vip in the city

Saturday in Saugerties

The dreaded stomach virus that has been running rampant throughout the city continued to wreak havoc on my social calendar when both gatherings scheduled for this weekend were canceled due to friends’ illnesses. (Get well soon!)

So instead, a one-day getaway to Saugerties, probably best known as the site of the 1994 Woodstock Festival revival. This quaint, historic town is located in Ulster County, in the heart of the Hudson River Valley. We were just 100 miles out of the city, but here, the streets were patched with winter snow. (Remember snow?)

In 1677, New York’s Governor Edmund Andros agreed to purchase the land which now comprises the town from the Esopus Indian tribe for the price of a blanket, a piece of cloth, a shirt, a loaf of bread, and some coarse fiber. The deal recalls a similar transaction half a century earlier, between the Director-General of the Dutch colony of New Netherland, Peter Minuit, and the Lenape tribe, in which the island of Manhattan was exchanged for 60 guilders — those 24 famous dollars — worth of beads and trinkets.

Tags: day trip, Saugerties

Scenes from Providence

On the way back to New York City, we spent a few hours in Providence, since none of us knew when we would be driving this route again any time soon. All those years to and from the Cape, and I don’t think we ever made this stop.

We hit downtown just as the Veteran’s Day celebrations were winding down; the day’s highlight was the dedication of the newly constructed World War II Monument for which several news vans were on site. The $1.3 million memorial features a main columned rotunda, flanked by two angled walls of granite, engraved with the names of the 2,562 Rhode Islanders who died while serving during World War II.

A parade, which began at the Rhode Island State House, had preceded the dedication ceremony but by late afternoon, most of the crowds had already dispersed.

We came across this random bit of risd detritus in an abandoned shopping cart:

The First Baptist Church in America, founded by Providence-founder Roger Williams; his National Memorial is located just a few blocks north. The 80-foot square church, completed in the Spring of 1775, was the largest building project in New England at that time. (The 185-foot steeple was added after completion.)  Its construction benefited greatly from the British closing of Boston’s ports in retaliation for the Boston Tea Party, which freed up many shipwrights and carpenters who eventually made their way to Providence in search of alternate work. Capacity of the meeting house was 1,200 people, then equal to one third the entire population of Providence.

Views of architect/planner William D. Warner’s $270 million 10-year waterfront project, which began as a 1982 study into reconnecting Providence with its lost waterfronts. Warner’s “Waterplace Park” (with its dozen low, graceful, arched river-spanning bridges), the nearby $435 million 1.3-million-square-foot Providence Place shopping and entertainment complex, and the NBC television series ”Providence” (er, seriously?) all have been credited with giving this city of 175,000 a new cachet.

Tags: parade, Providence, Rhode Island, river, skyline

Cape Cod autumn

The skies had cleared considerably since yesterday, leaving behind just a clear, biting cold. Last look at Mill Creek:

The West Yarmouth, MA post office, which earlier this year was the scene of a crazy, trash-related accident…

… and back over the bridge.  Farewell, Cape Cod.