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33
Before every birthday I like to look back at the previous year and take inventory. 33 isn't a particular monumental birthday, but every one is in it's own way, especially the way that says "hey be glad you aren't dead." I also just objectively like the number 3—I was born on the 31st, and every address I've ever had contained at least one 3.
It's tempting to say that my life hasn't changed significantly between ages 32 and 33, although of course that's untrue. We make life-changing decisions every single day whether we realize it at the time or not. Sometimes big things turn out to be small things and the small things turn out to be the big things and if we're lucky we'll realize that it's only with time that we actually know the difference.
A photo of my 30th birthday celebration popped up on Facebook yesterday, and out of the thirteen people (and one dog) in attendance, only five (myself included) still live in New York. We're all still friends, but moving changes you, just as you're changed by the movement of others. In fact, I think it is only through others that we really change.
Francesca and I have made a tradition of having our auras read in Chinatown, whenever things are feeling unsettled and every year at the around same time. During our most recent session, I went first and after we were both done the woman who had taken our photographs couldn't locate Francesca's. She took her photo again, but as mine was being read Francesca noticed that the shirt in my photograph was actually hers—it was a double exposure of both of us.
We are all double (and triple, and quadruple) exposures—nothing but a collection of other people's stories, fed through our own internal Wonka Wash, forwards and backwards until we believe them to be our own. My own story has hundreds of pages where nothing much happens, bright spots when the words seem to leap off the page and dance around, and dark chapters where the narrative rambles and seems lost forever. But I wouldn't be me without all of the people I've met, all of the books I've read and the countless other influences—both obvious and subconscious—that I've encountered over the last 33 years.
After we realized the mistake, Francesca asked that my photo be taken again, and the above is the result. Wholly different than the one before, no longer a mixture of two auras but purely mine. I am who I am because of the influence of others, but the sum of those parts is unique to me. I can't replicate the last 33 years and I can't possibly predict the next 33. But I feel more and more confident every day in who I am and extraordinarily grateful for every single person, place and thing that I carry inside of me.
Tiny World
Ernest Helm, creator of Tiny World in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, died in October of 2015 at the age of 91. He had been working on Tiny World since after he retired in the early '80s. His first tiny building was a Victorian-style “cat house” for the multiple cats that (still) roam his property. Tiny World includes everything you'd need in a town, inspired by buildings from Helm's life—a gas station, church, mill, general store, water tower, outhouses, a school, log cabins, a restaurant, a barn, fire station and several tiny homes.
Since his death, Tiny World has been maintained by Helm's daughter and son-in-law, Wendell Myers. It's a bit overgrown, the plexiglass windows have clouded. It's a shame because each structure has an equally detailed interior to match its exterior, complete with tiny versions of furniture, food and artwork. Myers worked on the village with Helm, and the two added electricity to the buildings.
For someone who wasn't trained in carpentry or the arts, Helm certainly had an eye for creating miniatures. I particularly love the tiny shingles (presumably cut down from real shingles), the teeny shutters and decorative railings. I've always had a soft spot for miniatures and I once spent a summer making furnishings for a dollhouse (found in this book) that I never had. I also like things that are bigger than they should be, but miniatures are significantly easier to make and collect.
I don't know if Tiny World gets much day traffic since Helm is no longer creating new structures, but the Christmas lights, decorations and train display still attract a large crowd at the end of each year. In addition to several (very friendly) cats, the property is also home to a few peacocks. Tiny World doesn't charge an entrance fee and although our visit was brief, I made sure to drop a small donation in the box. "We're not doing it to make money, we're doing it because we enjoy it and we like to see people enjoying it," Myers said.
Roadside America has a great article about visiting Helm and his creations—my favorite part is the reason Helm gave for building Tiny World: "It was something to do." I love novelty architecture and big roadside statues, but my favorite part about these road trips is rapidly becoming places like Tiny World. Ernest Helm didn't create Tiny World to become Instagram famous or to please anyone but his cats. He needed a way to fill time and he ended up creating a perfect little place that people can continue to enjoy—even if Helm is no longer a part of our tiny world.
Tiny World
6720 Rice Road
Shippensburg, Pennsylvania 17257
Recent Reads
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, by Barbara Ehrenreich
After I read Ehrenreich's latest book, Natural Causes, a few people recommended that I read Nickel and Dimed. Not too long after, I was browsing the dollar section at the Strand and found a copy. I'm fascinated by the income gap in this country and I think everyone should read anything they can to educate themselves on extreme income inequality and the struggles of the working poor—but at times I was frustrated with Ehrenreich's privileged viewpoint and the somewhat shallow nature of her "experiment." I also worked at McDonald's for 4.5 years so I'm no stranger to low wage work, but it's still shocking and devastating to read about just how impossible it can be to just live for so many hardworking people in this country.
Electric Woman: A Memoir in Death-Defying Acts, by Tessa Fontaine
Tessa Fontaine's mother has a devastating stroke, and while she's still in recovery Tessa decides to join the last traveling sideshow in the country. Fontaine goes back and forth between her mother's struggle (past and present) and amusing anecdotes from the sideshow life. I've always been fascinated by sideshows and Fontaine's observations as a newcomer and outsider never seem exploitative. The parts about her mother are heart wrenching and I teared up while reading on more than on occasion. The relationship between mother and daughter is messy and raw but ultimately transformative, mirrored in her season spent on the road learning to eat fire, handle snakes and swallow swords with the sideshow.
All The Lovely Bad Ones: A Ghost Story, by Mary Downing Hahn
Mary Downing Hahn wrote some of my favorite YA books—Stepping on the Cracks, December Stillness and Wait Till Helen Comes—so when I saw this book in a free box on the curb I grabbed it. None of the YA books I've read as an adult by authors that I cherished as a child have had the same impact on me, but they are still fun, quick reads. I have such vivid memories of reading Hahn's books (over and over again) and she is no doubt one of the reasons why I fell in love with reading. I know that if I had read All The Lovely Bad Ones as a kid, I would have loved it just as much as the others.
Bad Ones is a ghost story (like most of Hahn's books) featuring a brother, a sister, a grandmother and a haunted inn. When I was a kid I would have identified with the younger sister, but now I found myself more on the side of the adults who booked a night in the historic inn just to catch a glimpse of the alleged ghosts.
Crazy Rich Asians, by Kevin Kwan
With all the hype surrounding the movie adaptation, I thought I should read the book before I saw the movie. I almost always like books more than their big screen counterparts, but that's not the case here because I didn't love Crazy Rich Asians (the book). It started off promising—and I was hooked into the story from the very beginning—but the more I read the more I became frustrated with the stilted dialogue, shallow characters and just plain bad writing. I wasn't expecting CRA to be great, highbrow literature, but I also wasn't expecting it to be so poorly written.
I did finish the book just to see what happened to Rachel and Nick (the only characters I really cared much about), but the ending felt rushed and saddled with one too many surprise plot twists—that is, if you can even consider the last page of this book to be an ending. I won't be reading the next two in the series, but I am looking forward to seeing the movies—I think this may be the rare exception where you can skip the book and just catch the movie instead.
The Secret History of Magic: The True Story of the Deceptive Art, by Peter Lamont and Jim Steinmeyer
I almost didn't pick this book up at the library when it became available so soon after I finished Steinmeyer's somewhat underwhelming biography of Howard Thurston, The Last Greatest Magician (you can read my review of that one here). Out of the two, this was the better book and I would recommend it if you have an interest in the art of magic itself. They don't say too much about individual magicians (which I was glad for), but rather try to pin down the somewhat mysterious history of how magic has been presented and received throughout the years and around the world.
Certain phrases were repeated often throughout the book—sometimes multiple times on the same page—which I suppose was done for emphasis but just struck me as bad writing. Maybe the biggest lesson that I learned from reading nearly 700 pages about magic is that, while I love the vintage show posters and all ephemera from that era, I'm just not all that interested in the magic tricks themselves.
Travel Guide: Savannah
I haven't explored as much of the South as I would have liked to by now, but I've been to Savannah, Georgia several times and each time I'm charmed more than the last. My last visit was in September of 2015, when we took advantage of cheap-ish airfare and a long weekend thanks to Jewish holidays (oh how I'll miss having those days off this September). Savannah is full of history and beautiful neighborhoods, but it's relatively small and walkable, making it the perfect place to go if you only have a few days to spare.
GETTING THERE:
I see airfare deals to Savannah quite often, sometimes as low as under $100 roundtrip (from New York). The best part about visiting Savannah for us was how walkable the city is—we didn't ever feel the need to rent a car or even use public transit, although that is an option. We did use Uber once, to get to and from Bonaventure Cemetery, but if you're more of a tour person transportation to the cemetery (located a few miles outside of the city center) is usually included.
WHAT TO DO:
I've read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil several times, and it's a must-read if you're thinking of visiting Savannah (or even if you're not). So many places in the book are still around and Brendt does such an excellent job of capturing the vibe of Savannah and its eccentric residents. The Mercer Williams House would be a great place to visit just for its history and architecture, but of course it was also the scene of a notorious murder. Just don't ask too many questions about its sordid history on the tour—my uncle was once admonished by a tour guide and instructed that we were on a strictly "architectural tour" (yeah, ok).
Danny Hansford (shot by the owner of the house, Jim Williams) and Williams (who died of heart failure in the study) are not the only people to die tragically in the house. In 1969, before Williams bought the house, 11-year-old Tommy Downs entered the then-abandoned house on a hunt for pigeons. Downs fell from either the roof or second-story balcony and landed on the wrought-iron fence. The spiked top lodged in his head and has never been replaced.
Bonaventure Cemetery isn't easily accessible from the historical downtown unless you have a car, take a tour or use a car service like Uber. We chose to do the latter since we wanted to be able to explore at our leisure and it was most definitely worth it (and very cheap). Bonaventure still ranks at the top of the most beautiful cemeteries I've visited, and is a quintessential Southern burial ground, with Spanish-moss draped trees and elaborate monuments covering the grounds.
If you don't have time to go out to Bonaventure, you can get your historic cemetery fix without leaving the city. Colonial Park is the oldest intact municipal cemetery in Savannah—it opened around 1750 and closed to burials in 1853, before the start of the Civil War. The cemetery grounds are open until 8pm on most days, and it's full of historical markers telling the stories of some of its more notable residents.
The 30-acre Forsyth Park is the largest park located in the historic district, Savannah's version of Central Park. A large fountain, built in 1858, sits at the north end of the park and on St. Patrick’s Day, the water in the fountain is dyed green during a popular ceremony.
Alex Raskin has been filling the tastefully crumbling Noble Hardee Mansion (located across the square from the Mercer Williams House) with antiques for more than 25 years. It's both a shop and free house tour in one, and if I could I would purchase not only the house, but everything in it (especially the mannequins and framed photographs) I wouldn't change a thing.
There are many ghost tours to choose from in Savannah, consistently named one of America's most haunted cities. Do I believe most of the stories that they tell you on these tours? Not really. But I'm always looking for things to do after dark, and ghost tours are a great way to see parts of the city (within the safety of a group)—if you extract the history from the legends they can be both entertaining and informative.
The Isaiah Davenport house, built in 1820, is one of the oldest brick structures in the city. The American Federal-style house is also a museum, containing artifacts mainly from 1820-1827. When the house was threatened with demolition in 1955, a group joined forces to purchase the Davenport House. This would come to be known as the first act of the Historic Savannah Foundation, which has since gone on to save hundreds buildings in the city. The first floor of the house was restored and opened to the public as a museum in 1963.
River Street
Along the Savannah River you'll find century-old warehouses that have been converted to antique shops, souvenir stores, art galleries, restaurants, bars and hotels. You can get your fortune read by a pirate, squish a souvenir penny and try a praline sample (or two). I did get pooped on by a bird while standing outside of a shop on River Street, so be vigilant—and always use historic steps at your own risk.
This charming bookstore opened in 1978 and is Savannah's only full-service, independently-owned new and used books bookstore. They have more than 50,000 books spanning 40 genres and they're packed onto shelves, tables and staircases. I couldn't resist taking home a copy of Savannah Spectres and Other Strange Tales.
WHERE TO EAT:
I'm going to recommend that you eat at the Olde Pink House, located inside of a Georgian mansion built in 1771, despite the fact that I'm pretty sure I got food poisoning from my burger. The building, one of the few to survive the fire of 1796, is said to be haunted (like most other buildings in Savannah) and I also had a strange experience on the way to the bathroom when I felt as if I had been briefly pushed down the stairs. But, poisoning and pushing aside, the Olde Pink House is classic Savannah—make reservations and maybe (definitely) pass on the burger.
You know I can't travel to a new place without at least one diner breakfast. Clary's Cafe, established in 1903, has everything I look for in a classic diner—local clientele, good signage and breakfast menu staples served all day. It's also featured in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and was a filming location for the movie.
We had a delicious introductory meal at The Pirates' House, a tavern and restaurant established in 1753. A portion of the structure was built in 1734, making it the oldest building still standing in the state of Georgia. We had the buffet and it was full of perfect Southern dishes—mac n' cheese, collard greens, fried chicken, fried okra, cornbread, peach cobbler. After our meal were asked if we wanted a tour of the property by a pirate—a former New Yorker and SVA grad named Chris—who told us tales of underground tunnels, drunken sailors and haint blue paint.
Want to know even more about Savannah? You can see all of my individual Savannah posts here.
Happy Friday!
Illustration by Lindsey Frances | More from Arthur Avenue
Things that happened recently:
Despite his claim that he was only going to hire the best people, Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was charged on Tuesday with eight counts of fraud at the same time that Trump's former lawyer, Michael "the fixer" Cohen plead guilty to tax evasion and bank fraud. Here's what that means for Trump—is it too soon to whip up a batch of these?
I think it's pretty obvious by now that Melania can't stand her husband (join the club) but has she actually been trolling him all along?
Meryl Streep is selling her New York City penthouse, if anyone has an extra $24.6 million to loan me (and I just bought tickets to see her interview Tracey Ullman at the Tribeca TV festival).
Things to do in New York this week:
Saturday is another Jazz Age Lawn Party at Governors Island, but if the ticket price is too steep just go to the island and watch/listen from outside the fence.
Cole Escola is currently preforming a few shows at the Public Theater and the entire run is sold out but sometimes tickets become available the day of the performance (we're going this Saturday night).
Sunday is the third annual goat beauty pageant at Fort Wadsworth in Staten Island (how did I miss the first two??).
Things I've discovered recently:
I will literally read anything remotely related to Samantha Irby, and if you haven't read her first or second collection of essays, remedy that immediately.
Just a friendly reminder that my birthday is in exactly one week.
I've definitely been in a post-road trip depression this week, but the cooler weather has been helping to lift my mood. I have plans to see the New York Historical Society Summer of Magic exhibit tonight (it's pay-what-you-wish on Fridays from 6-8pm). I'm also planning on seeing Crazy Rich Asians—even if I didn't love the book—and maybe I'll even make it out to Staten Island for the goat beauty pageant. Next Friday is my birthday and we're taking another little road trip for a few days so I'll mostly just be enjoying my couch (and forced Mozart snuggles) this weekend. I have an enormous stack of library books to start working my way through (I started this one yesterday) and is it even a weekend if I don't have at least one diner breakfast?? Have a great weekend!
House of Collection
The second I heard about the House of Collection, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, I knew I had to find a way to see inside of the 2,000-square-foot loft often called "a live-in cabinet of curiosities." Luckily, my mom and I were able to take a tour of the private apartment via the New York Adventure Club, and as soon as we walked through her front door, I felt at home with Paige Stevenson and her eclectic style.
Stevenson moved into the then 5,000-square-foot loft almost 30 years ago, when Williamsburg was far from becoming the desirable neighborhood that it is today. She shared the former factory space with as many as 12 other people, but in 1996 the apartment was divided and Stevenson has lived alone or with a partner (and a few cats) ever since. She recently won a 12-year-long court battle to keep the property rent stabilized, and she told the Times in 2011 that she expected "to pay about $2,000 a month in rent."
Most of the pieces in Stevenson's home are found, gifted or donated. She has a preference for metal objects, and she has hundreds tools in various stages of rustiness hung in intricate displays above her couch and in her kitchen. There's a loose method to her madness: if something catches her eye, she'll keep it. She has taxidermy, old photographs, medical objects, mannequins, cash registers, chemistry glass, skulls, dolls, books, vintage clothing, a jungle of living plants and pretty much anything and everything else you can imagine in her ever-evolving collection.
You might not guess by her offbeat tastes in decor, but Stevenson is a bookkeeper by trade. She also rents the loft as an event space and had just finished up a movie shoot in the days before we visited. She sees the house as a gathering space for friends and strangers alike, and said that if you know the address, you're invited to the Easter and Thanksgiving pot-luck dinners that she hosts annually (my mom and I are very seriously considering taking her up on the offer).
Stevenson gave us a guided tour, answered our questions and also let us explore on our own. You could spend days inside of the apartment and just scratch the surface of what she has collected. Someone on our tour asked her how she possible keeps up with all of the dusting and her answer was simple: she doesn't. Stevenson's tastes are obviously not for everyone, but I am enamored with people who live unapologetically on the margins of what society deems as "normal."
I jump on any opportunity I get to see inside of someone's living space, and I think the way that people choose to live says a lot about who they are and what's important to them. New York City is full of interesting people packed into non-traditional spaces and I wish there was a way for me to take a peek inside of every single one of them.
New York is also the perfect place to curate a collection of found objects—apartments as large as this loft are a rarity and stoop sales or taking a carload of donations to Goodwill are often too much of a hassle. I've found several excellent pieces in the trash that I've given a new life to, and I've had to pass on countless others simply because I don't have the space or the means to transport them. I'm glad there are people in the world like Paige Stevenson to give these discarded and overlooked objects a place to shine.
Tucumcari
Both of our flight times changed on our return flights from Albuquerque, which resulted in me dropping JMP off at the airport at around noon. I didn't have to be back to the airport for my flight until 11:30 pm, and I had the rental car until then, so I headed east along Route 66 to Tucumcari, New Mexico.
Tucumcari was founded in 1901 as a construction camp for the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad. The camp was called Ragtown and then Six Shooter Siding before being formerly renamed Tucumcari, after a nearby mountain, in 1908. It's the largest city on Route 66 between Amarillo, Texas and Albuquerque, with a population of less than 5,000 as of 2016.
In its heyday, the town attracted Route 66 travelers to one of its 2000 motel rooms with billboards for miles in each direction proclaiming "Tucumcari Tonite!" They later adopted the tagline "Gateway to the West," but voted to return to their previous slogan in 2008 (a scene including one of the billboards is painted on the side of the Blue Swallow Motel).
I didn't have time to spare, but I easily could have spent days exploring the abundance of abandoned businesses and neon signs that line both sides of the road. I raced from sign to sign—getting in and out of my blissfully air conditioned car—and I eventually became so overwhelmed (and overheated) that I stopped for lunch at Del's, in business since 1956. The only other place I went inside of was Tepee Curios, a former Gulf gas station, where I bought a tepee pin and squished a souvenir penny.
While most of the motels and restaurants appear to be abandoned, and the status of some businesses wasn't immediately clear, Tucumcari—somewhat improbably—lives on. Although I didn't have time to visit any of them, Tucumcari has four museums: Mesalands Dinosaur Museum, Route 66 Museum, Tucumcari Historical Museum and the Railroad Museum, and several historic motels are still welcoming road-weary travelers to spend the night.
I only spent a few hours driving the 2.5 mile stretch through town, but Tucumcari was by far my favorite stop along Route 66. If I had an extra night, I would have loved to have spent it in the 100% refrigerated air of the Blue Swallow Motel, serving travelers along the Mother Road since 1939. The neon signs are beautiful in the daytime, but I won't feel complete until I also see them lit up at night.
Buffalo Central Terminal
Before our trip to Buffalo I reached out to a few people asking for any hot tips on abandoned spots to explore. There's a tendency in the "urbex" (I hate that word) community to keep spots secret, which annoys me even though I logically understand the reasoning. The Buffalo Central Terminal came up in conversation and while I was researching, I discovered that—while it has sat "abandoned" for some time—it's been owned and cared for by the Central Terminal Restoration Corporation since 1997. Once a month they offer tours for $15 and we were lucky that the tour fell on our last day in town (although we did have to leave early, ironically, to catch our train).
Although the idea for Buffalo Central Terminal was in the works for more than 40 years, construction began in 1925 and the terminal officially opened in 1929. The 17-story, Art Deco-style station was designed by the same architect that designed Grand Central Terminal, Alfred T. Fellheimer. The complex comprises several interconnected structures, including concourses, an office tower, baggage building and mail building. A Pullman Company service building, an ice house, a coach shop and a power station were torn down over the years to lower property taxes.
The terminal hosted trains from the New York Central Railroad (its owner) as well as from the Canadian National Railway, Pennsylvania Railroad, and the Toronto, Hamilton & Buffalo Railway. Right after opening it was servicing 200 trains daily, although almost immediately the Great Depression and the rise of the automobile led to a decline in train traffic. In 1956 the terminal was put up for sale for $1 million.
With the creation of Amtrak in 1971, service was restored to Niagara Falls and Toronto via the Maple Leaf, but the station was simply too big and expensive to maintain. In 1979 Amtrak opened the much smaller Buffalo-Depew station, and the last train departed the Central Terminal at 4:10 am on October 28, 1979.
The terminal was sold to Anthony T. Fedele for $75,000, but when he defaulted on his taxes in 1986, the property was put up for auction and sold to Thomas Telesco—the only bidder—for $100,000. He had plans for a banquet hall or to return train service to the building, but those fell through and the building transferred hands once again. Anything of value was taken from the structure and sold for scrap, aiding in its decay. The building wasn't secured and vandalism was rampant. At the beginning of the tour, our guide asked people to raise their hands if they'd previously visited the terminal, and when he asked "how many of you came here when you weren't supposed to?" most of the hands stayed raised.
The Central Terminal Restoration Corporation has done a lot over the years to rehab the terminal, but a lot of work remains. In 2005, the concourse clock was found in an antique shop, purchased thanks to a public fundraising effort and returned to the terminal in 2009. Repair and restoration of the roof was completed in 2015, signs are being repainted and fixtures are slowly being found and returned.
In 2016 the terminal was a backdrop to both a Goo Goo Dolls music video and scenes from the movie Marshall, the production of which contributed $90,000 in cosmetic improvements to the concourse. While I would have loved to explore it on my own back when it was truly abandoned, I'm always happy when a grand old ruin gets a second (or third, or fourth) chance.
Buffalo Central Terminal
495 Paderewski Drive
Buffalo, NY 14212
Happy Friday!
Illustration by Lindsey Frances
Things that happened recently:
There are currently (at least) two "Instagram experience" spaces open in New York right now: Candytopia in midtown and Color Factory in SoHo (a few blocks from where I work). I love taking photos but there's something about these places (and anything that is made exclusively for social media) that just rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it's the fact that people are ruining beautiful places and even dying just to get that 'gram. Instagram didn't make people assholes, but the time we spend online is definitely changing our brains.
RIP to the Queen of Soul.
Last week I mentioned this crazy story about how the McDonald's Monopoly game was rigged, and I wasn't the only one who thought it would make a great movie—the article ignited a bidding war, and it was optioned for $1 million by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck's production company. Speaking of crazy stories, they might have figured out the real identity of notorious plane hijacker DB Cooper (here's a great book about the case, if you're not familiar).
Things to do in New York this week:
It seems like I'm always missing the Coney Island Sand Sculpting Contest, which is happening this Saturday between the beach and the boardwalk (I'll be out of town, sad!).
Also in Coney Island on Saturday: Tessa Fontaine will be at the Coney Island Sideshow reading from, and signing copies of, her excellent memoir.
Does anyone want to figure out how to get to the New York Renaissance Faire—running on weekends until September 30th in Tuxedo, NY—with me? I went to one in Texas once and it was so much more fun than I had expected.
Things that I've discovered recently:
I can't wait for the second season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (but I still hate the "retro" typeface they use in the promos).
I want to live the life of Jerry and Rita Alter, an unassuming couple that somehow traveled the world on one teacher's salary and died with $1 million in the bank. Oh, and they had a stolen Willem de Kooning painting valued at $150 million hanging behind their bedroom door because they were probably art thieves (make sure to watch the video, which has strange production values but is fascinating—and someone please make a movie about the Alters).
I most definitely do not need more books to read, but I'm saving this list of the 100 best thrillers of all time.
My mom and I are (hopefully) on the road—or on New Jersey transit on the way to pick up a rental car from Newark—as you read this. Since I no longer get most of September or October off work due to the Jewish holidays, I'm taking advantage of my second-to-last (😩) summer Friday and we're hitting the road until Sunday. When we got back from our trip last October, I realized that we missed this amazing place by literally ten minutes and I've been planning how to get back ever since. We'll be staying in Gettysburg tonight and stepping back in time at the Kookwink Motel tomorrow night with a lot of fun stops in between. I'm never happier than when I'm hunting down silly roadside attractions, and you can follow along via my Instagram stories if you're interested (or just wait for the onslaught of blog posts in the coming weeks). Have a great weekend!
Montoya Cemetery
As I was driving back to Albuquerque from my whirlwind tour of Tucumcari (and before I explored Santo Niño Cemetery), I stopped at Montoya Cemetery, another randomly selected stop found with the Find A Grave app. Montoya Cemetery was established in 1910 and it's located right along Route 66, about halfway in between Tucumcari and Santa Rosa.
Montoya Cemetery is literally a roadside cemetery, sandwiched between the highway and a smaller road. Not a single car drove by on the smaller road while I poked around, although it seemed like a nicely maintained burial ground. The town of Montoya was founded in 1902 as a loading point for the Southern Pacific Railroad. Not much remains of the town, except a few crumbling structures, but Richardson’s Store and Sinclair Station—open from 1925 until the '70s —was once a popular stopping point during Route 66's heyday.
The most recent burial I could find occurred in 2015, but a lot of the birth dates are from the late 1800s. Like other desert cemeteries I visited on my trip, Montoya is full of unique markers—wooden crosses, crudely carved cement tombstones, picket fences and more contemporary granite stones are scattered around the dusty plot of land.
Montoya would be a peaceful spot if it weren't for the occasional rumble of a semi-truck speeding nearby, but it was the perfect place to pull off the road and stretch my legs for a few minutes. Although I didn't get photos, while I was trying to find out the history of the cemetery, I found the intriguing epitaphs of Eliseo (Lee) J. Sanchez and his wife, Gregorita Agapita Garcia Sanchez. His: "He Walked in Sunshine" / Hers: "And She Took Care of the Rain."
Jack Rabbit Trading Post
Most of the trading posts that we explored on our trip along Route 66 in Arizona and New Mexico have been abandoned for many years. I had been aware of the bight yellow "Here It Is" sign for the Jack Rabbit trading post, but I didn't know until we arrived that the trading post is still very much in business.
The Jack Rabbit Trading Post was built by James Taylor (not the famous one) along Route 66 in 1949. Along with the owner of the For Men Only store, Taylor drove up Route 66 as far as Springfield, Missouri, erecting billboards on the way featuring hopping rabbits and dancing cowgirls. For more than 1,000 miles, travelers were urged to stop at the Jack Rabbit and the For Men Only store, with the billboards culminating with the iconic “Here It Is” sign (much like my very favorite roadside attraction, South of the Border, with its best billboard proclaiming "Where the Hell is South of the Border?").
Most of the other billboards are gone now, but the Here It Is sign remains. The sign still comprises most of the original boards from 1949, and each side is repainted every few years (a recent restoration took 27 days). A version of the Jack Rabbit Trading Post was featured in Disney-Pixar’s Cars in 2006, and Henry's Rabbit Ranch in Staunton, Illinois uses a similar rabbit logo with the tagline, "Hare It Is."
Taylor leased the trading post to Glen Blansett in 1961, and Blansett passed it on to his son and daughter-in-law. They eventually sold it to their daughter and son-in-law, Cynthia and Antonio Jaquez, who still operate the Jack Rabbit today. After a while most of the trading posts begin to blend together—we saw enough moccasins and petrified wood to last us a lifetime—but each of us managed to find several things at the Jack Rabbit that we couldn't live without.
The Jack Rabbit isn't as large or flashy as some of the other trading posts you'll come across, but it was definitely my favorite of all the ones that we stopped into (the ones still in business, anyway). I love the Jack Rabbit logo so much that I bought postcards, a pennant, a pin and a t-shirt and I've regretted not buying a mug every single day since.
Jack Rabbit Trading Post
3386 Route 66
Winslow, Arizona, 86047
Abandoned Church
Before we explored the abandoned Wonder Bread factory in Buffalo, we started the morning by going to church. I wasn't raised religious and I've only attended church services a few times with my grandma, but the chance to explore a grand, crumbling abandoned church is something I obviously couldn't pass up.
It wasn't immediately obvious what denomination this church was built for—at least not to me, someone who knows absolutely nothing about religions. I always try to research the buildings we explore afterwards, and I discovered that this was a Roman Catholic Church. The parish was founded in 1908 in an area heavily populated with German Catholics. The Romanesque style church, modeled after the Cathedral of Aachen in Aachen, Germany, was built from 1911-1928 with Ohio sandstone.
By 1914 the congregation had nearly 1,500 members and the 170-foot-tall church could seat 1,200 people. Changing neighborhood demographics caused membership to decline through the years, and the last Catholic mass was held here in 1993. In 1998 the building was sold for $22,000 to World Wide Bible Deliverance Inc., a religious group that neglected—and eventually abandoned—the building.
Beginning in 2006, the church was sold or acquired by several different people over the years, during which anything that could be ripped out of the building (radiators, copper flashing from the roof, etc.) was sold for scrap. The church has been listed in the city's yearly tax auction for several years, but remains for sale.
Because the church has had such a tumultuous ownership history, there isn't much left inside, but it's still a beautiful building to explore (and surprisingly light on graffiti). There are a few small stained glass windows that remain partially intact and large plaster angels stand guard from the edges of the domed ceiling. A beautifully hand-painted safe stands to the left of the altar in a side room, only remaining because it was obviously too heavy to think about moving.
The choir loft is still accessible and has one remaining wooden pew and the remnants of an organ. There is a skinny, rickety wooden ladder that looks as if it could deposit you onto the roof or into the bell tower, but the stairs were caked in mounds of pigeon droppings so we decided not to risk the climb.
A lot of the abandoned buildings and properties we explore are technically for sale—either by private owners or the city—but I always wonder if any of them eventually sell and avoid demolition or collapse. The optimistic real estate listing for this church claims that this property "has amazing possibilities!" and that it "could be converted for use as community center, apartments or office space." It concludes with a warning to not "let this wonderful example of architectural history pass you by!"
Happy Friday!
Diner illustration by Lindsey Frances
Things that happened recently:
The Ohio special election is still too close to call, but I'm holding out hope that Ohio won't disappoint me (despite nearly 33 years of evidence to the contrary).
This Kathleen Turner interview is giving me life this week and making me want to watch this again. Other things making me happy this week: Lucy Sparrow's felt grocery store (I was obsessed with the New York iteration, her felt bodega); the Coney Island sideshow is about to sell its millionth ticket and it's one of only two remaining stationary sideshows in the country (a fact that I learned this week while reading this excellent memoir); this article about working in a sex toy shop was surprisingly thoughtful (and lead me to read this article about the female price of male pleasure, which I think should be required reading for literally everybody).
Apparently part of the plan to Make America Great Again is to bring back asbestos, a known carcinogen and all-around bad thing.
Things to do in New York this week:
It's Honey Weekend at Wave Hill, but honestly any weekend in the summer is a good time to visit this gorgeous spot in the Bronx.
I have plans on Monday to see The Spy Who Dumped Me, and I've been preparing by watching and reading all of the Kate McKinnon interviews I can find (here she is recently on Today, an oldie but goodie episode of Ellen, and, of course, this beyond brilliant Carol parody).
I keep seeing photos of Aloha Nights at the New York Botanical Garden (an after-hours celebration in conjunction with their current exhibition, Georgia O’Keeffe: Visions of Hawai‘i) and it looks like it's a lot of fun. The exhibition runs until the end of October, but the last Aloha Night is September 1st.
Things I've discovered recently:
This Daily Beast article about how an ex-cop rigged the McDonald's Monopoly game (for years!) and stole millions is long, but it's such a crazy story that I hadn't heard about even though I worked at McDonald's (for four years!) while this was all going on.
I recently started reading this book in anticipation of the movie and I was hooked from the very beginning.
Sabrina passed along this trailer for Lizzie, an upcoming movie about Lizzie Borden staring Chloë Sevigny and Kristen Stewart and I can't wait for it. I still think about our trip to the Borden house (and Oak Grove Cemetery) all the time, and I hope to stay overnight someday.
I actually have zero plans for this weekend as of right now and I'm totally fine with that. It's been so hot and humid here that I have no motivation to do anything except sit inside of an air conditioned room, hating every single piece of clothing I own. Next weekend my mom and I are headed out on a little three-day road trip, so I'm putting the finishing touches on our plans and looking forward to all of the diners, big things and abandoned delights in my future. The weather forecast is showing high 80's for the foreseeable future, but I'm over here like. Have a great weekend and I hope it's less oppressively hot wherever you are!
Old St. Mary Cemetery
I had been to a few of the well-known cemeteries in Philadelphia—Christ Church Burial Ground and Mount Moriah—but it wasn't until my recent trip that I realized I should check out the Find A Grave app to see if there were any other little city churchyards I was missing. I had some time after my City Hall tour and before we had to catch our train, so I searched the app and headed to the closest cemetery, Old St. Mary's.
I've been frustrated in Philly (and other cities) before when I trekked to a cemetery only to encounter a locked gate, but I'm always cautiously optimistic. At first it appeared as if I had struck out at St. Mary's, but I circled the block and found an open gate near the parking lot.
Old St. Mary's Church was established in 1763, and in 1782 a parish school—the first in America to be connected to a Catholic church—opened and remains in operation today. It was the first Roman Catholic cathedral in Philadelphia and worshippers included George Washington, John Adams and several members of the Continental Congress (they officially attended services here four times from 1777 to 1781). The church also hosted the first public religious commemoration of the Declaration of Independence.
The cemetery was established in 1759 and the oldest legible tombstone belongs to Arthur Cample, who died on June 11, 1769. After the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793, the cemetery was enlarged by adding an extra layer of soil to the ground level. As a result of the epidemic, an orphanage was established for children that had been found wandering the streets. The Roman Catholic Society for Educating and Maintaining Poor Orphan Children (phew) was run by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Charity, who assisted the city during another epidemic (cholera) in 1832. At least one of these orphans and several Sisters are buried beneath a worn stone with the words "orphan asylum" still visible.
Other notable burials include Thomas Fitzsimons, a deputy from Pennsylvania to the Continental Congress and signer of the Constitution; Anthony Quervelle, a cabinetmaker chosen by Andrew Jackson to design tables for the East Room of the White House; Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's great-great-grandfather Michael Bouvier; Commodore John Barry, father of the American Navy; and the Honorable James Campbell, who, in his 81 years of life, managed to be the Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, Attorney General of Pennsylvania and Postmaster General of the United States.
Old St. Mary's Cemetery
252 S. 4th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
Travel Guide: City Island
City Island, the Seaport of the Bronx, is what you would get if you crossed a New England seaside village with the Bronx. There are city busses, a post office, a branch of the New York Public Library and city trash cans on the sidewalks. But there are also rambling Shingle-style mansions, boat and fishing supply stores and more seafood restaurants per mile than probably anywhere else within New York City limits. The population is under 5,000 and it's a strange place to visit in the summer when everything is (mostly) open—in the off-season it feels downright post-apocalyptic.
GETTING THERE:
City Island is fully accessible by public transit—depending on where you're coming from, it might take a while but trust me it's worth it! Take the 6 train all the way to the end of the line, to the Pelham Bay Park stop in the Bronx. Catch the Bx29 bus right outside of the train station, and that will take you to City Island in just a few minutes. You can get off at the northern end, just over the bridge (a newer, less charming bridge opened in 2017), or ride the bus all the way to the southern end and walk back. The island is only 1.5 miles long and half a mile wide, but you can take the Bx29 while you're on the island too (or use a car service).
WHAT TO DO:
The City Island Nautical Museum is open every Saturday and Sunday from 1-5pm and admission is only $5. Stop here first and learn about the island's rich nautical history from boat races to sail making. When I first visited back in 2014, three out of the four people working there were named Barbara.
Pelham Cemetery is on the eastern shore of the island and it was established in the 1880s. There are older gravestones within its grounds, including well-known Pelham families, early settlers, and veterans of every war since the Civil War. There are a few entrances to the cemetery—including the main one with its beautiful archway—that are always locked, but keep looking until you find the one that is open (I didn't know this the first time I visited, but I figured it out on my second City Island trip).
A recently new addition to City Island, the people that bring tiny treasures to the Brooklyn Flea under the name dAN's Parents House opened a brick-and-mortar store in a crumbling, 150-year-old house on City Island Avenue (seen above before the restoration). I could have spent hours combing through their rooms filled with nostalgia, especially the drawers filled with vintage McDonald's toys and other intriguing little things.
Unfortunately this antique shop was closed on our most recent visit—a sign was posted that they had just stepped out for coffee but there was no indication that they planned on returning anytime soon. I've only been lucky enough to catch this store open once in the several times I've visited City Island, but what I saw made an impression—especially the 6-foot-tall, sombrero-wearing hot dog statue (which is still there if anyone wants to get me an early birthday present).
I'm not a rabid Wes Anderson fan, but I never pass up the opportunity to visit a famous New York filming location. This 1896 Shingle-style, sea captain's dream house is located on 21 Tier Street, and doubled as the Tenenbaums' summer home on Eagle's Island.
While not technically located on City Island, the Bartow-Pell Mansion is a good place to start your day in the Bronx before you head to the nearby island. Finished in 1842, the Bartow-Pell Mansion is a Greek Revival house is now part of Pelham Bay Park. The house opened as a museum in 1946 and guided or self-guided tours are offered Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday from 12 noon until 4pm for $8. There's even a small family cemetery located on the property, although it was damaged in March when a tree fell on it during a storm.
WHAT TO EAT:
I've never been to City Island early enough for breakfast, but I've kicked off several visits with meals at the City Island Diner. This classic diner, popular with locals, is also where Jerry Seinfeld took Ricky Gervais on an episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.
I don't eat seafood and a place where the ordering procedure is unclear is my personal hell, but I still can't help but love Johnny's Reef, located at the southern tip of City Island. They've been serving gut-busting baskets of fried everything (shrimp, onion rings, mozzarella sticks, clams, etc.) for 70 years—and I bet the seagulls have been swarming around their outdoor patio in quantities straight out of The Birds for just about as long.
If it's oppressively hot, like it often is when I visit City Island, Lickety Split is a great place to cool down with a generous scoop of ice cream and/or an iced coffee. They also have a (very small) restroom, which is never something I take for granted on all-day adventures.
Seafood Restaurants
While I can't vouch for any of these personally—and I'm also the worst person to ask about seafood restaurants—City Island's main industry now is undoubtedly food. There are several to choose from along City Island Avenue and there's stiff competition if you choose a restaurant like I do, by its signage.
See all of my individual posts on City Island here.
Two Guns
I had already been planning a road trip out west when Kaylah and Jeff invited me to their wedding. They got married at the ghost town, Two Guns, which was conveniently already on my road trip list (thanks to Kaylah, of course). After the short ceremony, JMP and I stuck around to explore the ruins and I can definitively say that it was the best wedding I have ever been to (and I don't see how any future weddings can possibly compete).
Two Guns is located 30 miles east of Flagstaff, Arizona on the rim of Canyon Diablo. In 1878, it was the site of a mass murder when Apaches hid from their Navajo enemies inside of a cave on the site—a fire was lit at the cave's entrance and 42 people were asphyxiated inside. This cave, now called the Apache Death Cave, is still accessible by a rickety ladder but we were totally fine admiring it from above ground (and via Kaylah's badass wedding photos). The Canyon Diablo Bridge opened in 1915 and was used until 1938; in 1988 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
In 1922, Earle and Louise Cundiff purchased the land and built a store, restaurant, and gas station. Three years later, Harry Miller leased the property from the Cundiffs and added a zoo, gift shop and post office, and began offering tours of the cave. In 1926, the highway that passed by Two Guns was renamed Route 66, and Miller shot and killed Cundiff during an argument (although Cundiff was unarmed, Miller was acquitted).
In the late '60s a motel, tavern, new zoo exhibits, Shell service station and a KOA campground were added to the site. The service station burned in 1971 and the site has sat abandoned ever since. My favorite part of Two Guns was the kidney-shaped swimming pool, which is now covered in colorful graffiti.
Two Guns is a great place to explore (or attend a wedding at) because you can travel through time via the ruins of all of its past lives. There are rumors that the site also contains buried treasure and more than one dead body, and the only person we saw while we were exploring was a (live) man slowly passing over the desert landscape with a metal detector.
Happy Friday!
Illustration by Lindsey Frances
Things that have happened recently:
A gay couple was forced to move seats so a straight couple could sit together on a plane recently. The two men refused, left the plane and Alaska Airlines has vowed to make it up to them. Meanwhile Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III has announced a "religious liberty task force," conservatives are using plastic straws to "own the libs," and everything is fine.
Three people tried to kidnap a shark—Miss Helen!—from the San Antonio Aquarium by sneaking it out in a baby stroller. Apparently sharks are the "it" accessory now for rich people and I can't possibly see how that could go wrong.
After 30 years of living in the Montauk Lighthouse, Margaret A. Winski is retiring. They've already found her replacement, but if the Little Red Lighthouse ever needs a resident, I'm available.
Things to do in New York this weekend:
Tonight is a Mystery After Dark candlelight tour of Historic Richmond Town in Staten Island. I've been to Richmond Town once, during the day, but I love spooky nighttime tours.
Murray's Cheese will be serving cheese ice cream (sounds delicious tbh, unlike mayo ice cream) at all of their New York locations until Sunday.
Saturday is the first of three Summer Streets days in August. Between 7am and 1pm, nearly seven miles from 72nd Street to City Hall are free of cars and open to pedestrians and bikers. Here are my photos from last year.
Things that I've discovered recently:
I love (and want) all of these Polish movie posters, especially this poodle one.
This new bridge in Vietnam looks like something straight out of my strange dreams.
My uncle and I have finally solidified our Egypt plans and so far I've read this book, purchased my first nice set of noise-cancelling headphones (it's a 10-hour flight, yikes), and I'm stocking up on memory cards. I still feel as if I have a million little things to do before we leave (in just two months!) but mostly I'm just looking forward to this view.
I have today off and for some reason I scheduled a dentist appointment at 9 am (😩). I'm also going to brave the DMV to renew my license, so maybe I'm actually doing this summer Friday thing all wrong (or very right?). Tomorrow three friends and I are going to take a tour of the Bartow-Pell Mansion in the Bronx, followed by a day spent exploring the delights of City Island. I've been to both before (mansion photos here, Pelham Cemetery and City Island in 2014, 2015, 2016) but I love revisiting places and seeing how they change (or stay the same). I'm sad they replaced the cute bridge, but I'm mostly interested in what became of this charming welcome sign (I'll report back). The weather looks a little iffy, but hopefully the rain holds off. I hope you have a great weekend!
Santo Niño Cemetery
On my last day in New Mexico, I had nearly a full day since my flight back to New York wasn't until after 11pm. I drove 2.5 hours east to Tucumcari, a place so perfect that I'm still too overwhelmed by it to even attempt to look at the obscene amount of photos I took in the short time I spent there. I can sometimes be obsessive about getting places on time—especially the airport—but I left enough time on the way back to squeeze in two cemeteries.
Santo Niño Cemetery is located just south of old Route 66, east of the Albuquerque city limit. It's located on a site that was once home to an Anasazi Pueblo village from A.D. 1100-1600 and a historic Hispanic settlement. It contains less than 300 interments and the oldest recorded burial dates from 1899.
I found the Santo Niño Cemetery via the Find A Grave App, which I've mentioned before. Sometimes I find the lack of information (and especially photos) frustrating, but it really is invaluable when I'm visiting a new place and I want to make sure I don't miss an interesting cemetery nearby. Cemeteries are usually just off the beaten path and I never want to find out after the fact that I missed out on a great one.
This cemetery was considerably smaller than the Rehoboth Mission Cemetery, but it was similarly picturesque with the mountains in the background. In a souvenir shop in New Mexico we saw a postcard that referred to Albuquerque as the "other mile-high city," and at 5312 feet, its elevation is higher than Denver. Also like Rehoboth, this desert cemetery was full of tiny little lizards darting around the grave markers (and scaring the shit out of me in the waning dusk light).
The cemetery is surrounded by a fence and a sign on the gate says that it's private but I don't think any of the residents minded that I poked around for a few minutes. I love how personal and unique each grave marker feels, especially compared to the uniform granite subdivision-like cemeteries that are now common in the northeast. The flowers, trinkets and in some cases handwritten names, help to remind you that these markers represent actual people who in death are being lovingly cared for, and remembered, by the living.
Santo Niño Cemetery
GPS Coordinates: 35.5422, -105.5847
The most fantastic thing about the New York Botanical Garden’s annual Orchid Show is the orchids themselves