline. After it was completed in 1973, it became the world’s tallest building, and held that title for nearly a quarter of a century. It is still among the very tallest of American skyscrapers. The view from the top must be incredible, but the price is pretty steep.

I have left my absolute favorite for last: Marina City. These are two twin residential towers like no other I have ever seen. The aptest description I can think of for these knobby, gnarly, bulging edifices is of two corn cobs. They were built in groovier times—the 1960s—and very much retain a sense of playful fun. That is to say, unlike virtually every “serious” building, there is nothing at all pretentious in this design, and I found myself wondering what it must be like to live in such a whimsical place.

*I think they look especially cool in black and white.*

Even with such a brief description, I think several facts about Chicago are immediately evident. Most obviously, if you have any appreciation for fine architecture, then Chicago is a wonderful place to visit. Furthermore, since enormous skyscrapers bearing the names of famous companies do not just spring up from the ground, it is evident that Chicago is an economic powerhouse.

Or at least it was. After hitting a peak of population in the 1950s, Chicago has been steadily losing residents, and it seems possible that the city’s days as a center of finance and industry are behind it. But, as I have learned from my travels in Europe, often the best places to visit are the cities that are past their economic prime. Nobody visits Florence and wishes that it were still a power-hungry city-state. Perhaps it is insensitive to say so, but the diminution of economic development helps to preserve valuable heritage. And, ultimately, such places can be far more pleasant than the crawling ant hills which generate capital.

All prognostications of hope and doom aside, another worthy place to visit is Millennium Park. This park opened as recently as 2004, on what used to be the site of the city’s rail yards. As urban centers in the United States deindustrialize, uses must be found for the old factories and railways which have fallen into disuses. Millennium Park is a wonderful model for how this can be done, for it has transformed a large swath of dead real estate into one of the most popular places to visit in the entire country.

One thing that makes the park so attractive are the works of public art. Most famous is Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate, perhaps better known as “the Bean.” Compared to, say, Michelangelo’s David it may seem extremely simplistic: steel welded together into a bean shape and then highly polished. However, any fair judge of the work must admit, I think, that it is a brilliantly successful work of public art. Walking around this huge, misshapen fun-house mirror brings out a sense of childish delight in many visitors. And residents of Chicago do have a sense of ownership with the Bean, as evidenced by the hilarious series of 2017 fake Facebook events which began with “Windex the Bean.” A great deal of public art—especially abstract, “modern” public art—falls flat, in the sense that residents hardly care about it. But the Bean has come to symbolize all of Chicago, and therefore must be considered exemplary.

Just as delightful, in my opinion, is Jaume Plensa’s work Crown Fountain, which features two large towers of video screens over which water can flow. These towers can show any image. But when I visited, these featured faces of ordinary people “blowing,” with a stream of water emanating from their mouths. Judging from the children who were happily gathered underneath these streams, playing in the water, I think that Crown Fountain must also be considered an exemplary success of public art—art which is fully embraced by the community.

Right next to Millennium Park is one of the greatest attractions in the entire city: the Art Institute of Chicago. Now, before visiting I knew that this was a great museum. But I was frankly unprepared for the quality and size of the museum’s collection. Very few museums in the world are comparable; and in the United States, I believe that only New York’s Met stands on the same level.

The Art Institute has an encyclopedic collection, not only of European paintings, but ranging from Ancient Egypt to the Far East to indigenous American art. More importantly, this collection is of the very highest quality. At every turn I was faced with an intriguing work—sometimes striking or bizarre, sometimes shockingly beautiful, but always interesting and worthy of contemplation. If I had known that the museum would be so excellent, I would have tried to spend more than a few hours there. As it was, I was only able to enjoy the highlights.

Greg first guided us to his favorite work, a series of stained glass windows by Marc Chagall, which have a soothing, ethereal midnight blue glow. (And I was reminded of how fortunate I am to have comparably beautiful Chagall windows near my house in Sleepy Hollow, at the Union Church of Pocantico Hills.) For my part, I was especially excited to see Georges Seurat’s masterpiece of modernist alienation, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jaffe; and I was surprised and delighted to encounter the American equivalent, Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks. The Art Institute has a strong collection dealing with everyday despair.

But the Art Institute is certainly not limited to negative emotion. From Monet, to Georgia O’Keeffe, to the amazing woodblock prints of Hokusai, the lush beauty of nature is present in abundance. From El Greco’s religious ecstasy, to a statue of the Buddha in meditation, to a ritual knife used by rulers in the Chimú culture, we can see evidence of our preoccupation with the supernatural. There are portraits of rural life (like American Gothic or Monet’s painting of haystacks) as well as urban life (like Caillebotte’s rendering of a Paris street or Delauney’s distorted Eiffel Tower). Compare the locomotive in Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train with the one in Magritte’s Time Transfixed to see how the same object can be examined, first, as a sensory impression and, second, as a symbol for the unconscious.

But all of these comments and categories are ultimately just a superficial attempt to come to grips with something whose power lies in its very ambiguity—as is true of all great art. My point is simply that you can hardly come away from the museum without a sense of wonder.

(The Art Institute is featured in my favorite Chicago movie: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Cameron experiences a kind of existential dread—or awakening, perhaps?—in front of Suerat’s masterpiece, while Ferris and Sloane kiss in front of the Chagall windows.)

I was particularly gratified to learn that the famous 2018 portraits of Barack and Michelle Obama were on loan from the National Portrait Gallery. I had actually missed my opportunity to see them during my 2019 visit to Washington D.C., so it was one of life’s rare second chances. For me, both Kehinde Wiley’s portrait of Barack and Amy Sherald’s portrait of Michelle are well done. They achieve the traditional aim of a portrait, in that they present a likeness of the subject that reveals something of their personality, while also providing a novel twist on the old and tired tradition of oil portraiture. I particularly like Wiley’s take on Barack, in that it emphasizes his thoughtfulness, which I think is his defining quality.

The Obamas are, of course, hometown heroes in Chicago. Michelle has deep roots in the city, having been born and raised on the South Side. And Barack (despite having spent much of his childhood in Hawaii) is identified with the city as well, for it was here that he began his political career. The cult of the Obamas is epitomized in the so-called Kissing Rock. Located in the Hyde Park neighborhood, this is a plaque affixed to a rock, celebrating the spot (approximate, I suppose) where they shared their first kiss. Not far is the site of the future Barack Obama Presidential Library, not yet opened as of this writing.

On the subject of museums, I ought to mention the other major museum we visited on our trip: the Museum of Science and Industry.

This museum is quite far from the center of Chicago, being located on the South Side, near the Hyde Park neighborhood where we were staying. As with many museums around the world, this one is housed in a magnificent building that was constructed for another purpose—in this case, the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition (basically a world’s fair).

I insisted on going for the simple reason that I had recently watched the classic German war film Das Boot and I felt that I had to see the German U-boat on display. My first impression of the U-Boat was of its size: somehow I had imagined the U-boats would be relatively compact affairs. But U-505 was enormous: 250 feet (76 meters) long, and had a crew of about 50 people. She had an eventful history. After sinking several boats in 1942, she suffered a string of bad luck as she was repeatedly sabotaged by members of the French resistance working at the docks. Finally, on her 10th patrol, she was attacked with depth charges—an experience that proved so traumatic that the captain actually shot himself in front of his crew during the attack. Eventually the U-boat was disabled by the US Navy, who captured the vessel in order to study her.

At the time, I found the experience of seeing an actual German U-boat to be almost awe-inspiring—the chance to see with my own eyes something I had heard about since I was a kid. But in retrospect I am disappointed that we could not take a tour of the interior. Normally the museum offers these tours (for an additional price), but when we visited it was unavailable because of the blasted pandemic. Another casualty of the pandemic was the coal mine. Amazingly, the museum has a large replica coal mine filled with machinery from different time periods, which visitors can tour. But unfortunately for us, as with the U-Boat, the small enclosed spaces make it unfriendly to social distancing rules, and it was closed.

(On the plus side, we did save money this way, since both the U-boat and the coal mining tours cost extra.)

The Museum of Science and Industry is enormous—with exhibits about agriculture and aviation, about weather and math—but only a few things stick out in my memory. One is the beautiful Pioneer Zephyr, the first diesel-powered train in the United States. It has an extremely sleek design made out of glimmering stainless steel, which at the time probably looked futuristic but which nowadays looks retro. Aside from being an attractive vehicle, the Pioneer Zephyr is important in American history, as it helped to repopularize train travel after the Great Depression. It was so streamlined and so fast (it set a speed record between Denver and Colorado) that it was even nicknamed “The Silver Streak” and made the subject of a movie. But my favorite touch was the “observation lounge” in the rear car, which was designed to provide panoramic views as the passengers flew across the countryside.

Another wonderful exhibit was the Great Train Story. This is an enormous model train set, which is a scale model of the journey between Chicago and Seattle. It was obviously made with obsessive attention to detail: at every point in the trip there is something of interest. Though I have no interest in model trains whatsoever, I found myself fully absorbed as I walked around the periphery, following the train as it traversed the “country.” At its best, train travel can be charming and romantic (not to mention efficient), allowing you to glide through landscapes the way a ship sails up a river. And, strangely, the Great Train Story captured that sensation.

That does it for my visit to the Museum of Science and Industry. But I feel I ought to mention the other great museum of Chicago, the Field Museum of Natural History. This is located close to the Art Institute and is one of the great natural history museums of the world. One of my few regrets from the trip is not having visited this institution, as it has an excellent collection of dinosaur fossils.

The most famous of these fossils is the T-rex nicknamed Sue, who is special for many reasons. For one, Sue is the most complete T-rex fossil ever found, with more than 90% of the skeleton (by weight, not by number of bones) accounted for. Sue is also special for having had a tough life. She had broken ribs and a damaged shoulder blade (which healed), holes in her skull from some kind of parasite, and she also probably suffered from arthritis and gout. Sue was one sick puppy. But the story of Sue’s discovery is a drama in itself. Somehow, it involved an FBI raid and the leader of the fossil expedition being sent to prison. To top it all off, when she was sold to the Field Museum, Sue fetched the highest price of any dinosaur fossils ever found up to that time ($8.3 million in 1997, which would be about double that today). She is worth every penny.

This pretty well does it for my time in the center of Chicago. But during our visit we spent most of our time, not visiting the main sites, but in Hyde Park with my friend Greg.

A student of the University of Chicago, Greg naturally lived quite close to its campus. One day he gave us a little tour as we made our way to a farmer’s market. As we walked through it, I found the manicured, neo-gothic campus to be both beautiful and strangely familiar. This deja vu was due, I think, to the college’s architecture being influenced by the taste of its founder: John D. Rockefeller. I grew up in the shadow of Rockefeller’s estate, so by now I can recognize his preferred aesthetic: neo-gothic, molded out of gray granite. This is especially evident in the monumental Rockefeller Chapel, the dominant structure of the campus, big enough to seat 1700 people. Compare it to another great Rockefeller church, the Riverside Church in Manhattan, and the similarities are unmistakable.

As we walked, a question popped into my mind, seemingly out of nowhere:

“Greg, what do you think is the most beautiful college campus in America?”

He thought about it and answered: “Pepperdine,” mainly because of its prime location on a hill overlooking the Californian coast.

We arrived at the farmer’s market and I proceeded to stuff myself with artisanal meat pies. But I had a shock when we went up to a fruit stand and the vendor said to Greg:

“You get a free banana if you answer this question.”

“Shoot.”

“What’s the most beautiful campus in the United States?”

“Pepperdine.”

And he got his free banana.

This is one of the most striking examples of synchronicity—uncanny coincidence—that I can remember. The chance that the fruit vendor would ask the exact same question that had popped into my head five minutes prior seems remarkably low. If this was an act of God, I suppose He really wanted Greg to have that banana.

I should also mention our trips to the lake. After just a short walk, we found ourselves on a lovely sand beach on the shore of Lake Michigan. The water was cool, calm, and—best of all—free of salt. (Not that I would drink it, but at least it doesn’t hurt if it gets in your eyes.) And unlike many urban beaches I have visited, it also wasn’t overcrowded. It made me realize how unfortunate residents of Madrid are not to have a water feature nearby. Swimming was wonderfully refreshing after a day of trekking around in the heat. We went on three separate occasions during our four-day trip, and I can easily imagine becoming a regular during the summer months.

This part of the city does have a major attraction: the Frederick C. Robie House. Completed in 1910, the house was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and commissioned by an assistant manager who was just 28 years old (this is when the real estate market was kinder, it seems). Poor Fred Robie did not, however, get to enjoy the fruit of his wealth and taste for long. After just fourteen months, a combination of his dissolving marriage and inheriting his father’s gambling debts made him have to sell the house. The next owner, David Lee Taylor, wasn’t any luckier, as he died less than a year after moving in. Eventually the house ended up in the hands of the Chicago Theological Seminary, who used it (rather sacrilegiously) as a dormitory. The clergymen even planned several times to demolish the building in order to construct a bigger building for their students, and the nonagenarian Wright had to get involved in the protests to stop it.

Nowadays, the Robie House is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so it is well out of danger. It has also been largely restored to its original condition. To visit, you need to sign up for a tour, which required no previous reservation when we visited.

This was the first (and so far the only) Wright house I visited, so I did not know what to expect. My only experience of an architecturally notable home is the Casa Batlló, in Barcelona, which was designed by Antoni Gaudí. Compared to the Catalan architect’s intricate and exuberant style, Wright’s design seemed extremely restrained. However, as the tour progressed, I began to appreciate the cohesive vision that tied together everything from the brickwork, to the light fixtures, to the furniture. Everything was of a piece. The horizontal is consistently emphasized over the vertical, making the house seem short, flat, and stretched out. Unlike in Gaudí’s work, right angles abound, which gives the space a kind of crisp mathematical precision. The palette of earth tones that characterize every surface in the house almost make it seem as if the house sprung out of the ground. I especially liked the designs on the stained-glass windows, which are ornamental without being ostentatious.

The guide, who was excellent, recited several of Wright’s more pugnacious quotes about architecture, such as “Modernistic houses are more boxes than houses.” Wright clearly had his own ideas about how a building should be put together. But I must say that, however beautiful the house may have been, I did not find myself wishing I could live in it. The Wright furniture was stylish but did not seem comfortable, and the balanced rooms did not have enough available space for my liking. Also, I imagine that the many large windows make it quite difficult to heat in Chicago’s brutal winters. Maybe this is why the priests wanted to replace it. I wouldn’t want to live in a work of art.

This pretty much rounds out my experience of Chicago’s main sights. To conclude, besides our visit to the city’s gay neighborhood (Northalsted) to spend time in a fun bar with arcade games, I should mention the food. Naturally, we had to try Chicago’s most iconic dish, deep dish pizza. My mom actually went to school in the city and cooks deep dish at least once a year, so I do not have the typical New Yorker’s scorn for this style of pizza. Deep dish really isn’t very comparable to a “normal” pizza, anyway; it is more like a casserole. But if you accept it for what it is, I think that it is extremely delicious.

The other iconic Chicago food we had were the hot dogs. These are traditionally made of beef and topped with pickles, pickled peppers, onions, tomatoes, mustard, and celery salt. I was a bit skeptical of having so many toppings, but it may have been the best hot dog I have ever had. The many sour and acidic ingredients help to balance the greasy, meaty flavor of the frank, making for one perfect gustatory experience.

My biggest regret from the trip is that we didn’t visit one of the city’s many blues bars. The only other time I have been in Chicago was when I was 17 years old, visiting colleges with my aunt and uncle. They were kind enough to take me to a blues bar and I remember loving it. Indeed, I bought the band’s CD and listened to it for weeks afterwards. But this was 2021, COVID times, and we deemed it too risky to go into a crowded bar. I suppose I will just have to return to the windy city.

After a final swim in the lake, my brother and I got on the El and made our way to the airport, where we wolfed down some Chinese food and awaited our flight back to New York. It had been a great trip.

Boston: On the Trail of Freedom

I visited Boston by accident. It was a wedding (second cousin, once removed). On a cold December day between Christmas and the New Year, before the nuptial celebrations commenced, I found myself with some time to kill in this historic New England city. So I figured I would use the opportunity to walk the Freedom Trail.

The Freedom Trail is a walking path linking several historic sites in the city of Boston. Most of these have something to do with our Revolutionary War. In the 1770s, Boston was hotbed of rebellious fervor. John Hancock, Paul Revere, and Sam Adams, early advocates for independence, lived here, as did Sam’s more moderate second cousin John. So it was here that the growing dissatisfaction with British rule first spilled out into conflict and bloodshed. This history can be followed as it unfolds along the Freedom Trail.

The path begins in Boston Common. This is a park in the center of the city, which holds the distinction for being the oldest public park in the country, as it was opened in 1634. When I visited it was a cold and dreary day, which makes it difficult to judge the park’s comeliness. But overlooking the Common is the Massachusetts State House, a very attractive building designed in the Federal style by Charles Bulfinch, which houses both the governor’s offices and the state legislature.

Standing before this building, on the outer edge of the Boston Common, is the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial. Shaw, as you may know, was the white colonel who led the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment during the Civil War, which was composed of free black soldiers. Allowing black people to serve in the military was considered a radical step at the time; but it also was a kind of symbolic victory over the southerners who were fighting to preserve slavery.

The monument itself was a sensation: its opening was attended by the philosopher William James, the sociologist W.E.B. DuBois, and the educator Booker T. Washington, among other notables. And while the monument did attract criticism during the George Floyd protests—for it portrays the white commander above and in front of his black troops—I think that it was actually radical in its own day. It depicts the black soldiers as dignified, powerful, and fully individual. One need only compare this monument to the Emancipation Memorial (recently removed) in Boston, which shows a black man crouching beneath Lincoln. The soldiers in the Shaw Memorial do not kneel, but march resolutely.

Continuing along the trail, we immediately come upon the Park Street Church, a very attractive place of worship built in the first years of our Republic. Nextdoor is the Granary Burying Ground, so named because a granary used to occupy the space where the church now stands. The visitor enters through a mock-Egyptian gate into what is the third-oldest cemetery in Boston (founded in 1660). Quite a few heroes of the American Revolution are buried here. There is Samuel Adams (1722 – 1803), the aforementioned firebrand who helped to spark our rebellious spirit, as well as Paul Revere (1734 – 1818) of Midnight Ride fame. Aside from Adams, two more signers of the Declaration of Independence are in attendance: Robert Treat Paine (little remembered these days) and the man whose name survived in his oversized signature, John Hancock (1737 – 1793).

But that is not all. All five victims of the Boston Massacre are buried here. To recount the event dispassionately: An inflamed mob started to throw stones and other things at a garrison of British Soldiers, one of whom fired without orders, causing his comrades to follow suit. Five Americans died from the gunshots. John Adams, who was simply a lawyer at the time, took it upon himself to defend the British soldiers in court, and for the most part succeeded. But the massacre was a decisive step on the road to revolution, as it mustered colonial support more effectively than any speech could. As it turns out, citizens tend to be upset when the forces meant to protect them instead shoot them dead.

The next stop on the trail is another church and burying ground. King’s Chapel is a lovely stone church designed by Peter Harrison, one of the first trained architects to work in the American colonies. Next door is the King’s Chapel Burying Ground, which actually predates the church by over a century, as it is the oldest cemetery in all of Boston (established in 1630). The cemetery does not contain as many famous bodies as the Granary Burying Ground, but some names stand out for comment. Mary Chilton (1607 – 1679), supposedly the first woman to step foot in New England from the Mayflower, was laid to rest here, as was John Winthrope (1587 – 1649), the third governor of the Massachusetts colony. But most consequential may be Frederic Tudor, the so-called “Ice King,” who made a business cutting and shipping blocks of ice from the frigid ponds of Massachusetts. This was both a major innovation and an inspiration for the refrigeration that all of us now take for granted.

The next stop, just down the street, is the old site of the Boston Latin School. This is a venerable institution of public education—indeed, the oldest public school in the United States. And it is still active, though it has since moved to more ample accommodations than the little building that once stood here. Its presence is marked by an elaborate plaque in the ground. Nearby is a statue of the school’s most famous dropout: Benjamin Franklin. The portly and balding Franklin is honored beside perhaps the most famous mayor of Boston, Josiah Quincy III, whose namesake is the Quincy Market in central Boston. These two eminent men stand before the Old City Hall—serving that purpose from 1865 to 1969—a lovely old relic built in the French Second Empire style

Continuing down the street, we reach the Old Corner Bookstore. This is an attractive brick building, built in 1718 to be used as an apothecary shop with an attached residence. The place became a bookstore in 1828; and shortly thereafter, starting from 1832 and on to 1865, it was used by Ticknor and Fields, a publishing company. Though long forgotten, Ticknor and Fields published some of the most significant American writers of the day, including Emerson, Hawthorne, and Longfellow. They even published Dickens’s books in the United States. As a result, this humble building came to be a meeting place for men (and women) of letters. Unfortunately, after such an illustrious history, this noble edifice is now the home of a Chipotle restaurant. Meaning no offense to big burrito lovers, I will venture to say that this building deserves better.

Right nearby is the Boston Irish Famine Memorial. This is a group of statues—two families of three—that contrasted the lives of those who left Ireland and those who remained. The family that emigrated is shown happy and healthy, while the family stuck in Ireland is on the verge of death. While the artistic merits of the memorial are not beyond dispute, it is certainly right to have a monument to the Irish in Boston, as the city was dramatically shaped by the influx of Irish in the 19th century. Indeed, Boston reminded me of no city more strongly than Dublin—its brick architecture, tight and chaotic streets, and dour atmosphere. At a glance, one could easily mistake historic Boston for the capital of Ireland.

Next on the trail is the Old South Meeting House. This is a plain but elegant brick Congregational church, with a tall white wooden spite—a typical New England aesthetic. The whitewashed interior is filled with boxes of pews, arranged like an enormous maze. This church is not notable for its aesthetic, however, but for its role in the Revolutionary War. After the Boston Massacre of 1770, annual memorials were held here, complete with fiery rebellious rhetoric. Then, in 1773, thousands of irate colonists met here to discuss the much-hated Tea Act, a tax on imported tea. From here, everyone knows the story: A group of a few dozen colonists—some dressed as Native Americans—raided three English merchant vessels in the harbor, and chucked all the tea overboard. This was the Boston Tea Party

*The Old South Meeting House*, *with the Irish Famine Memorial in front*.

Soon we come to the Old State House. And here, the contrast between the old and the new Boston is quite apparent, as this erstwhile commanding structure is now completely dwarfed by the buildings and skyscrapers all around it, in what is now the financial district. But the building is still attractive and graceful. As the name suggests, this building served as the original Massachusetts State House, before it was replaced by the current one (described above). Indeed, built in 1713, the Old State House was used for government affairs long before independence, making it one of the oldest public buildings in the country. Nowadays it is the home to a museum; but I admit the entry fee put me off, and I only browsed the gift shop—filled with the expected touristy stuff. Notably, the museum has a vial containing some tea from the Boston Tea Party, snuck into a raider’s boot. The site of the Boston Massacre is commemorated nearby, in the form of a stone circle.

*An engraving by Paul Revere, depicting the Boston Massacre. The Old State House is the building in the center.*

Now we enter Government Center, the part of town where we can find the modern City Hall. Unfortunately, this enormous hunk of brutal concrete compares quite unfavorably with the pretty constructions we have seen so far. Apparently gaining our independence did not advance our taste. The contrast is immediate when we turn our attention to our next stop, yet another big brick building with a white spire: Faneuil Hall. This building served as both meeting house and marketplace in colonial Boston. Firebrands like Samuel Adams gave seditious speeches in the building’s Great Hall, a task for which he is now commemorated with a nearby statue. Faneuil Hall owes its name to a slave trader, who sponsored the project with his ill-gotten gains. Slaves were even sold here. But that original building mostly burned down in 1761, passing along its name to the current edifice. So far, activists have not succeeded in changing its appellation.

*Faneuil Hall, with Sam Adams out front.*

The building’s Great Hall—an enormous auditorium filled with wooden chairs—is now decorated with portraits, paintings, and other sorts of patriotic paraphernalia. It is still used for meetings, organizing, and ceremonies. “Faneuil Hall” is not only used to refer to this building, however, but sometimes to this entire area, a hub of nightlife and a great place to grab a bite to eat. This is partly because the old marketplace has been supplemented by the enormous Quincy Market, named for the Quincy mayor we met earlier. This is a long, open building filled with food stalls and a fair share of touristy junk. I enjoyed walking through the busy space, as it at least provided some respite from the cold.

From Government Center, we now walk to North End, the oldest residential neighborhood in the city. As you will probably notice, this area became popular with Italian immigrants, resulting in the plentiful restaurants serving pizza and pasta. More relevant to the Freedom Trail, this neighborhood is also home to Paul Revere’s House. The house actually predates the famous revolutionary by quite a lot: built in 1680, the house was not bought by Revere until 1770. Though the three-storey, timber house does not look like much to the modern eye, at the time it was both spacious and luxurious, befitting Revere’s status as a prosperous silversmith (there are examples of his work inside). Sold by Revere, and subject to the whims of the market—among other things, it was used as a shop and a tenement—the property was eventually bought by Revere’s grandson, who began the process of restoring it and turning it into a museum. Nowadays, one must pay to enter. Freedom has its price, after all.

Onward, we reach the Old North Church. Once again, we are confronted with a big brick church with a white spire, whose whitewashed interior is filled with wooden boxes for pews. But perhaps the Old North Church does deserve credit for originality, as it is the oldest extant church in Boston. The competition is close: built in 1723, the Old North Church beats the Old South Meeting House by six years. This church was where the iconic lanterns of Paul Revere’s ride—one if by land, two if by sea—were so briefly hung, in order to warn the colonial militia of the approach of the British Army. Revere himself rode his horse to deliver the message to the troops waiting in Lexington and Concord, though he almost certainly was not shouting “The British are coming!” as that would have blown his cover. As it was, Revere was still arrested by the British, and very nearly executed. His patriotic messenger service is now commemorated by a statue of the man on horseback.

*The statue of Paul Revere, with the Old North Church in the background. A bit of a mess.*

Now we come to yet another cemetery, the Copp’s Hill Burying Ground. As its name suggests, this is situated on a slight hill, giving the visitor a decent view of the River Charles. Founded in 1659, Copp’s Hill is the second oldest cemetery in Boston (29 years after King’s Chapel, but one year before the Granary), and it has its fair share of venerated bodies. Paul Revere’s less-famous fellow rider, Robert Newman, is interred here, as is the poet Philis Wheatley, the first African American woman to be published. But Copp’s Hill is more appealing simply for its landscaping, providing a much-needed relief to the crowded stone and brick streets of Boston. I consider myself something of a connoisseur of cemeteries, and Copp’s Hill is a fine one.

We have a bit of a walk now, as the next stop on the Freedom Trail is across the Charles River. This means walking across the North Washington Street Bridge, which connects North End with the Charleston neighborhood. It would be an exaggeration to say that the bridge is a beautiful piece of engineering, or that the view from the bridge is quite breathtakingly beautiful—especially on a cold, windy, drizzly December day—but I still managed to enjoy the walk. Once across, you turn right towards the wharf, where you may spot the top mast of the next stop in the distance: the USS Constitution.

Now, as it happened, I was visiting Boston during the 2018-19 government shutdown. As a result, the museum attached to this historic war vessel was not open. Visitors were, instead, hastily ushered through metal detectors onto the dock by military personnel (presumably working without pay). In any case, I was able to climb aboard the old ironside and enjoy the charm of an antique vessel. The history of this ship takes us back to the very beginnings of our nation, as it was one of the first six commissioned by the new United States government. Indeed, the Constitution is now the oldest commissioned naval vessel that is still seaworthy. The frigate—equipped with 50 canons—saw significant action during the war of 1812, when it overcame five British warships. This earned the boat legendary status, and it has been kept in good working order ever since. In fact, the boat still has its own 60-person navy crew.

After taking in my fill of the winds and waves, I made my way to the last stop on the Freedom Trail: the Bunker Hill Monument. As you may know, the Battle of Bunker Hill was one of the first and most important of the Revolutionary War. Though the British succeeded in driving the colonial militia from their positions, in their assaults on the rebel position they took heavy casualties, losing far more men than their untrained opponents. According to legend, it was during the first British charge when Col. William Prescott instructed not to fire until they saw “the whites of their eyes.” Unfortunately, there is scant evidence that this dramatic phrase was uttered, and it does seem like a needlessly poetic battle command. What is more, though universally known as the Battle of Bunker Hill, most of the fighting was done on the nearby Breed’s Hill. And this is where the inaccurately-named Bunker Hill Monument is to be found as well.

Built from 1825 to 1843 (they frequently had to stop due to depleted funds), the Bunker Hill Monument is one of the oldest national monuments in the country. And its design was influential. Standing on top of the mound of green earth, a granite obelisk juts 221 feet (67 m) into the air. This design almost certainly provided the inspiration for the tower’s more famous cousin, the Washington Monument. The stone was taken from a quarry in the town of Quincy (the town named after Abigail Adams’s grandfather) and transported to the site via one of the first railroads in the country, the Granite Railway. A statue of Prescott stands in front of the obelisk, not too far from where he likely stood during the battle, looking fearsome and fearless. There is an exhibit lodge next to the obelisk, too, though it was closed due to the shutdown. At least the view was still available—revealing the spires of downtown Boston, the cozy houses of Cambridge, and the industry across the river Charles.

I was very cold by now. My clothes soaked through from the rain, and there was a long walk back to the hotel. But my misery was punctuated by a stop at a restaurant in Chinatown, where I had some delicious noodle soup. Then it was time to shower and get my suit ready for the wedding. And that was it. So, unfortunately, I saw very little of Boston during this trip. I was particularly sorry not to see Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, one of the finest art museums in the country. But what I had seen, during my few hours of exploration, was enough to motivate me to walk several miles in soggy shoes. And that is a pretty high compliment.

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Concord and Walden Pond

Through some combination of chance and circumstance, some little places become fulcrums of history. This is certainly true of Concord, Massachusetts.

Boasting a population a little south of twenty thousand, and of no obvious geographical significance, this town nevertheless became the setting of our War of Independence. A detachment of British troops was sent to Concord to confiscate or destroy weapons that they believed were being stockpiled here. But they were met by the nascent American militia. After a brief shootout, the redcoats retreated, demonstrating that the British army was not invincible. This was the battle of Lexington and Concord (there was an earlier skirmish in the nearby town of Lexington), and it took place at the Old North Bridge, which spans the Concord River.

Being the site of the “Shot heard round the world”—as it was later dubbed, somewhat self-importantly—would satisfy most towns the size of Concord. But in the 19th century, this modest municipality once again attracted outsized importance by becoming the center of one of the most important movements in American literature and philosophy: Transcendentalism. This was largely due to the presence of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who moved into town in 1835.

The son and grandson of ministers, Emerson was very much a preacher himself, though of a new religion. Transcendentalism was perhaps the original back-to-nature movement, a celebration of self-reliance and the simple life. The time was ripe for such ideas, and Emerson was its most articulate voice. He attracted a circle of friends and admirers, among whom was Amos Bronson Alcott, a fellow philosopher who sadly lacked Emerson’s gift for expression. Alcott’s most notable venture was an experiment in Utopian living, called the Fruitlands, a kind of agricultural commune whose members adhered to a vegan diet. It soon imploded, and Alcott returned to Concord to live in the now-famous Orchard House with his wife and four daughters. One of those daughters was Louisa May Alcott, who fictionalized her girlhood to create the classic, Little Women. Her literary ability kept the family financially afloat.

The Fruitlands was not the only Transcendentalist experiment in communal living. Another was Brook Farm, also in Massachusetts, and also an attempt to live off the land in perfect equality. The novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne took part in this venture, though he did not stay for long (and Brook Farm did not survive for very long, either) before he, too, moved to Concord. Indeed, he moved into the Emerson family home, the Old Manse, which stands near the famed Old North Bridge. Emerson, meanwhile, moved into a larger house, now an eponymous museum, where he continued to serve as the center of the town’s intellectual life.

A frequent guest was a young and very earnest man named Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau must have seemed to be an eccentric and marginal character compared to the likes of Emerson. But it was Thoreau who came to epitomize Transcendentalism better than anyone, and Thoreau who immortalized Concord more completely than any writer (with the possible exception of Louisa May Alcott). His fame largely rests upon a single book, Walden, named after a small lake in Concord. In 1845, the young Thoreau decided on an entirely novel experiment: to attempt to live independently in the woods beside Walden Pond. The land was owned by Emerson, who let the young vagrant use it. In Thoreau’s own words:

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

So Thoreau used some recycled materials to build a little cabin with some furniture and commenced an experiment that would last two years, two months, and two days. Later, when he wrote up the experience, he compressed this into an imaginative year, weaving memories into reflections to make an original work of literature. Walden is an odd book by any standard—meandering, prickly, pompous, but also thoroughly original and beautifully written—and it did not find a large audience in Thoreau’s lifetime. In the years since his death in 1862, however, Walden has become one of the most beloved American classics, and Walden Pond has become a site of pilgrimage.

It was certainly in the spirit of a pilgrim that I visited Walden Pond, once in summer, once in winter, both times passing through the town of Concord on my way to someplace else. On my first visit I was filled with anticipation, as though I was about to step into the Sistine Chapel or walk along the Great Wall of China, though in retrospect it is hard to say what I was expecting. Walden Pond is just that—a pond: a body of water, surrounded on all sides by trees. In fact, it is not even treated very reverently by the locals. Now a state park, when I visited in summer there were many locals lounging on the sand, and a few in the water. It is a place for recreation as much as reverence.

Admittedly, the geology of Walden Pond is interesting. A kettle hole lake, it was formed by retreating glaciers during the end of the last ice age, when a hunk of ice broke off the glacier and got lodged underground. As a result, the lake is surprisingly deep: over 100 feet, or 30 meters. But ninety-nine out of a hundred visitors (if not more) would likely not find anything memorable or special about Walden Pond had it not been made famous by Thoreau. And, I realized, this is precisely the message of Thoreau’s book: that anyplace can be made special through focus, attention, and work. With the right eyes, a mundane pool could be just as inspiring as a gothic cathedral.

On my first visit, I walked around the lake to the spot where Thoreau had built his little cabin. It does not stand today, though the spot is marked by concrete pillars. Nearby is a large cairn, where visitors have been pilling pebbles for decades. Before it stands a sign on which Thoreau’s famous battlecry is painted (see above). Once again, rather than any grand monuments, we are confronted only with the woods, the water, and Thoreau’s words.

*An old photo of the site of Thoreau’s cabin*

Not long before my first visit to Walden Pond, I visited the Morgan Library in Manhattan, where I was lucky enough to find a special exhibit on Thoreau. It was extraordinary: the museum had Thoreau’s walking stick, surveying gear, and writing desk. They even had the many volumes of Thoreau’s journals—and he was a prolific diarist, recording both his philosophical thoughts and his observations of the natural world—which served as the basis for his published books. I believe that the bulk of these items were on loan from the Concord Museum, where they normally reside.

During my second stop in Concord, we also stopped by the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. The reader may recognize this name from the legend of Sleepy Hollow, which of course takes place in a cemetery—though not the one in Concord, Massachusetts. The burying ground of Washington Irving’s story is in Westchester, New York: my home town. It seemed very strange to me that two famous cemeteries would bear the same name; and I assumed that the Concordians had copied the Westchesterites. But apparently this is not the case. The Westchester cemetery was formerly called the Tarrytown Cemetery, and only changed its name to honor a posthumous wish of Washington Irving, who died in 1859. The Concord cemetery was established in 1855, and the place had been called Sleepy Hollow before anybody even thought of burying the dead here. So the names are a complete coincidence.

The cemeteries in Westchester and Concord do not only share a name; they were established at almost the same historical moment, and were shaped by the same intellectual currents. Washington Irving was a notable proponent of romantic gardening, wherein the landscape is modified to appear as if it were just a product of nature—albeit a particularly pleasing product. Ralph Waldo Emerson, too, believed that nature should be emulated, not suppressed; and as the designers of Concord cemetery were followers of his, the cemetery incorporates the natural topography—and some original vegetation—into its design. Both places can thus be classed as “garden cemeteries,” far more open and green than what came before.

Luckily for the visitor, most of the famous graves in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery are concentrated in one spot: Author’s Ridge. Here you will find Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott, and Henry David Thoreau. Emerson’s grave is by far the most conspicuous: an enormous marble boulder to which a plaque has been fastened. I suppose it symbolizes Emerson’s love of nature to have an unhewn tombstone. Hawthorne’s grave is far simpler: a standard headstone, about a foot high. Thoreau’s and Alcott’s are even humbler; but theirs inspired the most devotion. Alcott’s was covered in old pens and pencils—presumably to honor Jo, Alcott’s writer heroine—while Thoreau’s was adorned with feathers, pine cones, and a bird’s nest. The two of them are still beacons for young minds.

Before we go, another resident of the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery must be mentioned: Ephraim Wales Bull. Not a writer, nor even a Transcendentalist, Bull was responsible for developing the Concord grape, now a ubiquitous varietal. This cultivar was special because, unlike other grape species, it could survive the brutally cold winters of Massachusetts. It was also robust and sweet, making it perfect to eat by itself or to turn into juice and jelly (though not great for wine). Unfortunately for Bull, his grapes were stolen and sold, meaning that he did not profit from his hard word. This is why his tombstone says: “He sowed, others reaped.”

I have gone on and on about the historical importance of Concord, but I must end by noting that it is simply an attractive place. In my all-too-brief time in the town, I was enchanted by the antique houses and churches, so quaint and picturesque. Even if you have little interest in the Revolutionary War or Transcendentalism, and just want to visit a thoroughly charming place, then I propose a visit to Concord and Walden Pond.

Jefferson Country: UVA and Monticello

Thomas Jefferson is an American icon. Virtually every American can recite (or at least recognize) the immortal lines penned by Jefferson, declaring our independence: “We hold these truths…” His face graces the nickel, and his likeness scowled from the now-defunct $2 bill. A veritable Greek temple stands devoted to his form and memory in the nation’s capital; and, in the Black Hills of South Dakota, Jefferson is chiseled into a mountain-side. And yet, if you really want to pay tribute to this foundational father, you must make your way toward the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, to Charlottesville.

In the summer of 2019, my family did exactly that. On the drive down from New York, we even decided to listen to Jon Meacham’s worshipful biography of the man. Unfortunately for us, the book failed to make a good impression; and, as it so happened, Jefferson similarly failed. But I am getting ahead of myself.

This was my first time in Virginia. The summer sun beat down hard, making the rolling fields of grass glow an iridescent green. A friend of my father owns an alpaca farm in the nearby town of Gordonsville, which we visited before dinner, giving me the briefest taste of farm life—new to me.

That night, after dinner, my brother and I wandered into downtown Charlottesville. As we did not wish to visit a bar, there was little to do but walk. But we did happen upon the statue of Robert E. Lee, which has been the center of so much controversy. A 2016 proposal to remove this Confederate monument sparked the now-infamous Unite the Right rally—in which one counter-protester died, and which Trump refused to condemn. After this, the City Council voted to remove the statue; but the state government overrode this decision, and the strange commemoration of a rebel racist stands to this day.

If I had been more aware at that moment, perhaps I would have realized that this embattled statue was only the most visible manifestation of the region’s contested history. The Confederacy may have been defeated, and slavery long abolished; but in Charlottesville, history is still an active warzone. And nowhere is this struggle more apparent than in the town’s most famous resident, Thomas Jefferson.

We parked the car in the garage and walked onto campus. Charlottesville is, above all, a college town, and that college is the University of Virginia. This university was founded by Thomas Jefferson himself, in 1819, and the place still bears his distinct thumbprint. Jefferson designed the buildings—now a UNESCO World Heritage site—and designed the curriculum and sat on the original Board of Visitors. Indeed, the university is arguably the most complete expression of Jefferson’s intellectual vision.

As it happened, we arrived in the university’s central building—the Rotunda—right at the commencement of a free guided tour. Naturally, our guide told us a little bit about this building first. A dedicated Neoclassicist, Jefferson modeled his design after the Parthenon, as well as works by the Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio. But Jefferson’s use of red brick gives the building a distinctly American stamp. Just as significant as the building’s form is its function: it housed the original university library. This is an obvious and significant deviation from the traditional, medieval model of a university, centered on a church. Indeed, Jefferson’s plan was so insistently secular that he did not even want theology or divinity taught to his pupils. This elegant building was severely damaged by a fire in 1895, during which a group of enterprising students saved a marvelous life-sized statue of Jefferson by pushing it onto a table and carrying it out together. Jefferson’s spirit would have thanked them if he had believed in the afterlife.

Extending outward from both sides of the Rotunda, like two arms, are the parallel rows of buildings that enclose the Lawn. These are the ten Pavilions (five per side), where faculty reside and teach. Nowadays, professors only live in these Pavilions for three to five years, and rotate to allow for fresh faces; but in Jefferson’s original idea, the faculty would stay here long-term and live among the students. Even now, the resident faculty are expected to socialize with the students, 54 of whom stay (during their senior year) in the prestigious “Lawn rooms” that flank the Pavilions. On the other side of the Pavilions are gardens; and beyond that, the Range, for graduate students. The idea is both idealistic and charming: Jefferson imagines a kind of open-air community of scholars, living amid architecture that inspired the mind. Indeed, each of the ten Pavilions bears a distinct, Neoclassical design, the idea being that the ensemble would be a kind of visual catalogue of architectural styles.

On the whole, I found the Academical Village to be greatly appealing. I would love to wake up in one of those quaint little rooms, sit outside on my rocking chair, under the colonnade, reading some book, and waving casually to my passing professors. Few places I have been so perfectly evoke the gentile life of the mind—the elevation of beauty, truth, and goodness over all petty practical concerns. This picture contains a large dose of fantasy, unfortunately. The first batches of scholars were rowdy, spoiled, wealthy boys, who drank and partied and played pranks on their professors. More significantly, it is worth remembering that these buildings, gardens, and manicured lawn—not to mention the entire economical system—was built by slave labor. And though students could not bring their own slaves, professors could and did. To the rosy image of intellectual freedom, then, we must add the violence of human bondage.

Just as our tour of the university was coming to a close, our tour of Monticello, Jefferson’s old plantation, was about to begin. Now, Monticello literally means “little mountain,” and the name is perfectly sensible, as the house stands on a hill overlooking the surrounding area. We drove up to the visitor’s center (which has a café and a gift shop), and then hopped on the shuttle bus up to the house for our tour. Monticello can only be visited on a guided tour, which took around two hours. No photos are allowed inside, but the website includes a wonderful virtual tour, which is far better than this measly blog post.

*Both the statue and myself are life-sized. Jefferson was 6’2”*

I will hardly bother to describe the exterior of Monticello, since if you have seen a nickel you know what it looks like. Suffice to say that it is built in the same Neoclassical style, with the same red brick, as the buildings of the university. Indeed, Monticello could be transported to the center of the University of Virginia and look perfectly at home.

The house is entered, logically enough, through the front door, which leads directly into the entrance hall. This room is decorated with all sorts of artifacts from Lewis and Clarke’s epochal journey into the American wilderness—horns, antlers, Native American artifacts, and even the mandible of a mastodon. (According to Meacham, Jefferson’s attitude towards Native Americans was only slightly more enlightened than his contemporaries, thinking them not racially but culturally inferior. In any case, he still had no qualms about taking their land.) There are also many busts on the wall—including one of Voltaire, and another of Jefferson’s rival and nemesis, Alexander Hamilton. I suppose Jefferson liked his enemies close.

Most conspicuous of all might be Jefferson’s Great Clock. It has two faces, one facing outward, which only shows the hour (accurate enough for slaves, Jefferson thought), and another facing inward, with a minute and a second hand. It is quite a contraption. The clock is connected to a gong outside, which chimes out the hour loud enough for the whole plantation to hear. It works via a series of weights, which look like cannon balls. The clock is wound up at the beginning of the week (Sunday), and the falling weights mark the day as well as keep the hour. Unfortunately, the clock was designed for a somewhat more ample space, and so the last day of the week (Saturday) is located in the basement.

As one moves through Monticello, the visitor gets a greatly paradoxical impression of Jefferson. He was, for example, both provincial and cosmopolitan. Not remarkably well-traveled himself, he read voraciously about other lands (such as in the journals of Captain James Cook), and kept up a correspondence with contemporary explorers like Alexander von Humboldt and Meriweather Lewis. On the other hand, he was himself something of a homebody, keeping close to Monticello (after his return from France) and even founding his pet university in his backyard. In terms of taste, Jefferson improbably wants to combine a kind of rural simplicity with an enormous mansion and French style, making the house seem both luxurious and homely.

Another contradiction is between Jefferson’s genius and his dilettantism. His library spans dozens of academic disciplines, and yet his manner of organizing books, plants, and correspondence is entirely homespun. Monticello is a work of architectural brilliance; but the windows awkwardly span both the first and the second floor, meaning that they do not align with eye level. The clock may epitomize this contradiction best: an ingenious device for which Jefferson had to bore a hole through his own floor. The biggest contradiction of all, of course, is that the self-proclaimed champion of freedom lived in a slave plantation. But I will return to that.

From the entrance hall, the visitor quickly moves to Jefferson’s living quarters. His working life centers upon his library and his “cabinet” (or, study), which are filled with dusty volumes, the busts of famous men (like his frenemy, John Adams), and scientific instruments, such as his telescope, barometer, or theodolite (a surveying instrument). Both rooms overlook Jefferson’s greenhouse, where he grew exotic plants. The quaint quality of Jefferson’s mind is quite apparent here. He had a five-sided writing stand commissioned and built, so that he could display different documents and books (though a simple table seems more practical to me). On his desk stands a bygone innovation, the polygraph, which uses a mechanical arm holding a pen in order to duplicate letters (and Jefferson was a prolific correspondent). Jefferson did not invent the device, but he tinkered with it, and was quite enthusiastic about its use. The most idiosyncratic touch may be Jefferson’s bed, which is built into the wall between his study and bed chamber. The arrangement does save space; though for a man of 6’2’’, the bed seems quite snug.

My favorite room in the house was perhaps the parlor, where Jefferson did much of his entertaining. The room has a high ceiling and an unusual geometry. Opposite the main doors (hooked up, under the floor, so that both sides open and close in tandem), there are two pairs of tall windows and a single glass door, all looking out at the back garden, which serve to make the room sunny and bright. Two pianos and a zittern (similar to a lute) sit ready for music-making; Jefferson himself took part on the violin. Most attractive, for me, were the many portraits covering the walls. A somewhat unusual painting of George Washington stands near the famous Mather Brown portraits of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, made while the two men were overseas, with Jefferson looking distinctly more foppish than usual in his big white wig. On another wall hang three portraits of Jefferson’s intellectual heroes: Francis Bacon, John Locke, and Isaac Newton—all unabashed champions of empiricism.

I do not wish to get bogged down in a room-by-room description of Monticello, but I must mention some highlights. One of Jefferson’s innovations were double windows, which let in light but provide for more insulation, since the air between the glass acts as a buffer. The dining room is equipped with a dumbwaiter to bring up wine from the cellar (Jefferson liked French wine), to minimize the number of servants (read “slaves”) needed for his guests. An octagonal bedroom on the ground floor—with another alcove bed—is called the “Madison room,” since this was where that other founding father stayed on his frequent visits. Upstairs (and the stairs are very steep and narrow, another oddity of Jefferson’s design) there are mainly bedrooms, for Jefferson’s sister, daughter, and grandchildren. The tour culminates with the dome room—also octagonal, as apparently Jefferson loved the shape—on the third floor, which provides a commanding view of the surrounding area.

But now we must leave the house of Monticello itself, and explore the grounds of the estate. For here is where the history of Monticello becomes decidedly less charming. Monticello was not simply a residence, but a plantation, wherein enslaved men and women worked to enrich Jefferson. This was done by growing and selling crops—tobacco and wheat, notably—as well as by producing goods for sale, such as nails. On the road running past the house, dubbed Mulberry Row, stood the small residences of these enslaved workers, many of whom labored alongside white contract laborers to construct the house. Some of these still stand, or have been reconstructed. One of the latter is the cabin of John Hemmings, a literate carpenter who was one of the few enslaved people to be freed by Jefferson.

*The reconstructed quarters of the enslaved cook.*

The contrast between elegant finery of the mansion, and this simple little dwelling, is almost gut-wrenching. That the man who declared that liberty was an inalienable right, that all men were created equal, could own fellow human beings and live by the violent coercion of their labor—it is simply too paradoxical to swallow. One naturally at least hopes that Jefferson was an especially “good” or “enlightened” slave-owner, whatever that would mean. But even that is not the case. Jefferson owned 600 different people during the course of his life—about 100 at any one time—and he treated them much as his neighbors did: namely, by giving them the choice between work or physical punishment. Husbands and wives were separated, as were mothers and children; and Jefferson ordered his overseers to beat enslaved people on multiple occasions. This should hardly need stating: Slavery requires violence to exist, and is itself a form of violence. There is no nice way to own a person.

One cannot even take comfort in the fact that Jefferson was distant from the real management of his estate, like some dreamy philosopher absorbed in his pursuits. Slavery was at the core of his life. After his wife passed away, Jefferson began a sexual relationship with his wife’s half-sister, an enslaved woman named Sally Hemings. Indeed, this “relationship”—if that is what it should be called—likely began when Hemings was still an adolescent. And while we do not have much notion of how the young Hemings felt, it is difficult to call such sex “consensual,” considering that Jefferson was much older, not to mention her legal owner, as well as the owner of much of her family. Sally Hemings had six children by Jefferson, whom he owned until his death, freeing them in his will. Evidently, slavery could not have been a more intimate part of Jefferson’s life.

The tour ends with a walk down back to the visitor’s center. On the way, you pass by the Monticello Graveyard, where Jefferson himself is buried along with many members of his family. His own tombstone—tall, but not grandiose—bears an epitaph he wrote himself, mentioning three accomplishments: that he wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Statue of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and that he founded the University of Virginia. Anyone familiar with his life will immediately notice that it omits arguably his greatest accomplishment: serving as President. But Jefferson was very mindful of his image, and strove hard to preserve his aura of the humble, unworldly intellectual; and so I think the epitaph is very much in keeping with this persona.

Further on, down near the parking lot, is a fenced off area. This was a burying ground where at least 40 of the enslaved people of Monticello were buried, though you would never know it if not for the sign, as there is not a tombstone to be seen. Once again, the contrast speaks for itself.

Though Jefferson is buried on the property, his family soon lost it after his death. For all of his brilliance as an intellectual and a politician, Jefferson was not a good businessman, and died hopelessly in debt. The house—including the vast majority of the enslaved workers—was sold after his death to pay off these debts. Luckily for posterity, the property was bought by an admirer of Jefferson, Uriah P. Levy, who preserved the house. Monticello is now owned and run by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which I think does an excellent job in telling the story of this place. Every aspect of this complex man—from his scientific pursuits to the reality of slavery—was explained with honesty and care.

The Thomas Jefferson Foundation does not attempt to resolve the conflicts inherent in the life and legacy of the third president. Nor will I. Indeed, there is no way to resolve the paradox: Jefferson was a champion of freedom and a slave-owner. He was a man of life-enhancing brilliance who participated in one of history’s most monstrous institutions. His words epitomized some of our finest aspirations, while his actions embodied our basest impulses. I do not think penning the Declaration of Independence can somehow cancel out the violence inflicted on 600 human beings. Morality does not work like that. If he were brought back from the dead, we would have to award him the Nobel Prize and then throw him in prison for the rest of his life.

For this reason, we left Monticello just as appalled as inspired by Thomas Jefferson’s life. His legacy is perhaps most valuable, then, as a reminder that high ideals on paper can and do coexist with ugly realities in the world. This, after all, is just as true of the story of America as it is that of Jefferson. We should not make the same mistake as Jefferson in thinking that we can politely express our disapproval of an oppressive and unsustainable system while profiting by it and doing nothing to change it. Even now, almost two centuries after Jefferson’s death, there is still much work to be done.

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The Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island

It was a thoroughly muggy day in mid-August when I boarded a boat in Battery Park.

My destination was the most famous statue in the United States, if not the world. And I was willing to pay to get up close. Now, if you merely wish to take a good picture of the statue against the New York City skyline, then no financial transaction is necessary. The Staten Island Ferry—a gratuitous vaporetto—passes quite near Liberty Island, allowing its parsimonious passengers an excellent vantage point from which to gawk and snap photos. But I was in no mood for drive-by glances; I wanted to see the statue from dry land, which requires a certain amount of money.

In the time before COVID-19, the ferry company had no qualms with herding us through a large security tent and then packing us into the boat like salted fish. I opted to stand on the deck. Despite the summer heat and the humidity, the sea wind whipped up soon after we set off, giving me goosebumps. But this was compensated by anticipation. Even a short ferry ride partakes, however modestly, in the romance of travel by sea. And as a good friend of mine once said (well, he said it repeatedly): “The best way to see a city is by boat.” This is certainly true regarding New York City, at least. Seen from the harbor, the Manhattan skyline is at its most vertiginously dramatic. The Statue of Liberty is not bad, either.

In about twenty minutes the boat docked at Liberty Island. Now, this was not always the name of this little piece of earth. Before Europeans came to dominate the land, the Canarsie people called it Minnisais. Since then, however, the island has been dubbed Love Island, Great Oyster Island, and Bedloe’s Island, among other appellations. It had many uses before being made home to an enormous copper goddess. Food was grown, men were hanged, garbage was dumped, and Tories waited here to be extracted to England. The island was even used as a kind of lazaretto for those suspected of harboring smallpox. Its last function before being turned into a monument was as a fortified battery; and the star-shaped remains of Fort Summer still sit below Liberty’s green heel.

I pushed my way down the boarding ramp and headed straight for the statue. This was not my first visit. Many years ago, when I was still in middle school, I visited the island with my Californian cousins, who wanted to see some of the main sights of New York. At the time I was inclined to see any sort of cultural excursion as a monumentally boring waste of time. Video games were infinitely more entertaining, and I resented my family for dragging me away from my computer. Nothing I saw made much of an impression on me: not the Empire State Building, not Wall Street, not Battery Park. It was wholly unexpected, then, when I found myself entranced by the Statue of Liberty. I could not take my eyes off it. I even felt inspired. Somehow the statue had broken through the many layers of youthful apathy and juvenile ignorance to touch a hitherto unknown part of myself.

This second visit was not quite as stupendous, if only because by this time I had grown accustomed to visiting monuments and the feelings that they evoke. This is not to say that I was uninspired. The towering lady is not as dynamic in composition or as beautiful in form as, say, Michelangelo’s David; and the sickly green color (caused from the oxidation of the copper) is not the most aesthetically pleasing shade imaginable. (Like the oxidized patina itself, however, it grows on you.) But statues of this size have different engineering constraints, not to mention serving a different purpose. As a synecdoche of the nation, as a grandiose welcome to those arriving by sea (many of them immigrants), and as an artwork that represents the Enlightenment values that (nominally, at least) set this nation apart, Liberty Enlightening the World could hardly be more successful. Granted, Bartholdi probably only intended some of this in his design; yet the mark of any great work of art is that it goes beyond even the vision of its creator.

I had opted for the cheapest ticket, which only allowed me to gaze at the statue from without. Paying more would have given me access to the pedestal, and still more would have allowed me to ascend to the seven-pronged crown. (Visits to the torch have been prohibited since 1916, for a somewhat obscure reason.) But even the most basic ticket seemed pricey to me. So after I had taken my fill of the statue, and walked around her a few times, I wandered over to the other end of the island to see the museum. The visit begins with a strange cinematic experience, wherein visitors are led into a big, empty room, shown an informational video about the statue’s history, and then led into another room where the video continues, and then yet another. I suppose they screen the film this way so that more visitors can be shown it at once, though I did wish there were seats available.

The museum in general was surprisingly good. There are models of the statue and its innards, a great deal of information about its construction and inspiration, and even real models and former parts. But rather than try to narrate the museum, I will use it as an opportunity to tell something of the statue’s history:

Given that Lady Liberty is one of the most quintessentially images of America, it is somewhat ironic, then, that the statue was designed and built entirely by the French, and given to us in an act of international generosity. I can think of no other major monument with such an origin.

The idea for a celebratory dedication to the United States evidently originated with Édouard René de Laboulaye, a prominent French abolitionist, who wished to celebrate the Union victory in the Civil War, and the end of American slavery. This proposal was taken up by his friend, the artist Frédéric Bartholdi, who liked the idea, if only because it would have provided an indirect rebuke to the repressive regime of Napoleon III. But such projects are seldom conceived and completed on schedule; and by the time the statue was finally built, in 1885, Napoleon III had been deposed.

It was difficult enough for the cities of Brooklyn and New York (when they were formally separate) to work together to plan, fund, and execute the Brooklyn Bridge across the East River. Imagine, then, the nightmare of coordinating an international project across the Atlantic. To build the statue, Bartholdi had to personally come to the United States, scout out a good location, meet with the president (Ulysses S. Grant at the time), and then cross the young nation trying to drum up support. Batholdi also had to come up with a design. That the theme should be liberty was obvious; but freedom can take many forms. It can be a bare-chested woman leading troops into battle, à la Delecroix; yet that seemed too violent or revolutionary. Instead, Bartholdi opted for a neoclassical design, staid and solemn, robed in a Roman stella (togas are for men), crowned with a diadem, and holding a torch rather than a sword.

In 1875 Bartholdi and Laboulaye set to work raising money for the statue. It was to be a long slog, combining a difficult PR campaign with a vast logistical challenge. Building material was needed, talent had to be recruited, and the public interest maintained at a high enough level to keep funds flowing. As an engineering task, the statue was daunting enough. Standing 46 meters tall, the statue had to support 91 tonnes of metal without crumpling or toppling over. The thin copper skin simply would not bear that much weight, and so Gustave Eiffel was contracted to design an internal steel skeleton. This internal work is a magnificent achievement in itself, since it could be easily assembled and disassembled, and also because Eiffel designed it in such a way as to allow the metal to expand and contract in the changing weather without cracking the skin. Were the copper exterior removed, then, New York would have her own Eiffel Tower.

While the French were busy with the statue, the Americans had to make the pedestal. This proved to be quite a challenge, for the simple reason that nobody wanted to cough up the money. Grover Cleveland—who was then the governor of New York—vetoed funding for the statue, which left the project lingering in unfunded purgatory. (Cleveland, as president, later presided over the dedication of the statue, which seems terribly unfair.) The task to fund the project fell, instead, to private industry and the good people of New York. Specifically, Joseph Pullitzer led a funding drive in his newspaper, The New World, promising to publish the name of every single contributor. Thus the pedestal was built with spare nickels, dimes, and pennies, mailed in from children, widows, and alcoholics. Even so, it took longer than expected to raise the required sum, and the pedestal was still incomplete by the time the statue arrived by steamboat.

The assembly and disassembly of the statue, transportation across the seas, and then reassembly in its new home, was yet another massive engineering challenge for the designers. Eiffel’s steel beams arrived with Bartholdi’s hand-beaten copper, and teams of workers had to put it all together, like an enormous erector set. The statue’s completion was celebrated by the city’s first ticker-tape parade, which culminated in a yacht trip to the island for a private dedication ceremony, attended only by politicians, dignitaries, and other officials. Ironically, in a fête for an enormous female, few women were permitted to attend. The values of the Enlightenment have their limits, after all.

My sojourn on the land of liberty had come to close; but I still had more to see. Tickets to visit the Statue of Liberty come included with a trip to Ellis Island, just a few minutes away. Like Liberty Island, this island used to be called Oyster Island, for the very logical reason that it was a shallow tidal flat where oysters liked to live. As such, it was used as an important food source by the Lenape people, but they called it “Kioshk” for the many seagulls which liked to rest there. Much later, when an island was needed to process the increasing tides of immigrants, the government started dumping sand, rocks, and soil (taken from the subway tunnels) in order to create something fit for permanent habitation. (This had very unfortunate results for the oysters, which scientists are now trying to revive in the Billion Oyster Project.) Ellis Island was not even originally a single island, but three separate ones which were gradually merged. The current landmass is shaped like a fat “C,” and ships dock in the space between the northern and southern halves.

Ellis Island has come to serve as a symbol of American immigration, but of course this particular institution represents only one chapter of the story. Ellis Island was never the only port of entry into the United States for immigrants, and it was active for only about thirty years, from 1892 to 1924. Most of these immigrants coming through Ellis Island were, naturally, from the other side of the Atlantic, specifically Europe. This includes Germans, Irish, Scandinavians, a great many Italians, Eastern European Jews escaping pogroms—and many more, to the tune of 12 million souls. It has been calculated that 40% of the United States population can trace at least one ancestor to Ellis Island (though I do not know if that includes me).

The basic visit is to the island’s Main Building. This is a large and surprisingly beautiful structure, built in a French Renaissance style. Your visit is meant to replicate the journey of an arriving immigrant to the island. You begin in the baggage room, complete with real period suitcases and trunks, where you pick up your audioguide. Then you advance to the registry hall, a cavernous open room topped with Guastavino tiles, which shimmer and sparkle in the indirect light. But I doubt that an arriving immigrant would have been in the mood to admire architecture, since this room was the scene of fateful decisions.

While the hall is now open and luminous, during the heyday of Ellis Island it would have been full with queues upon queues of incoming immigrants, awaiting their turns on long benches to talk with a customs official. While they entered and waited, doctors would inspect and examine the hopeful immigrants for any signs of ill health. Those presenting a worrisome sign would be marked with chalk and more thoroughly examined. If the problem was grave, or the disease highly contagious (like trachoma, an eye affliction), the poor soul might be sent all the way back—a fate of a small minority (about 2%), but a very crushing fate indeed after spending one’s savings and crossing an ocean in the hopes of a new life. If the problem was less severe, then the migrant may be in for a stay at the Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital (more on that later).

In any case, even for the well in body in mind, the experience must have been extremely stressful. For the most part, the rich are not the ones who emigrate; it is the poor, with little money to spend. Consequently, then, the voyage aboard the steamers crossing the Atlantic was abysmally uncomfortable—cramped, cold, dark, seasick and poorly fed. Then the storm-tossed travelers were thrown into a hall echoing with unintelligible languages to be handled by unfeeling officials.

Thankfully, for the majority of those arriving on Ellis Island, the affair was quite short, lasting only a matter of hours before they were allowed through. Laws regarding immigration were, after all, far more lenient back in the day, especially in the decades leading up to World War I. Stefan Zweig, for example, remembers traipsing around Europe without even possessing a passport. But that war initiated a period of nationalism and xenophobia on both sides of the Atlantic. A literacy test was mandated in 1917 (in the immigrant’s native language), and by the 1920s quotas were imposed, thus ending the period of mass immigration.

From the registry hall, you move from room to room, each one used to process the immigrant in a different way—further health inspections, mental aptitude tests, literacy tests, legal processes, money exchanges, bus tickets, and so on. A courtroom was busy hearing cases of immigrants suspected of being professional paupers or contract laborers (oh, the horror!); luckily, immigrant aid societies paid for lawyers to help appeal cases, and 80% of the immigrants on trial were accepted. Particularly fascinating to me were the examples of IQ tests, meant to weed out those considered to be mentally infirm or deficient. This was a challenge, since the tests had to be applicable to anyone, regardless of their national background. Even a simple task, like drawing a diamond, was not a fair measure, since a large portion of immigrants had never even held a pencil. The psychologists thus settled on visual tests, like identifying faces or distinguishing between images. Still, the whole attempt seems rather silly in retrospect.

To repeat, for the majority of immigrants, Ellis Island was only a brief stopover. But a sickly minority required a longer stay—days, weeks, or even months—in the Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital. For some, this meant a stay to “stabilize” their condition before being sent back, but for others successful treatment was an entry ticket to another life.

The hospital is on the other half of the island, and off limits to the casual visitor. To go, one must sign up for a guided hard-hat tour, as the buildings are nowadays in a quite dilapidated condition, empty and overgrown. But at one time this was one of the biggest public health hospitals in the world, complete with separate words for infectious diseases. Nowadays, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, we can appreciate the role of border control in controlling contagious illness. This idea was old even by the time Ellis Island was built (there are islands for isolation in the Venetian lagoon, for example), though of course it was never a fool-proof way of controlling epidemics—such as the waves of cholera that arrived from the Old World. Still, Ellis Island was an important line of epidemiological defense for the United States.

Taken together, the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island are the country’s greatest monuments to the immigrant—symbols of the country’s open-armed embrace of anyone willing to come. At a time when anti-immigrant sentiment is once again raising its ugly head, these monuments are more important than ever, for they remind us that the majority of us are descended from immigrants, most of them poor, most of them uneducated, and all of them looking for a better life. How were those Hungarians or Italians, unable to write or even to hold a pencil, any different from the people now at our southern border, who fill us with so much fear?

Economists may show us, again and again, that immigrants do not steal jobs; and historians may demonstrate that xenophobia is used, again and again, as a scapegoat for other social ills. But no argument is as profoundly moving as that lady of oxidized copper, herself an immigrant, holding out her torch towards the vast and windy seas, inscribed with the words of Emma Lazarus:

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

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Lotz in Translation

Saving the world—one long, pretentious blog post at a time.

Category: US

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Historic Hudson Homes: Lyndhurst & Untermyer Gardens

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Historic Hudson Homes: Springwood & Vanderbilt Mansion

Chicago: Sewage and Synchronicity

Boston: On the Trail of Freedom

Concord and Walden Pond

Jefferson Country: UVA and Monticello

The Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island

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