Cape May in New Jersey

19 May 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  10 minutes

Beach Avenue © Smallbones

Beach Avenue © Smallbones

Cape May (sometimes Cape May City) is a city located at the southern tip of Cape May Peninsula in Cape May County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Located where the Delaware Bay meets the Atlantic Ocean, it is one of the country’s oldest vacation resort destinations. The city, and all of Cape May County, is part of the Ocean City metropolitan statistical area, and is part of the PhiladelphiaWilmingtonCamden, PA-NJ-DEMD combined statistical area, also known as the Delaware Valley or Philadelphia metropolitan area. As of the 2020 United States census, the city’s year-round population was 2,768, a decrease of 839 (−23.3%) from the 2010 census count of 3,607, which in turn reflected a decline of 427 (−10.6%) from the 4,034 counted in the 2000 census. In the summer, Cape May’s population is expanded by as many as 40,000 to 50,000 visitors. The entire city of Cape May is designated the Cape May Historic District, a National Historic Landmark due to its concentration of Victorian architecture. Cape May was recognized as one of the top 10 beaches in the United States by the Travel Channel. It is part of the South Jersey region of the state.   read more…

South Carolina State House

1 May 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, House of the Month Reading Time:  6 minutes

© HaloMasterMind/cc-by-sa-3.0

© HaloMasterMind/cc-by-sa-3.0

The South Carolina State House is the building housing the government of the U.S. state of South Carolina, which includes the South Carolina General Assembly and the offices of the Governor and Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina. Located in the capital city of Columbia near the corner of Gervais and Assembly Streets, the building also housed the Supreme Court until 1971.   read more…

Lower East Side Tenement Museum in New York City

17 April 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Living, Working, Building, Museums, Exhibitions, New York City Reading Time:  16 minutes

© flickr.com - ajay_suresh/cc-by-2.0

© flickr.com – ajay_suresh/cc-by-2.0

The Lower East Side Tenement Museum, located at 97 and 103 Orchard Street in the Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, is a National Historic Site. The museum’s two historical tenement buildings were home to an estimated 15,000 people, from over 20 nations, between 1863 and 2011. The museum, which includes a visitors’ center, promotes tolerance and historical perspective on the immigrant experience.   read more…

Pike Place Market in Seattle

14 March 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  7 minutes

Pike Place Market © Daniel Schwen/cc-by-sa-4.0

Pike Place Market © Daniel Schwen/cc-by-sa-4.0

Pike Place Market is a public market in Seattle, Washington, United States. It opened on August 17, 1907, and is one of the oldest continuously operated public farmers’ markets in the United States. Overlooking the Elliott Bay waterfront on Puget Sound, it serves as a place of business for many small farmers, craftspeople and merchants. It is named for its central street, Pike Place, which runs northwest from Pike Street to Virginia Street on the western edge of Downtown Seattle. Pike Place Market is Seattle’s most popular tourist destination and the 33rd most visited tourist attraction in the world, with more than 10 million annual visitors.   read more…

German Village in Columbus

7 February 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  12 minutes

The Book Loft © Postdlf/cc-by-sa-3.0

The Book Loft © Postdlf/cc-by-sa-3.0

German Village is a historic neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio, just south of the city’s downtown. It was settled in the early-to-mid-19th century by a large number of German immigrants, who at one time comprised as much as a third of the city’s entire population. It became a city historic district in 1960 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974, becoming the list’s largest privately funded preservation district, and in 2007, was made a Preserve America Community by the White House. In 1980, its boundaries increased, and today it is one of the world’s premier historic restorations. German Village is bound by Pearl Street on the west; East Livingston Avenue on the north; Lathrop Street, Brust Street, Grant Avenue, Jaeger Street, and Blackberry Alley on the east; and Nursery Lane on the south. Although German Village is an eclectic community, the area is known as a Columbus “gayborhood.” While there are no gay establishments within German Village, the neighboring Brewery District and Merion Village have several.   read more…

Edgartown in Massachusetts

15 October 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  7 minutes

Edgartown Harbor © Don Ramey Logan/cc-by-sa-4.0

Edgartown Harbor © Don Ramey Logan/cc-by-sa-4.0

Edgartown is a tourist destination on the island of Martha’s Vineyard in Dukes County, Massachusetts, United States, for which it is the county seat. It was once a major whaling port, with historic houses that have been carefully preserved. Today it hosts yachting events around its large harbour. It includes the smaller island of Chappaquiddick. Edgartown is a part of Massachusetts’s 9th congressional district, represented in the Massachusetts Senate as a portion of the Cape and Islands district. The town’s population was 5,168 at the 2020 census.   read more…

Avery Island in Louisiana

10 October 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  8 minutes

McIlhenny Co. Factory, makers of Tabasco sauce © Shane K. Bernard/cc-by-sa-3.0

McIlhenny Co. Factory, makers of Tabasco sauce © Shane K. Bernard/cc-by-sa-3.0

Avery Island (historically French: Île Petite Anse) is a salt dome best known as the source of Tabasco sauce. Located in Iberia Parish, Louisiana, United States, it is approximately three miles (4.8 km) inland from Vermilion Bay, which in turn opens onto the Gulf of Mexico. A small human population lives on the island. The island is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The island was named after the Avery family, who settled there in the 1860s, but long before that, Native Americans had found that Avery Island’s verdant flora covered a precious natural resource—a massive salt dome. There, Native Americans boiled the Island’s briny spring water to extract salt, which they traded to other tribes as far away as central Texas, Arkansas, and Ohio.   read more…

Ybor City in Tampa, the Cigar Capital of the World

29 August 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  6 minutes

Centro Ybor complex with a TECO line car in front © Peter K Burian/cc-by-sa-4.0

Centro Ybor complex with a TECO line car in front © Peter K Burian/cc-by-sa-4.0

Ybor City is a historic neighborhood just northeast of downtown Tampa, Florida, United States. It was founded in the 1880s by Vicente Martinez-Ybor and other cigar manufacturers and populated by thousands of immigrants, mainly from Cuba, Spain, and Italy. For the next 50 years, workers in Ybor City’s cigar factories rolled hundreds of millions of cigars annually.   read more…

The USS Niagara

1 July 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: Tall ships, Yacht of the Month Reading Time:  9 minutes

USS Niagara in Quebec City, Canada © Cephas/cc-by-sa-4.0

USS Niagara in Quebec City, Canada © Cephas/cc-by-sa-4.0

USS Niagara, commonly called the US Brig Niagara or the Flagship Niagara, is a wooden-hulled snow-brig that served as the relief flagship for Oliver Hazard Perry in the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812. As the ship is certified for sail training by the United States Coast Guard, she is also designated SSV Niagara. Niagara is usually docked behind the Erie Maritime Museum in downtown Erie in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania as an outdoor exhibit for the museum. She also often travels the Great Lakes during the summer, serving as an ambassador of Pennsylvania when not docked. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 and was designated the official state ship of Pennsylvania by the Pennsylvania General Assembly in 1988.   read more…

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