Wanderlust Wednesday: Hagerstown

Hagerstown? Where’s that? I recently attended a living history event at Fort Frederick State Park in Big Pool, Maryland. Restaurants are few and far between in western Maryland, but one of my favorites anywhere is the Schmankerl Stube in Hagerstown. … Continue reading

Transportation Tuesday: Fred Harvey Is Your Host

I just finished Appetite for America: How Visionary Businessman Fred Harvey Built a Railroad Hospitality Empire That Civilized the Wild West by Stephen Fried (visit his website here). Combine my nerdiness for railroad nostalgia with food and you have my ideal 515 … Continue reading

Transit Tuesday – Cyril E. Power

Yes, I’m a museum professional, but that doesn’t mean I don’t use museum databases to see objects I enjoy when I get home. I’m responsible for long-term preservation activities for a group of objects from Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, … Continue reading

Transit Tuesday – The New York Transit Museum

Transit and Museums? Two of my loves rolled up into one. Visitors to New York want to see the Empire State Building, Times Square, and the Statue of Liberty. I try to coax them off the beaten path. The New … Continue reading

Transportation Tuesday – The Atlantic Avenue Tunnel

Until December 2010, at the intersection by the Trader Joes on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, you might find a few traffic cones surrounding a popped manhole cover. Dozens of people queued on the nearby sidewalk. Between green lights, a few … Continue reading

Wanderlust Wednesday – What I Did with Spare Time in Ohio

Last Tuesday, I was somewhere in eastern Ohio. I had access to a car, and nothing to do for eight hours. You got it – it was Lincoln Highway time. When I last traveled this portion of the Lincoln in … Continue reading

Transportation Tuesday: The Bridges of Cleveland

  There’s a reason they call it the City of Bridges. The winding Cuyahoga River hems in the island on which Cleveland was founded. As the industrial mecca grew, so did the need to feed the city with rails and … Continue reading

Hike up your woolen undies: A Treatise on the Propagation of Sheep

Baa. Cool it, already. John Wily wrote the motivational pamphlet A Treatise on the Propagation of Sheep, the Manufacture of Wool, and the Cultivation and Manufacture of Flax, with Directions for making several Utensils for the Business in Williamsburg, VA, … Continue reading

Transit Tuesday – Central Railroad of New Jersey’s Communipaw Terminal

Staring out over New York Harbor, the Central Railroad of New Jersey’s (CRRNJ) Communipaw Terminal was an early and major powerhouse of New York City transportation and where two thirds of immigrants landed after their stop at Ellis Island. The CRRNJ … Continue reading