01/04/2009

Kids’ slice of Big Apple is sweet
There’s always something in New York City even a lifelong New Yorker hasn’t seen. Start a family, and eventually the allure of those once-unappealing tourist attractions seems palpable.

12/28/2008

Travel getaway: Pub crawling in Burlington, Vt., in search of local brews
BURLINGTON, Vt. — There may or may not be a craft beer heaven, but this vibrant city wedged between Lake Champlain and the Green Mountains is close. Located at the epicenter of Vermont’s microbrewery scene, Burlington is bustling with pubs and taprooms. Finding one that serves craft on draft is not only easy, it’s the rule.

12/21/2008

Travel getaway:
NEW YORK — Retail visionary R.H. Macy was friends with legendary showman P.T. Barnum — two rich guys hanging out in the 1860s.

12/14/2008

Big Apple attractions for you and your little sprouts
NEW YORK CITY — At the New York Botanical Garden, floriphiles take a back seat to the annual arrival of the model railroad. The garden shows off more than 1,000 feet of track, a dozen locomotives and even ladybug and butterfly trains through Jan. 11.

12/07/2008

Lots of spots in Manhattan for a spot of tea
NEW YORK — Manhattan’s legendary Fifth Avenue is home not only to some of the world’s most upscale stores but also to some plush respites for afternoon tea. The Gotham Lounge in the Peninsula Hotel is all upholstered chairs and floral carpet and dark wood tables. The newly renovated Plaza famously offers afternoon tea in its Palm Court. But with tea service starting at $55 and $60, respectively, these venues might be a tad expensive for the browser more inclined, by interest and wallet, to window-shop than buy.

11/30/2008

It’s prime time for shopping and sightseeing in NYC
NEW YORK — Some 11 million people visited New York City last year between October and December, according to NYC & Company, the city’s marketing and tourism organization. Even if that number drops this year due to the economy, you’re likely to find Manhattan plenty crowded over the holidays.

11/23/2008

Furniture just like the Colonists used, only new
PLYMOUTH, Mass. — It’s a handcrafted wooden chest with two rows of side-by-side drawers, a type found in 17th-century New England. But it’s not an antique. It’s a brand new reproduction of a chest made in Plymouth Colony between 1660 and 1700. The artisan who made it, Peter Follansbee, works at Plimoth Plantation. “Peter’s work is a real lost art, rediscovered,” said Plimoth Plantation spokeswoman Jennifer Monac. “He makes about 20 pieces per year, including specialty boxes, chests, chairs, cupboards, etc. Boxes can start at $800 and go from there. Chests start at $5,000 and up.”

Reliving the Pilgrims’ story: It never gets old
PLYMOUTH, Mass. — In this storied harbor town where the Mayflower landed nearly 400 years ago, generations of Americans have claimed and reinterpreted the Pilgrim story.

11/16/2008

Spending time in N.Y. without spending a fortune
NEW YORK — You don’t need big bucks to enjoy the Big Apple big time. Travel like a New Yorker on the subway. Eat like a New Yorker on the street. And see the city like a New Yorker by visiting public spaces, landmarks and famous places, many of which can be enjoyed for free. Here are some strategies.

11/09/2008

From whimsical to serious at Cape Cod art museum
COTUIT, Mass. — The whimsical paintings of Ralph and Martha Cahoon, filled with sailors, ships, lighthouses and mermaids, would be reason enough to visit the Cahoon Museum of American Art. But the collection also contains some masterpieces of marine painting, tonalism, impressionism and folk art.

11/02/2008

The Lower East Side: From tenements to trendy
NEW YORK — For waves of immigrants to America, the Lower East Side was a place of first settlement. Today it’s one of the city’s trendiest neighborhoods. But it’s easy to find history amid the hipsters.

10/26/2008

What’s a nice Russian icon doing in Clinton, Mass?
CLINTON, Mass. — A small brick building adjoining a driver’s education school and insurance agency isn’t the first place a person would look for the world’s largest collection of Russian icons outside of Russia. But that’s where the Museum of Russian Icons is, in this mill town on the Nashua River. It’s an hour west of Boston and a world away from St. Petersburg.

10/19/2008

Some ways to branch out on a leaf-peeping tour
So the idea of getting out and looking at the changing leaves appeals to you. But you’re put off by the thought that doing nothing BUT looking at leaves could get a tad boring. Here are 10 other fun things to do in New England along the way:

10/12/2008

Leaf-peeping and much more in western Mass.
More than just a famous collection of hills and mountains, the Berkshires of western Massachusetts are chock-a-block with world-class cultural offerings and natural beauty — and a great place to go leaf-peeping right about now.

10/05/2008

For fall colors up close and personal: Take a hike
You want colorful fall foliage? You want leaves in numbers that will make the national debt seem like single digits?

09/28/2008

Peak at the leaves from an elegant vantage point

09/21/2008

Paying a visit to Manhattan’s other park
NEW YORK — Fashion Week has come and gone. The tents that announced Bryant Park as the city’s temporary center of culture have been struck, and the media spotlight has moved on. The park, that seven-acre swath of green nestled between Fifth Avenue and Avenue of the Americas between 40th and 42nd streets, has slipped back into the shadow of its gargantuan uptown cousin, Central Park.

09/14/2008

Tourists and locals raise their spirits at Falmouth farm
EAST FALMOUTH, Mass.— We’ve all heard stories about family farms turned into housing subdivisions. Here’s a twist: In 1985 some 20 acres on Hatchville Road were slated for 27 homes. Ron and Roxanna Smolowitz bought the property and instead of houses established a working farm. They opened it to the public in 1989.

09/07/2008

Lose yourself in the wild green Bronx
NEW YORK — Ladies and gentlemen, the Bronx is blooming!

08/31/2008

Picture-book museum feeds young imaginations
AMHERST, Mass. –– On the spring day that my 3-year-old daughter and I made the drive across central Massachusetts to visit The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, I asked her why she likes books so much.

08/10/2008

Strolling with the boat-shoe crowd on Nantucket
NANTUCKET, Mass. “Owning a place on this island is for billionaires, not even millionaires anymore,” says Brian Borgeson, a giant, red-haired, freckled charter boat captain standing in pink clogs and battling the outgoing tide from the wheelhouse of his vessel, the Absolute.

08/03/2008

Pricey Martha’s Vineyard needn’t be
Martha’s Vineyard, the 100-square-mile triangle of an island off the coast of Cape Cod, has been a summer retreat for New England Brahmins since the 1800s, and has never shed its pricey and exclusive reputation.

07/27/2008

Museum honors America’s ‘first recyclers’
WARNER, N.H. — It all began with a visit from Chief Sachem Silverstar to an elementary school class in Pawtucket, in 1929. Among the pupils impressed by the Pequot chief’s bearing, dress, and message was Charles “Bud” Thompson. When Bud found an arrowhead in his grandfather’s cornfield that summer, his commitment to study and collect Native-American artifacts was sealed.

07/20/2008

Big Apple waterfalls gush with potential
NEW YORK — It was Saturday on the first weekend of the New York City Waterfalls public art project, and our reservoir of faith was running dry.

07/13/2008

New botanical gardens brighten the coast of Maine
BOOTHBAY, Maine — The coast of Maine is probably better known for lobsters and windjammers than rose gardens and flowering dogwood trees. But at one of America’s newest gardens, the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, you’ll find nearly 1,300 varieties of plants, world-class sculptures and a restaurant that uses herbs grown on the grounds. The garden also has trails that offer classic Maine scenery, from evergreen trees to lobster boats.

07/06/2008

For a real rush in Manhattan rush hour, try a rickshaw
NEW YORK — Among the experiences that make one go “Eek!,” tooling around Manhattan in a rickshaw ranks high, falling somewhere between a cab ride during rush hour and walking through Times Square after the theaters let out. Some of the bike-drawn buggies come equipped with seat belts; others don’t. You decide your threshold of thrill.

06/30/2008

A Summer Series: Going with the wind
Facing high gas prices and less money to splurge, many people are choosing to stay close to home for vacation. This summer, The Journal will help you find some activities and outings nearby. Some may be old favorites, while others you’ve never tried.

06/29/2008

Saugus, Mass., where our steel industry was forged
SAUGUS, Mass. — It ran for only 22 years, but the iron works established on the banks of the Saugus River in 1646 would free a colony from dependence on British manufacturing, create a model for the American factory town, and launch the world’s most powerful steel industry.

06/22/2008

Tour Cape Cod by bike and coast by the gas stations
My fiancee, Marilyn, and I love Cape Cod. We make one or more trips every year, sometimes midweek in the summer, more often in the “off” seasons (which is about nine months a year). Mostly to indulge our passion for biking.

06/15/2008

Think you know all about Brooklyn? Well, it’s time to think again
NEW YORK — On your next New York City jaunt, you might consider bypassing the tried and true of Manhattan for the city streets less traveled. Just a hop, skip and a borough away lies Brooklyn, ripe for its own exploration.

06/08/2008

FDR was forever drawn to his Hudson River estate
“All that is in me goes back to the Hudson,” President Franklin D. Roosevelt once said. And he often returned, as president and private citizen, to the beautiful and bountiful Hudson River Valley. Fed by the Atlantic Ocean and fresh Adirondack streams, the Hudson flows through a rolling landscape of secret vales, voluptuous hills and dramatic cliffs and mountains. The site of critical battles in the Revolutionary War, the Hudson became the new nation’s key waterway, while its mystic grandeur inspired the Hudson River School of painting.

06/01/2008

Quabbin Reservoir draws nature lovers to ‘accidental wilderness’
BELCHERTOWN, Mass. — The sun hadn’t even started to rise over the Quabbin Reservoir before would-be anglers arrived for the recent opening day of fishing season, their boats lined up at its three launch areas.

05/25/2008

Great museums, parks and pubs, and they’re all in your backyard: Boston
They call it America’s Walking City. And indeed, it’s easy to pass your days in Boston meandering from one famous site (the Paul Revere House) to another (the Union Oyster House). But follow the locals and you’ll discover what makes Bostonians so loyal to their hometown: a mix of green parks, elegant shopping, undersung museums and cozy pubs (and we don’t mean Cheers). Here are a dozen tourist traps paired with their lesser-known equivalents that locals treasure.

05/18/2008

Yin and yang of the art world meet in the Berkshires
The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams is a cavernous temple of modern art, with exceptionally big and provocative works in a variety of media. The Norman Rockwell Museum in nearby Stockbridge, Mass., by contrast, serves up a whole different aesthetic, one filled with soda fountains, family dinners and sweetly nostalgic takes on small-town life.

05/11/2008

European style, American prices in NYC
NEW YORK — Sure, you could visit Europe, but it’s just so darn inconvenient. The exchange rate turns you into a pauper, portions are minuscule, people smoke a lot, good bagels are practically nonexistent. Neither Greyhound nor Amtrak stops there. What kind of a tourist attraction is that?

05/04/2008

Chapter may close at Edith Wharton’s mansion in the Berkshires

04/27/2008

Willimantic museum recalls the hard life of mill workers
WILLIMANTIC, Conn. — In the mill owner’s house, the table is set with fine china and crystal. There is a piano in the elegant parlor, with its floral wallpaper and lace curtains. In the master bedroom an ornate sewing machine decorated with a gold sphinx sits next to a black lacquered case filled with ivory sewing tools.

04/20/2008

Last chance to tour ‘The House That Ruth Built’
NEW YORK —Yankee Stadium, the storied ballpark that opened in 1923 and has been home to 26 World Series champions, is closing after this season. Because we wanted our son to see Monument Park and have a picture of himself in the New York Yankee dugout for posterity, we joined one of the public tours that have been offered year-round and will continue on designated dates through at least Sept. 19.

04/13/2008

New York City has many Catholic sites to visit
Pope Benedict XVI is scheduled to visit New York City this week. Assuming he gets a briefing on the sites most important to the Catholic Church, the list might look a lot like this. And you don’t need to be the pope — or even a Catholic — to visit them.

04/06/2008

Tour the building blocks of great design in NYC
Among other things, New York City is the setting for many of the world’s outstanding buildings. Next time you’re there, bring this list — an architect’s guide to the best of the best in The Big Apple.

03/30/2008

It’s flower power time at Boston’s Gardner Museum
BOSTON — Stan Kozak may be the only person in the world who has nightmares about nasturtiums. Iridescent orange blooms, thousands of them, on snaking vines each measuring 15, 20 or even 25 feet long.

03/23/2008

Experiment a little, go off-Broadway
NEW YORK — New York theater means Broadway, right? Well, not exactly.

03/09/2008

The Plaza is restored to a T
NEW YORK Going to The Plaza hotel for afternoon tea was never just about the food. It was about palm trees, harp music, what the ladies at the next table were wearing, and the spirit of Eloise — that naughty little girl who lives at The Plaza in a classic fictional children’s book.

03/02/2008

Hit the ground running in New York, and set your own pace
NEW YORK Running in a major city can feel like being a character in a fast-paced video game. Weave around a slow walker on the narrow sidewalk. Sprint through the crosswalk before the light turns green. And if you don’t dodge that incoming taxi, it could be game over.

02/10/2008

Give your Valentine a ring, and some New York bling
NEW YORK

02/03/2008

Skating on Vermont’s Lake Morey is ‘wild’
FAIRLEE, Vt. — If you prepare meticulously for the worst, the worst actually can be fun.

01/27/2008

Tenement Museum puts perspective on tough times
NEW YORK — With the economy teetering and immigration in the news once again, this might be a good time to gain some perspective by revisiting a time when things were really tough, during the Great Depression.

01/20/2008

Now, Manhattan’s early black citizens not forgotten
NEW YORK — As we celebrate Martin Luther King’s birthday, on the eve of Black History Month, now is an excellent time to visit a serene new memorial to thousands of enslaved and free Africans and their descendants who were buried in Manhattan more than 200 years ago.

01/13/2008

Bigger, newer, and more to explore
JERSEY CITY, N.J Kids, this is not your older brother’s Liberty Science Center.