Some things make the local scene
I recently planted a couple of Viburnum Nudum, with the popular name Brandywine Viburnum. It’s a native to much of the Eastern US and great for gardens in my area. Spring flowers feed native pollinators, the leaves feed Spring Azure Butterflies and Hummingbird Moths, in fall the leaves turn bright red, and the red and blue berries provide food for birds in the winter.
Native plants like this which have been around for thousands of years make local gardens far more interesting than privet and English ivy. So let’s talk about well-established things which make places more interesting.
For instance, there is a burger joint and bar about a half mile away from me which has been around for about 90 years. They’ve been selling takeaway beer and wine since the end of Prohibition and are so well known that the four or five blocks surrounding them are informally named after the place.
Some places are inextricably linked to a local school where everybody seems to have gone or else sends their kids there. Sometimes a place is known for the churchbells which ring every hour. People in New Jersey often jokingly define their homes by the nearest Turnpike rest stop, saying they live by Joyce Kilmer or Vince Lombardi.
When I was growing up, one neighborhood I often drove through was always known for the smell of bread from a giant industrial bakery. Some neighborhoods are defined by huge light display every Christmas, and there are towns like Council Bluffs Iowa which are known for well-established populations of mutant black squirrels.
So DSers, share something that’s been around for a long time where you live (or where you grew up or vacation) that helps give that place its identity.
New River (which is one of the oldest rivers in North America) has been around these parts for a long time. I promised the missus that we’d get a couple of kayaks this year.
I rafted there once long ago. It’s gorgeous.
I’ve been on parts of the New River. That’s beautiful.
Here is an inanimate local legend. At some point I talked about this century-old one-block enclave in Midtown East whose townhouses shared a communal interior garden. Katharine Hepburn, Stephen Sondheim, and Kurt Vonnegut are just some of its previous residents. Here’s a little more info about it, because one of the townhouses is for sale:
https://nypost.com/2022/04/07/olivier-sarkozys-nyc-home-with-ex-mary-kate-olsen-re-lists-for-10-5m/
(Yes, it is a “New York Post” link, but they’re excellent at covering high-end real estate.)
What a meeting of minds this brief marriage must have been. Mary-Kate Olsen is, of course, one half of the famous Olsen twins, and Olivier Sarkozy is the half-brother of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Not that I could possibly afford it, but $10.5 million for a three story townhouse in Manhattan doesn’t seem like that much.
It’s pre-WW2, which seems like the only way to go if you have millions to spend on Manhattan real estate.
It’s actually a combined double townhouse, which the article doesn’t specify I don’t think, but that’s why its address is 226-228 E. 49th St. and why it’s 38 feet wide (most townhouses are 20 to 22 feet wide.) It’s also why the property taxes are $100,000 a year. And who knows what plans the lovebirds had for their love nest: probably insane, unworkable ones that they abandoned so it’s going to require a lot of work just to being it back to basics and then start from there.
We have a lot of historical places including Mary Todd Lincoln’s birth place and childhood home, Henry Clay’s house, and Transylvania University, first college west of the Allegheny mountains. But one of the things we are best known for is being the horse capital of America. And that’s no exaggeration. It’s where the top race horses are bred and the only city in the US to host the World Equestrian Games. And while horse racing is controversial, Keeneland, the local track, is considered one of the most beautiful in the world. The pictures do not do it justice.
They must get sick of all of the jokes about only offering night classes.
Is that a sycamore out in front of the track? That must be a century old.
There’s an old track a few miles from me and I love the races, but horse racing is really messed up right now. They used to have a sunrise special where you could watch the early morning workouts and we brought our daughter when she was horse crazy. It was great to get so close as they were doing their practice runs.
I’ll have to ask my daughter if it’s a sycamore. One of the nature preserves she works at has the 2nd oldest documented chinkapin oak in the world. Very unusual for this part of KY, a lot of trees were cut down for farmland but there’s been a big push to Reforest the Bluegrass. I go on the yearly planting. Except this year’s is tomorrow and it’s going to rain so I’m sitting this one out.
Transy is a beautiful little campus and I’m sure they do get tired of the jokes but ya gotta make ‘em. There’s a movie called American Animals about a real life art heist that took place there. It’s a good watch.
I agree about horse racing, it can be loads of fun to watch but it feels irresponsible these days.
Most of my areas old history is Native American history until the “explorers” & exploiters destroyed all that with logging, trapping, & gold mining. In modern history we are most famous for being the dominant producer of airplanes. From WW2 to now more commercial aircraft come out of this area than anywhere & we have the largest building by volume in the world where they are made. It is pretty crazy to see inside and this picture does not do it justice as it has lines & lines of 787, 777, & 747s in it.
Is there an airstrip for flying out finished planes? Or is final assembly, painting, and outfitting handled at the destination?
They fly out of here, if you drive late at night you can see them tow giant aircraft over the highway. Pretty weird to drive under them. They only do it late to avoid accidents & traffic jams. The cargo ones that bring in fuselages are so big & loud they will rock you out of bed!
Italian restaurants. St Louis has a Little Italy neighborhood “the Hill” and I didn’t realize until I moved out of St. Louis for some years that family Italian restaurants weren’t just a thing everywhere.
Failoni’s, Bartolino’s*, Favazza’s, Cunetto’s House of Pasta, Anthonino’s, The Pasta House, Gioia’s, Zia’s, Charlie Gitto’s, Rich and Charlie’s, LoRusso’s, those are just the ones I can think of offhand.
No one in their right mind goes to the Olive Garden because ewwww why not go somewhere better? Like the idea that there are small cities that don’t have lots of Italian options open for decades? Boggles my mind.
*I went to high school with some daughters of this family and they were fucking assholes so I have not eaten at any of their restaurants in a few decades
We lost my favorite Italian restaurant some time ago:
https://ny.eater.com/2010/5/5/6734657/ues-old-timer-gino-now-closing-at-the-end-of-may
Look at the photo. Isn’t that fabulous? It was there for 65 years. It was right across the street from the Lexington Avenue side of Bloomingdale’s so it was perfect when hosting out-of-towners.
NYC restaurants were always classic outlets for money laundering. It’s a shame they get wiped out by money laundering condos these days.
St. Louis is fried ravioli, right? I always wanted that and I’m not sure why it hasn’t spread more.
Yes, the ubiquitous St. Louis toasted raviolis! 🙂
You might check to see if these are available near you, they’ve got a decent distribution and toasted ravs taste fine when you bake the frozen ones (better in an air fryer, but I digress).
https://www.louisafoods.com/products/toasted/original-beef-toasted-ravioli/
So much to choose from.
But I am going to go with the Peterborough Lift Lock (lock 21) which is the highest hydraulic lift lock in the world that officially opened on 9 July, 1904.
It has been a National Historic Site since 9 days after I was born:
It was (and still is) customary for parents to honk their horns when driving their children through the tunnel beneath it between what used to be the merger of dirt “roads” for horses & carriages to cross the river and are now Hunter street E and Ashburnham drive.
Sometimes, even when by myself, I honk my horn when driving through its tunnel for old time sake…or for nostalgia to calm my road rage.
I recently saw an episode of Wellington Paranormal that involved problems from honking in tunnels.
Brampton is all strip malls, industrial parks, warehouses and suburbs soooo…. ugh.
This place, Clark Hall Kingston ON was my drunken home away from home.
This is the entrance to the bookstore. Upstairs was the pub, a divey cheap place to waste away the hours getting wasted. Closed in 2007 because of a bunch of idiots. Don’t know much else, but was upset as anyone when I found out.
Only open for homecoming weekend if that.
This is taken from someone’s Pintrest, but this was the usual stop over for my friends and I on our 34-40 km hiking trips from the Highland Trail of Algonquin Park. This is actually a small rock peninsula jutting out. On the left side is a rocky ledge where you can fill up your canteens. The other side is a place you can jump off and swim.
Not shown is the wooden box toilet. On one trip I had bad cheese and I spent a good two hours sitting on that box… in the middle of a downpour with lightening all around me. The only thing that was dry was the toilet paper roll I protected with my life.
My friends laughed at me, except those who got sick as well.
I like the distillery district of Toronto. Ole timey place minus the casual racism and horse manure of old Timey Toronto. Chicago was filmed here.
Did you go to Queen’s?
Yup.
For those who don’t know, Queen’s university is the Oxford of Canada. It is currently ranked 415th globally but back when @manchucandidate went there it was within the top 100.
When I was a lot smarter than I am now I wanted to be a teacher. I didn’t start to try in HS until grade 11 and it wasn’t until grade 12 that I knew I wanted to be a teacher. Queen’s had the best “teacher’s college” (which it was called at the time) in Canada.
In Canada, anyone can get into college but it requires far more effort to get into university. Back then, there were two ways to get into university. One was to take “grade 13” also known as “OAC” (advanced credits) as a 5th year of HS and the other was to obtain a two-year diploma in college.
I could’ve aced every class in OAC if I applied myself but I knew there was no way I’d even come close to passing the mandatory OAC English class so I chose the latter.
I fast-tracked through college and received my ECE diploma in 15 months. I applied to Queen’s for the bachelor + teacher’s college and Guelph Uni for Bio-Chem (because you had to apply to at least two universities on the application for loans). I was accepted to both. Obviously, I chose Queen’s. I was so happy. I probably spent 30 consecutive hours on my acceptance letter, with no English knowledge, self-editing.
I wasn’t approved for the loan because my parents didn’t make enough money to back it. A few years later, they started to throw out loans to anyone and everyone who applied for them…and Queen’s “teacher’s college” merged with Trent University in my hometown. I ended up in a factory, at 20 years old, to pay off the loan for college.
I often wonder where the trajectory of my life would have led me had I been approved for that loan.
Canoeing in the fall in Algonquin always seemed like a dream trip, but always so far….
It’s a nice place to canoe and quite calming. No power boats allowed in most of the lakes.
Based on experience here:
The fall is quite choppy and can be quite cool.
Prefer near the end of summer (late Aug) when the mosquitos and black flies are going dormant.
Also prepare to book a year in advance.
Oh yeah, I forgot about the black flies. Yikes.
Up home, it’s gotta be the Glacial Lakes Trail;
http://www.glacialridgebyway.com/trail%20attractions.html
The part of MN where I grew up was “Glacial Lakes” everything since before I was born… “The Lakes Area” and The Kensington Runestone are the other big claims to fame/infamy up there.
And down here in Minneapolis, it’s gotta be The Minneapolis Parks & Rec System–with the famous “Every Resident within 6 blocks of a park” city intent/plan, The Grand Rounds, and then there’s the fact that nearly all of our local lakes are surrounded by public (not private!) land, because of the foresight & forethought of those long-ago city & park founders😉😁🤗
https://www.minneapolis.org/things-to-do/nature-outdoors/lakes/
its nearly the time of year where the fields get real colourful around here
that said…..suspect this year i’ll be seeing more grain fields than usual instead