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When Miriam and I traveled to New York City in September we stayed in White Plains in Westchester County.  I loved it there.

White Plains sits barely twenty-five miles from midtown Manhattan, but the experience of being there is entirely different.  White Plains is a city in its own right, with its own downtown, skyscrapers, train station, shopping malls, and so on.  But it’s also home to thousands of commuters who travel to New York City each day for work.  These commuters live in charming homes on shady lanes, or stylish old apartment buildings on tree-lined streets, and eat dinner or go shopping on Main Street or Mamaroneck Avenue.  They appear to have ample access to recreation in the warmer months at several parks and golf courses.  What I loved best about White Plains was that it felt like a city, had all the characteristics of a city, but still felt easily navigable on foot.

White Plains, like most of the cities and towns in the Northeast or New England, is old – as old as the United States itself.  As an old city it shares most of the characteristics of communities that developed before the automobile: the center of town is relatively compact; access to public transportation is easy; public buildings and spaces are prominent and easily accessible.  I loved all of that.  And though it’s harder to explain why, I loved one building in particular more than others.

The Westchester County Center is an eighty-year-old art deco gem that perfectly suits its purpose of hosting a variety of entertainment- and sporting events.  When it opened in 1930, Percy Grainger performed at the piano, and ever since it’s held concerts, car shows, dances, boxing matches, and, the week we were there, roller derby.

Suberbia Roller Derby was hosting “Derby in the Burbs”, the 2010 Women’s Flat Track Derby Association’s Eastern regional championship.  New York City’s Gotham Girls were clearly the superior team.  They crushed most of their competition, beating Providence by three hundred points, which was simply astonishing.  But the Philadelphia Liberty Belles were also good, and I also enjoyed seeing Pittsburgh’s team, and their terrific “Steel Curtain” maneuver.

The event wasn’t as heavily attended as I would have imagined, but that might have just been an illusion of the venue.  The facility is very large, with a big open floor with a stage at one end.  A balcony circles the room, but, brilliantly, no concrete or steel supports the balcony, giving unobstructed views to those beneath it, and increasing the usable floor space substantially.  Meanwhile, concessions and restrooms are available on each floor.  There were even custom benches made without nails or screws.  It’s the exact kind of facility that I wish Gainesville had.

In White Plains, Miriam and I stayed at the Crowne Plaza Hotel at the intersection of Hale Avenue and Maple Avenue.  Our room overlooked a parking garage and a cute neighborhood.  The hotel offered free transportation anywhere in White Plains, and we used that extensively, though we walked around, as well.  In the evenings we went to the city’s main drag, Mamaroneck Avenue, and got dinner.  One night we ate at a tasty pizza place, another night at a much less tasty tavern.  We ate a couple times at the charming City Limits Diner, where the food was good, and the atmosphere even better.

We spent a lot of time at the train station in White Plains, which lay halfway between our hotel and the Westchester County Center.  The station itself is nothing special, but it’s one of the busiest places in town, and was the site of perhaps the most ridiculous confrontation I ever witnessed.  As Miriam and I waited for a train, two women got into a fight.  One was the incredibly rude lady I mentioned before, who had repeatedly cut the ticket line a day or so before, and who asked the unfortunate Englishman so many questions on the train to Grand Central.  She didn’t start the fight, and anywhere else a fight would not have happened, but her behavior from earlier in the week caused us to have slightly less sympathy than we might have had otherwise.  The rude woman was talking loudly on her telephone in the waiting room of the station.  Another woman, also in business attire, was sitting on a bench next to her.  After a while, the second woman–we’ll call her “The Fighter”–said to the first woman, whom we’ll call her “Rude Lady”:

“You know you’re talking really loud, don’t you?”
“This is a public place.”
“Yeah, but we all don’t want to hear your conversation. I mean, what if I started singing right here?”

The Fighter then proceeded to sing loudly right in the direction of Rude Lady, who continued to talk on her phone.  I blame The Fighter for acting so childishly, but Rude Lady was being rude, and it wasn’t hard to understand The Fighter’s frustration.  Still, it was completely ridiculous.

It rained on our last day in White Plains, which was a Monday.  That morning I had an appointment to meet with the president of the Percy Grainger Society who was going to give me a tour of the composer’s house, only a few blocks from the hotel.  I will tell that story soon.  Meanwhile, I had to borrow an umbrella from the front desk so I would down to Cromwell Place.  While walking back I got a phone call from Miriam who asked me if I wanted to meet her for lunch at the gigantic mall directly next to our hotel that I hadn’t even noticed because it didn’t really look like a mall, insofar as it wasn’t surrounded by hundreds of acres of parking.  I met her at the food court inside, and she already had my food waiting for me, like a sweetheart.  I sat my umbrella down and ate.  When we got up to leave I, of course, forgot the umbrella.  I had been thinking how I needed to not forget the umbrella, because I knew that they made a note of my borrowing it, and would charge me if I failed to return it.  But we were already exiting the mall when I realized I’d forgotten it.  Meanwhile, we needed to catch the shuttle to the airport to make our flight, and that ride was only available once per half-hour.  So, in spite of my having just eaten a huge meal, I ran across the gigantic shopping mall–which was deserted, thankfully–and found the umbrella, still leaning up against the chair where I had left it.  I ran back across the mall to find Miriam, and we caught a ride to the airport.

The Westchester County Airport is one of the few things I didn’t like about White Plains.  It is small enough that upon arriving you are conveniently situated near exits and taxis.  The drawback is that when you are departing, you must sit in one room that must accommodate everyone waiting to board an airplane.  On the day we were leaving that included hundreds of people.  It was standing-room-only.  But our flight back to Orlando was safe, and my overall impression of White Plains remains extremely positive.

Filed under: Geography, Sports, Travel on January 9th, 2011 | No Comments »

In the autumn of 2008, Miriam and I traveled by airplane to Washington, D.C.  It was my first time there, and I loved almost everything about the trip: the monuments, the memorials, the museums, the fancy hotel, and the amazing day trip to Mount Vernon.  But, though we spent several days in the District, we didn’t see everything wanted to, and since we had such a wonderful time it was certain that we would return.

The last weekend of May this year marked our fifth wedding anniversary, and with no scholastic obligations weighing me down, and with the car in good working order, we set out on a long road trip that would take us across much of the southeast United States, with the nation’s capital as our main attraction, and many other places of interest along the way.

Day One

We pulled out of the driveway before dawn on Thursday, May 27.  After stopping for some last-minute items, we got underway in earnest, and were making our way north out of Gainesville when the sun was coming up.  Perhaps because I have driven the route so many times, and perhaps because of the unremitting bleakness of the towns along the way (Waldo, Starke, Lawtey), Highway 301 south of Interstate 10 struck me as about the least visually rewarding stretch of road on our entire trip.  Only Interstate 95 through South Carolina rivaled it for sheer blight.

We had already reached Georgia by 7:30AM.  In fact, I missed getting a free map at the state welcome center because it was not yet open.  We crossed the Savannah River and were in South Carolina barely an hour later.  We drove on for another hour and twenty minutes before stopping for breakfast.  Interstate 95 spans an enormous distance across South Carolina, and the drive through that state seems to go on forever, with almost nothing beautiful to look at.  Miriam drove that leg of the trip, and we got to North Carolina around 12:30PM.  That time I got my free map.  I had never been further north on I-95 than the junction at I-40, but, truth be told, there isn’t much to look at:  the fake lighthouse in Kenly houses a Wendy’s.  We were in Virginia just before three o’clock, and as we speeded toward our destination, I became excited by the highway signs: we had traveled a long way!

Richmond was our destination that first day.  We arrived at our hotel around 4:30PM, checked in, and almost immediately headed back out.  We had to choose between two activities in the city that night: enjoying food and entertainment at the botanical garden, or visiting the Edgar Allen Poe Museum.  I am glad we chose the latter, because the Poe Museum in Richmond is a little gem.  Housed in the city’s oldest building (sadly, none of Poe’s former residences in Richmond still stand), the museum holds a surprising number of authentic items, including objects once owned by the writer, as well as autograph manuscripts, and extremely rare editions of his works.  Spread among a few modest old brick buildings, the museum even houses the staircase from Poe’s childhood home, fully reassembled.  Stepping outside into a lovely courtyard, we sat and listened to a singer while enjoying a snack.  The weather was perfect, though Richmonders repeatedly apologized to us for what they considered uncommonly hot temperatures.  Miriam bought a souvenir in the gift shop, and we said goodbye to the friendly staff, having experienced a splendid little place that cost nothing that night.  Plus, we parked directly in front of the front door!

A large model of nineteenth century Richmond at the Poe Museum drew my attention to the great state house that lies in the middle of that city.  It wasn’t far away, at all, and when we arrived we found it was unbelievably easy to park our car.  We climbed the steps at the southwest corner of the capitol grounds and found the place completely deserted.  It was still quite light outside, but nobody was around, so we decided to go exploring.  We walked right up to the great columns on the south portico of the building, and peeked in the enormous windows.  I don’t recall trying to open the door, but it wouldn’t have surprised me if we could have just strolled right in.  The view of the city from that high place was delightful.  We walked around to the east side of the grounds and found the old governor’s mansion.  Several presidents of the United States have lived there.  It sits so close to the state house that I envied the office holder’s one-minute commute.  The mansion itself is handsome but not ostentatious.  It has a low wall in front that one could easily jump over.  Looking to the west across the north face of the capitol we saw the tall statue of Washington upon a horse.  It was beginning to get dark, but we continued to explore the grounds.  Great trees hovered over statues of famous Virginians; attractive benches surrounded lovely fountains; and gorgeous roses mocked me.

We wrung the last bit of daylight from the sky before leaving that place.  We went looking for a place to eat, but driving up and down the city streets yielded few obvious choices.  We were just looking in the wrong place.  According to our friends and Richmond natives, Kat and Harris, the area around the capitol clears out at night, while the nightlife moves to the west end.  There, along a very busy Main Street, we found the Star-lite.  It was intimate enough, though I was somewhat sad when they switched the television above the bar from the Nationals game to basketball.  I apparently had a milkshake for dinner.  On the way back to our hotel we drove down long avenues of elegant nineteenth century homes.  The entire city, it seems, was rebuilt in the 1870s, a hundred years before I was born.

Filed under: Dana Heritage Project, Geography, Musings, Transportation, Travel on August 17th, 2010 | No Comments »

I don’t know what to say about the misery wrought by this terrible earthquake in Haiti.  But why must the worst things happen to the poorest people?

Filed under: Current Events, Geography on January 14th, 2010 | No Comments »

SAN JUAN – Where ever it is that you live, you can probably depend upon a certain minimum level of traffic control.  Street signs, traffic lights, medians, dividers, lanes, and so on.  In Puerto Rico, those things are rare luxuries.  Put simply, this place is Thunderdome.

Each morning, we walk across the street in front of our hotel to the lot where our rented Nissan waits for us.  Parking isn’t a problem.  It’s expensive, but spaces are ample.  Depending on where we’re going, we turn either right or left.  Left takes us into Old San Juan, or the highways that lead to the western and southern portions of the island.  Cities like Arecibo and Aguadilla are reached via PR-2, which roughly follows the contours of the Atlantic coast.  Ponce, near the Caribbean coast, requires a journey south, via PR-52.  To reach the eastern portion of the island, we turn right out of the parking lot, travel down some two-lane roads past public beaches and vendors selling all manner of Puerto Rican cuisine, and connect to PR-3, which leads to Fajardo.

Some of these highways are limited-access freeways like the Interstate system.  Elsewhere, they are more like standard American highways, with at least two lanes in each direction, but intersections and direct access from shopping centers and local streets.  Some have tolls, though they are spread far apart, and are inexpensive.  The highest I encountered was $1.50, and most were half that.

Depending on where you’re going, however, these highways may get you only half way there.  The center of the island is rural, rugged and mountainous.  Though the peaks don’t generally exceed a few thousand feet, they do so from sea level and are quite steep.  The two-lane roads that connect the small towns in the interior are unlike anything I’ve ever seen in the USA.  First and foremost, almost none have lane markers.  (That goes for many of the main highways, too, where the first few hundred yards on either side of an intersection have no lines of any kind.)  This means that drivers move freely across the surface of the road.  On a four-lane highway, it’s bad enough to constantly fear that the driver in the lane next to you will try to move over.  On narrow roads high in the mountains, a car in your lane as you round a corner may mean certain death.  Meanwhile, these rural two-lane roads in the mountains are narrower than an average American driveway.  Imagine the door of your two-car garage.  Now, imagine coming around a blind corner fifteen hundred feet above the forest floor, finding a car in what should be your lane–if there was one–and having to pass in the space of that open garage door.  Imagine doing that at speed, where a false move will send you down into a ravine.  That happens a dozen times every kilometer in Puerto Rico.  (Curiously, distances are measured in kilometers, but speed limits in miles per hour.)

Meanwhile, the narrow, lane-less roads are invariably in terrible condition.  Huge potholes dot every street, rural or urban.  In cities, drivers must avoid these, while simultaneously dodging deep-set manhole covers placed in a seemingly random fashion, and wide metal grates which aid in drainage.  One such grate awaits those who exit PR-26 at Isla Verde.  If you know it’s there you can try and slow down, because hitting it at forty-five miles per hour would be devastating to tires.

Making things worse, Puerto Rican drivers do not use turn signals.  Ever.  You never know what anyone is going to do until they do it.  And they practice something Miriam refers to as “nudging”, in which, when leaving a shopping center or trying to change lanes at an intersection, they just push the noses of their cars into traffic, forcing others to either let them in, or crash into them.  Nudging may be so necessary and frequent because the names of streets are seldom indicated with visible signage.  If you’re lucky, you’ll see some faded tiles on the side of a corner building.  But you will frequently go for blocks in a city without seeing anything indicating where in the world you are.  It’s indescribably aggravating.

Add to all of this an innate Puerto Rican recklessness, and you have the recipe for disaster.  And yet, after seven days and almost nine hundred miles of driving, I saw only one accident – on my very last day.  I’ve never made the hour and a half drive from Gainesville to Orlando without passing at least one accident.  This afternoon, after watching a bicyclist charge blindly into traffic on a busy Ponce street, I came to a conclusion: God loves Puerto Ricans and protects them from automotive disaster.  The combination of bad roads and bad driving here made me expect to see corpses piled high beside shredded wreckage, but, no.  Some divine hand is keeping them safe.  May it be ever thus.

Filed under: Geography, Transportation, Travel on August 20th, 2009 | 2 Comments »

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Walt Disney Pictures released a series of films featuring a child actor named Bobby Driscoll.  He was the voice of Peter Pan, and also starred in the live-action Treasure Island and Song of the South.  The latter has never been released on home video in the United States, but Disney used to periodically re-release its films in theaters, which is how I originally saw Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Bambi, Pinocchio, Robin Hood, and Sword in the Stone.  That must be how I saw Song of the South.

At the far west end of Long Island Sound, just to the east of the Bronx, there is a tiny dot of land called Hart Island (view this excellent map).  Over the centuries it has been the site of a mental asylum, a prison, a POW camp, and a U.S. Army missile installation.   It is also the site of the largest cemetery in the United States.  It isn’t a normal cemetery, however.  Hart Island is a huge potter’s field.  The 800,000 bodies buried there belonged to the homeless, the penniless, and the unidentifiable.  Their corpses, along with stillborn babies and amputated limbs fill mass graves, where plain wooden coffins are piled atop one another, over a hundred at a time.  Somewhere in one of those mass graves lies the body of Bobby Driscoll.

By the mid-1960s, Driscoll had seen his fame and fortune vanish.  He’d been to prison and he was addicted to drugs.  When he died alone in an abandoned Manhattan building, his body went unidentified.  More than a year passed before efforts were made to locate the missing Driscoll.  Eventually, police matched Driscoll’s fingerprints to ones taken off the unidentified corpse, but his body was never exhumed for reburial in a family plot.  Instead, Driscoll is still an anonymous person buried among hundreds of thousands of other anonymous people at Hart Island.

Hart Island is strictly off-limits to the public, but Richard Nickel managed to sneak ashore, and his photo essay is marvelous, disturbing, and touching.

Filed under: Film, Geography, Musings on August 10th, 2009 | No Comments »