By Jeff Burns
My
wife and I made a quick trip to New York City during winter break, and since it
was February, we decided to make it as indoors as possible, concentrating on
museum visits. We got a good deal on a hotel on 7th Avenue, near
Times Square and conveniently located near several subway stops. After checking in, we headed to the legendary
Katz's Deli, a NYC institution since 1888, made famous in television shows and
movies like When Harry Met Sally. It’s an icon. You have to go there
once. Honestly, I’ve had better - and worse - deli food, but it’s an
experience. Like everything else in the
city, it’s claustrophobically crowded, and they use a unique, maybe confusing,
system that you have to puzzle through.
You’re given a ticket upon entry and you line up at a carving station to
order your sandwich. If you want sides and drinks, you line up at other
stations. Your orders get marked on your
ticket, and then you try to find a table, elbow to elbow with other patrons. Cash
only. I don’t know that we’ll ever go back, but we can say that we’ve done it.
Our
first museum was the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. It was kind of a conscious decision to do this first,
because we knew that it would make a powerful impact, and it certainly
does. The only place that I can compare
it to in terms of the somber tone and mood is the United States Holocaust
Museum. Be prepared. Every exhibit is incredibly effective at
being affective. The attacks and their
aftermath are personalized by the informative and tastefuly done displays. Lines can be long, but you can purchase
advance tickets online.
Next,
it was off to the Lower East Side, neighborhoods full of history as they were
occupied by successive waves of immigrants who made the area their home,
Germans then Russian Jews and Eastern Europeans, Italians, Portuguese,
Hispanics, Chinese, etc. The place to
start is the Lower East Side Tenement Museum where a former tenement, occupied for over a century until
the 1880s, has been restored to represent different stages of its use. The building itself is only accessible
through guided tours, and this is the only downside. In order to see everything, you have to take
every tour. However, we resolved to make it a point to return on every future
trip to New York in order to do just that. We took the longest tour, the
shopkeepers tour. It started in the lower floor saloon and apartments that
belonged to a German family, and we learned about the family, their German
neighbors, and their contributions to American culture. The tour ended with one of the coolest
interactive artifacts displays I’ve ever seen in a museum. The gift shop is a must-see as well. I wanted
to read practically every book on sale, and there were hundreds of titles. Be sure to check out their website before
going. They have walking tours of the neighborhood, special events, and
extended hours on Thursdays. You can
purchase tickets in advance and get discounts for booking multiple tours. (Also, teachers get a tour discount – which
we only learned about afterwards.)
A
few blocks away is a quiet little museum that is well worth a visit, the Museum
at Eldridge. It is a beautifully
restored Orthodox synagogue built by Russian Jews in the late 1800s. It is still
used for services by its small congregation, but it is open for tours conducted
by volunteers during the week. The interior is beautiful, and David, our guide,
was full of information. I highly
recommend seeing it if you get the chance.
And
while you’re in the area, take some time to just walk around and think about
the changes the area has seen. It is a
huge melting pot of ethnicities, as Chinatown and Little Italy are literally
side by side. Now, it’s the hottest area
of Manhattan, and we were told that it’s the hippest place to be, especially at
night, and those small 350 square feet tenement apartments that housed families
seeking the American dream now might rent for as much $4000 a month. While you’re exploring, we highly recommend
meals at the oldest dim sum restaurant in NYC, the Nom Wah Tea Parlor (cash or Amex only),
and have a nosh, a meal, and an egg cream at Russ & Daughters, another iconic deli over a century old, albeit the café
in this neighborhood is only a couple of years old. There’s just too much to do. We’re already planning future trips!
By Jeff Burns
A
history teacher can’t vacation in Massachusetts without seeing where it began,
in a sense, Lexington and Concord. In
April 1775, British troops marched to these small villages with orders to
confiscate stockpiled weapons and, if possible, to arrest the rabble-rousers
Samuel Adams and John Hancock who were somewhere in the area. Alerted by several riders (not just Paul
Revere, whose accomplishment was greatly exaggerated for poetic effect by Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow), the rebels lay in wait at both locations, where they
refused orders to disperse. The result
was “the shot heard ‘round the world”, in the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the
beginning of the American Revolution.
Concord
is an easy ride from Boston via commuter train, but we found it wasn’t exactly
the best idea. The train station is a
really good walk from downtown Concord, and the battlefield itself is even
farther out. We didn’t really know that. Fortunately, at the battle site, we
discovered The Liberty Ride tour bus.
The tour takes you on a 90 minute circuit of all the sites in Lexington and
Concord, complete with a very knowledgeable tour guide. You can approach the
tour in several ways. You can do the
entire circuit, which is a good idea because it gives you an overview, and you
can decide what sites you want to go back to explore on your own time. Or you can get on and off at any stop on the
route. It’s the best way to learn about the
battles.
Next
to the Concord battlefield is The Old Manse, the family home of Ralph Waldo
Emerson. From this house, Emerson’s father and his family watched the battle
unfold. It was also lived in and visited by Thoreau, Hawthorne, and other noted
writers and famous people.
Like
every other place we visited in Massachusetts, there is so much to see in
Lexington and Concord, beyond the Revolutionary War sites. Besides the Old Manse, you can see and tour
houses lived in by Emerson, Louisa May Alcott, and John Hancock. You can even
see the house where the Concord Grape was born.
And set aside some time to spend in the towns themselves. There are
great shops and restaurants to sample.
