Washington National Cathedral Gargoyle

Walking down the streets of older American cities, where spired, turreted Gothic Revival buildings tower overhead, have you ever felt the presence of someone watching you?

Well, they are.

Look up.

You’ll be amazed at what’s looking down at you! 

Gargoyles – those weird, usually grotesque, sometimes comic, often outrageous, always fantastic, fanciful caricatures with distinct personalities hanging all over older buildings - are intricate, amazingly detailed architectural carvings of hybrid monsters with both human and animal characteristics, often with mouths agape.  Cleverly blended into their architectural surroundings by master sculptors, they are out there in abundance, whole gatherings of them.  Lurking and leering from perches high overhead, hunched in outcroppings, clinging to outer walls, or poised to pounce from nooks and crannies of religious, educational and governmental buildings, and even from grand mansions, they are more often than not, noticed only through a double-take.  

While their presence in architecture dates back to ancient times and crosses all cultures, their purpose has no universally accepted explanation.  Originally the term used for the fanciful stone carved gutter spouts used to direct rainwater away from building foundations, a gargoyle generically has come to mean any decorative architectural carving of a grotesque nature, and cities are filled with them. 

To find them, just look up. In New York City on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, gargoyles found a welcome home in the arches and flying buttresses rising up to the Neo-Gothic cathedral-like tower of the Woolworth Building. Legions of them are on Wall Street, surely showing their displeasure with recent events.  On the Upper West Side, in the massive, yet unfinished St. John the Divine Cathedral, all manner of fanciful, grotesque creatures fiercely stand guard over niches filled with saints and angels.  On busy Lexington Avenue in Midtown, look up at the iconic Chrysler Building.  Jutting way out from the corners of the 61^st Floor of this spectacular Art Deco building are huge, shiny gargoyles – eagle heads- replicas of the 1929 Chrysler hood ornaments.   

In Chicago, the decorative top of the Gothic Tribune Tower on Michigan Avenue is loaded with gargoyle bats! On elegant Nob Hill in San Francisco, those perpendicular protrusions sticking out just below the main spire of magnificent Grace Cathedral are actually eight identical gargoyles, winged dragons perched to take flight in case the forces of evil get too close.  Once sighted, they are obvious, but, without knowing they’re there, they are easily missed.  Such is a gargoyle…there, but not there.  

University of Chicago Gargoyle

Gargoyles are particularly fond of the collegial culture of universities over a century old. Throughout the campus of Princeton University, gargoyles pay homage to the disciplines studied in the buildings they haunt. There are so many there that they star in an online Grotesque Tour.  Click your way, too, for gargoyle sightings at Duke University.  The Quadrangle Building at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia is crawling with them.  Likewise, at the exquisite Gothic University of Chicago, their antics begin at the main entrance gate, where a series of them usher in newbies with warnings of perilous things to come on their climb through academia.   

These fanciful spirits also live in historic mansions throughout the country. In Savannah, many homes in the historic district have downspouts ending in stylized cast iron dolphin heads, gargoyles well suited to this colonial-era seaport city.  The Biltmore House in Asheville, North Carolina has an amazingly diverse gargoyle collection. While best viewed from below, a special rooftop tour gets them within pouncing range. 

A treasure trove of gargoyles with a 20^th century attitude reside throughout the Washington National Cathedral.  This spectacular Gothic building, completed in 1990, literally crawls with them.  Their unique humor and style comes through a collaborative effort between the private donors who commissioned them and the sculptors who created them.  Fantastically creative, they are wonderful caricatures of the times, the 1960s, 70s and 80s: hippies and yuppies; crooked politicians and greedy thieves; and countless other mischievous and appealing modern spirits in stone who bring a smile…to those who notice.  

Wherever your travels take you, get in the habit of looking up!

Biltmore Estate Gargoyle

They are always watching.

Walk on the unusual side – take a tour of a historic cemetery, graveyard or burying ground. Macabre, moving, or appealing, these silent cities have fascinating stories to tell.  Beneath fieldstone, granite, marble and bronze, lie superstition and belief, tragedy and triumph, romance and scandal, humor and sadness, politics and war.

Burying ground, graveyard or cemetery - all are time frozen, part history, part folklore.  There is a certain stillness about them - reverence mixed with intrigue.  In them, gravestones, simple or ornate, provide clues that fuel the imagination.  Through artistic symbolism and fascinating phraseology, gravestones tell the stories of a generations, one person at a time.  They reflect the historic quirks, artistic taste and architecture of a moment in time. They lay bare prejudices and honor heroes.  They tell of prince and pauper; the known and unknown.

Some silent cities, moss-covered, ancient-feeling places like Boston’s historic burying grounds, tell America’s early story through those buried there.  Others, like Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, are serenely quiet green spaces with magnificent grounds and remarkable statuary.  Some make unique architectural statements, like those in New Orleans, so dryly observed by Mark Twain: ”There is no architecture in New Orleans, except in the cemeteries.”   Yet others, like Arlington National Cemetery in Washington D.C., in their sheer simplicity, have the power to move.

Boston is home to some of America’s oldest burying grounds.  It is in King’s Chapel, Copp’s Hill, and the Granary, that legendary figures of America’s founding, those we learn about in history class – Paul Revere, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, victims of the Boston Massacre - are interred.  These sites are of such historic value that Boston’s Freedom Trail runs by them, and all are highlights of the stops on Old Town Trolley Tours of Boston’s tour route.  For the more sinister, Old Town Trolley Tours of Boston’s entertaining Ghosts & Gravestones tour offers a different prospective on night walks through Copp’s Hill and Granary Burying Grounds.  In nearby Plymouth, on the interesting Historic Plymouth Cemetery Tour, the meaning behind some of some of the gravestone iconography is explained.

In other colonial cities, look for early graveyards alongside historic churches, testaments to the religious beginnings of some colonies. Benjamin Franklin and four other signers of the Declaration of Independence are buried in the Christ Church Burial Ground, two beautiful acres in the heart of the historic “Old City” of Philadelphia.  Other signers of the Declaration of Independence are buried in graveyards of St. Michael’s and St. Philip’s Churches, the early churches of Charleston, S. C.

As populations outgrew small burying grounds and church graveyards, the large, park-like ”rural” cemeteries of the mid-1800s provided final resting places.  They, too, offer interesting perspectives on history and are great places to walk.  All contain unusual elements, beautiful and bizzare.  Some have spectacular grounds; others, elaborate monuments.  All have an atmosphere more uplifting than the burying grounds of the somber colonial era.  Noticeably absent is the ”death’s head,” common on colonial gravestones, which gave way to the more hopeful winged cherubs, reflective of the more romantic thinking of the Victorian era.

Spend an awesome morning or afternoon walking through Savannah’s Bonaventure Cemetery, a fine example of America’s rural cemeteries, revealed to the world in the book, “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.”  Here, under canopies of live oak, surrounded by an array of elegant statuary and impressive monuments, the silence is serene.  While you won’t see the famous Bird Girl there anymore (she’s been moved to Savannah’s Telfair Museum of Art for viewing), there is so much else to see and photograph.

Big and diverse, Manhattan should have equally interesting cemeteries, but all it has are remnant cemeteries!    Forbidden by ordinance as available land became scarce, graves were relocated to the other boroughs, displaced by glass and concrete towers.  What’s left are remnants: the tiny, tucked away Marble Cemeteries in the Lower East side.  And, in San Francisco, similarly land-limited, nothing is forever - at least one’s final resting place is not!  The city has moved its dead time and time again, each time to a “newer” spot, further and further off the peninsula, and there are amazing stories of those left behind, only to be discovered during later ground excavation!  Today, there are only two cemeteries left within city limits, the graveyard at historic Mission Dolores Church and the San Francisco National Cemetery in the Presidio, and two columbariums, one inside the famous Grace Cathedral on Nob Hill.

While each historic burying place is unique, it’s hard to top the visual impact of the above-ground vaults of New Orleans’ “Cities of the Dead,” miniature cities of elaborate tombs built like small houses laid out along streets.  Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, in the historic Garden District is significant for its history, location and architecture.  In St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, just outside the French Quarter, offerings are left for Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau.  Elaborate marble tombs and larger-than-life statuary in Metairie Cemetery are dramatic statements of “new” wealth and prestige of the city’s intriguing, ethnically diverse residents.   For safety reasons, as well as for a memorable time, take one of New Orleans’ Cemetery Tours.

Bigger isn’t necessarily better.  Another sea-level city, albeit small, with an above-ground cemetery is the island of Key West.  As haphazard and colorful as the island itself, and true to the character for this quirky place, the small-scaled cemetery, located in the dead center of town, as locals are amused to say, is not grandiose.  Eye-level, whitewashed tombs are close-quartered, and giant gumbo limbo tree roots pushing up against the ground, causing cracked gravemarkers and lopsided statuary, leave a lingering sense that the tropical elements are about to take over.  It’s a great place to take in the oddities of the inscriptions on some of the gravestones: “I told you I was sick” reads the gravemarker of a well-known hypochondriac!

Wherever your travels take you, tour a historic cemetery.  Bring your camera; bring paper for gravestone rubbings…and most of all, bring your imagination!

This summer and fall, as you travel about the US, include a visit to a city market, community garden, greenmarket, farmers’ markets, tailgate market, and seek out restaurants whose menus feature fresh, regionally grown vegetables and sustainable cuisine.  You’ll love this new tourism twist!Enjoy make-shift stalls and shaded lots filled with bins and buckets exploding with color.  Smell, pinch and snap, sample. Indulge in something delicious, freshly baked or locally canned.  Take in the regional flavor, the fresh air, the bustling sounds, the camaraderie.  Mingle with locals.

Get used to the term community garden as it’s making a comeback. They’ve been around since man began farming, and in the US became popular and patriotic during WWII when they were known as Victory Gardens.  In urban centers, blighted areas have long been greened by window boxes, roof gardens, green sproutings carefully tended in tiny plots, or in abandoned lots tucked between concrete walls.

The most recent urban community garden to make a big splash is the Slow Food Nation Victory Garden on the lawn of San Francisco’s City Hall, part of the Victory Gardens 2008+ project that is sweeping the city!  The food from the garden will be donated to local food banks and meal programs, and the overall message is to show urban residents that they, too, can grow their own, even in a limited space.   If you’re visiting San Francisco between July and September 2008, stop by City Hall in the Civic Center area.  You can get there several ways, but why not take the San Francisco Trolley Hop, get off at its Union Square stop, walk a couple of blocks to the BART stop at Market & Powell.  Get on the BART to the Civic Center stop.  You can’t miss the domed City Hall.  Or, if you’re just walking about, find one of San Francisco’s 40 community gardens on city-owned property.

Visiting Boston?  Hop on the Old Town Trolley Tours of Boston (a great tour with the added perk of being able to hop off at any one of the convenient stops to see the sights), get off at Stop # 11, walk down to the light, cross the street and Fenway Victory Gardens, the last of the WWII Victory Gardens, is right in front.   Or, get off at trolley Stop # 8, walk past the John Hancock Building, turn right onto Berkeley Street and walk 4 blocks to Berkeley Gardens, where Asian families carry on centuries-old tradition of farming garden plots.

Whether in a big city or small town, greenmarkets and farmers’ markets are no longer off the beaten path.  They’re sprouting up everywhere.  Greenmarket is a term more frequently associated with urban areas, while farmers’ markets can be large and urban, or small-town and colloquial.  Both can sell not only produce, but meat, seafood, baked goods, arrays of cheeses and other dairy products, preserves, honey, flowers and even crafts.  The produce can be organic, or not.

In big cities, while greenmarkets are becoming increasingly popular, some have been around forever. New York City, the penultimate urban community, has over 40, the biggest of which is Union Square Greenmarket, a must see!  Be sure to get there early as this is where the city’s famous chefs go shortly after dawn in search of the freshest ingredients for the day’s menu.  Washington’s beloved Eastern Market, a neighborhood market in the Capitol Hill neighborhood for over a century, was badly burned in a fire in April 2007, but vendors have kept the market open by setting up outside or across the street!  In Philadelphia, the year-round Reading Terminal Market has been a city fixture since William Penn’s time, and in historic Boston, the Copely Square Farmer’s Market sets up from mid-May to mid-November on Tuesdays and Fridays right in front of glorious Trinity Church on the famous square.

And the list goes on … Chicago has its Green City Market, a year-round market set up at the center of Lincoln Park in the summer, and inside the Peggy Notebaert Nature Center in the winter, which encourages sustainable practices from farmers selling there.  In New Orleans, be sure to stop by the Mid-City Green Market, which, to the delight of locals and visitors, just re-opened in May after having been closed since Katrina.  Glittery Las Vegas is more than nighttime neon - stop by Garden Park Farmers’ Market for a breath of fresh air.  On Saturdays in trendy Miami, walk through the venerable Coconut Grove Organic Farmers Market for a change of pace.

Smaller farmers’ markets, more regional in flavor, tend to have a real neighborly feel.  In Washington DC, within the beltway residents love their year-round Farm Fresh Market, open Sundays in the Dupont Circle neighborhood, and seasonally in Foggy Bottom and in up and coming Penn Quarter.  In the Los Angeles area, surrounded by miles and miles of fertile fields, farmers’ markets are everywhere, many featuring Asian and Hispanic specialties. San Diego has so many that the Farm Bureau of San Diego County pulishes a Farmer’s Market Schedule!

Likewise in small communities and towns across the country, small farmers’ markets and even smaller tailgate markets are everywhere. Traveling about by car this summer? If you see a farmers’ market along the way, stop. Get out to stretch your legs and pick up fresh ingredients for a spontaneous picnic lunch.  Sure beats the packaged, fast-food alternative!

For a change in restaurant fare, become a  “Locavore!” Designated as the word of the year in November 2007 by the New Oxford American Dictionary, it means one who is passionate about eating local ingredients.  In many cities, chefs are creating market-driven menus with selections prepared with regionally produced and available ingredients. In San Diego, locavores go to JSix in the Gaslamp District, just a couple of blocks from Old Town Trolley Tours of San Diego’s Stop #5A for innovative lunch and dinner menus featuring fresh, seasonal regional produce and sustainable seafood.  In New York City, many restaurants are following the market-driven menu trend, and do so with creativity and flair.  For example, Tribeca Grill, owned by Robert DiNiro, is fabulous and reflects the artistic character of the surrounding Tribeca neighborhood; BLT Market in the Ritz Carleton reflects its upscale Midtown East neighborhood.  In Washington, D.C., Nora’s became America’s first certified organic restaurant in 1999; 15 ria’s new American cuisine is fabulously created with market-fresh ingredients that change with the season; and, Hook in Georgetown offers a wonderful dining experience with a menu that changes daily to reflect whatever sustainable fish are in season and available.

Get out; get in touch.  See America as you have never before see it!

Oh! where these stairways will take you. 

Making their way up, over, down and across some of San Francisco’s 43 hills, the stairways - long ones, short ones; simple ones, fancy ones; ones made of stone, wood, terracotta, concrete, river stones, mosaic - connect footpaths that traverse neighborhoods, from the inside out.  The building of the stairways all started when the city’s street grid was first laid out and was unable to take into account the complex contours and steepness of the hills. Stairways became neighborhood shortcuts, a way to cross from one point to another, from one hill to another, in the easiest and quickest way. 

Stairway walks are pure discovery!  All along them, wonderful details of San Francisco’s picturesque neighborhoods are brought into sharp focus.  The geometric elements of San Francisco’s famous Victorian Painted Ladies  jutt out along the paths.  Monterey cypress, cedar, redwood, magnolia and ficus canopy overhead.  There are small small parks, neighborhood jewels; terraced private gardens, fragrant with roses, plump with ferns, bordered in fresia; alleys filled with splashes of color.  Whimsical garden sculptures pop up here and there, and odd containers, somebody’s claw-footed bathtub or rusting, wrought-iron basket, brim with flowers.  Terraced slopes are covered with ivy, walls are topped with ornate finials or draped in bougainvillea, and interesting doorways lead one to wonder what lies beyond.

You’ll stumble upon more photogenic spots than you can imagine, hear the wild parrots of Telegraph Hill, look down on the gilded and grand historic hotels of Nob Hill.  Descend to street level for a capuccino, perfectly frothed, in an open air cafe, nibble on tasty dim sum in a Chinese family restaurant, grab a sandwich in a neighborhood deli, pungent with cheeses and salami.  

And then there are the views!  With the senses saturated with details seen close-up, reach the top of a stairway at the end of a footpath and suddenly, the world opens up!  There, lying below is the most spectacular panorama – the sparkling bay, forbidding Alcatraz, soaring Golden Gate Bridge, the city skyline, bustling Fisherman’s Wharf, the big Pacific. From this perch on top of the world, yet literally just steps away from the activity below, sounds are muffled, distant. You’re there, yet removed.        

Some stairways are well-known: Filbert Stairway, steeped in history; the Greenwich Stairway to Coit Tower; the mosaic “Magic Stairway” in Golden Gate Heights; the one down zigzagging Lombard Street.  Others are less-traveled, hidden, off the beaten path. One of the best little books ever, filled with wonderful detail, ordinary and obscure, unusual and mundane, is Adah Bakalinsky’s Stairway Walks in San Francisco, a must-have companion on this enriching journey.  

Take a stairway walk. Each step is filled with a sense of expectation – you never know what you’ll come upon, just around the bend.  It’s magical, mysterious.

Over 10 years ago, long before going green became cool, a spectacular, multi-million dollar sustainability project began taking shape in San Francisco in the form of a new home for the California Academy of Sciences, the oldest scientific institution in the western United States.

Since 1916, San Franciscans and visitors to the City by the Bay have enjoyed the Academy’s Steinhart Aquarium, Natural History Museum and Morrison Planetarium, all housed in a hodge-podge cluster of buildings in venerable, Victorian-era Golden Gate Park, one of the finest urban parks in the country.  But the Academy’s exhibits were feeling their age, and it was time for a change.

And, change it they have! Rather than just update, the Academy has propelled itself into the 21st century in a big way.  This brand new re-incarnation of an old favorite is going high-tech, interactive and very green! In the new building, opening on September 27, 2008 in Golden Gate Park, just across from the brand new de Young Museum, the aquarium, planetarium and natural history museum will now be under one roof, and what a roof it is! 

It’s a 2.5 acre living roof, the biggest sustainable roof in the world.  While earthen roofs have been around since ancient times, just wait until you see this jungle!  It is a garden planted with 1.7 million native plants, one that birds and butterflies will call home! 

The new building design and new exhibits reflect a renewal of the Academy’s mission to explore, explain and protect the natural world through a real commitment to sustainability, from the roof down. The living roof reduces storm water run-off; photo voltaic cells produce some of the building’s energy needs, reducing greenhouse gas emissions; operable skylights bring in natural light and create a natural ventilation system allowing hot air to escape, while the cool San Francisco air is brought in from below. Steel used in construction is recycled; shredded blue jeans insulate the walls; water for toilet flushing is reclaimed.  There will be composting programs, non-toxic cleaners will be used, and the restaurant menu will be organic!  Through this innovative structure, the Academy is striving to achieve the highest standard in green building, the LEED Platinum rating.

In addition to the star quality of its living roof and other green structural elements, the building is visually dramatic, with lots of glass and open space.  The exhibits will be all 21st century, with a real WOW! factor.  All will be spectacular, interactive and thought-provoking, with global environmental awareness in the forefront.  In each,  nature is not only on display, it is brought into the exhibit design as well.  Sunlight naturally illuminates the coral reef exhibit and the tropical rainforest; ocean water from the Pacific is cycled through natural filtration systems into the aquatic tanks. 

While striving to achieve the coveted LEED rating is laudable, what is even more so is the lasting impact the building’s environmentally green design elements and the remarkable exhibits will have on visitors each day.  By reaching people from all over the globe, young and old, the Academy will be a real leader in sustainability education. 

Clear your schedule, pack a cooler and strap yourself in on October 19th at 9pm when the Travel Channel presents Most Haunted Live at the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California, just south of San Francisco.

A Seven (yes, I said seven) Hour marathon of paranormal investigation and things that go bump in the night. I’m exhausted already. How will they maintain such an event before the channel changes? I do not know. Guess we’ll have to watch and see…er…wait a minute. No doubt, it’s gonna be a hootenanny.

The Winchester Mystery House was creepy when I visited during the day. I can only imagine how it will be at night. Interestingly you can interact with the investigation team online offering suggestions for room searches, etc. Great way to lead up to Halloween my Friends. Just don’t call me for seven hours on October 19th. (Whew!)

Say “Alcatraz” and most people know what you mean. This prison in the bay of San Francisco, California is well-known. Al Capone, Machine Gun Kelly and the Birdman were guests. They say no one ever escaped. I was lucky enough to take the evening tour.

The boat was eager with anticipation as we approached The Rock. After debarking, we took a narrated walk with a Ranger to the top of the island to explore.

The audio headset tour was excellent and included the sights and sounds of this historic prison. We had plenty of time to explore and the evening light made it even more creepy. This place is filled with history and atmosphere. A visit to Alcatraz is exciting and thankfully you can escape at the end.

I love to eat and drink. It is a passion with me. Taking the Local Tastes of North Beach Tour in San Francisco, California was a must. I was impressed.

North Beach is the “Little Italy” of the City. On this walking tour we tasted espresso that was freshly roasted and bread right out of the oven, after visiting the kitchen to watch them make it. Next were fresh deli meats, olive oil and cheeses from local artisans followed by chocolate from one of the top ten chocolatiers in America. We visited the church where Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe were married and the Purple Onion café where Bill Cosby and Phyllis Diller got their start.

The journey was wonderful and filled with San Francisco insider information. You felt like a native on this tour. Tom was very helpful and friendly, offering sightseeing and restaurant suggestions throughout the tour. Eating your way through North Beach is fantastic and he also does a Chinatown tour. Mmmmmmmmmm. Feed me.

I’m told that larger trees exist. Hard to imagine.

I didn’t know what to expect as we traveled by bus on the Muir Woods- Sausalito tour in San Francisco, California. We arrived at a plain parking lot with a simple entrance to the Muir Woods National Monument. The driver told us to return in about 90 minutes for the trip to Sausalito. I almost missed the bus.

Once you walk down the path and leave the crowds behind you are transported to a primitive world of light and shadow. The Redwoods jut up out of the black soil and compete with each other for sunlight. Every now and then, a human, standing and staring at the majesty of this forest. Massive, splendid and rare.

A small creek dances down the middle of the paths and plays background music for us. Lush ferns carpet the ground while chipmunks scamper in and out. Light filters through thick branches to show the way. I almost missed the bus.

All the way to Sausalito my mind kept returning to Muir Woods. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. That night I dreamed of sacred places and spiritual journeys. That night I slept in Muir Woods.

It’s fun when the owner/operator does the tour. I’m sure I just got lucky, but I really enjoyed the local perspective of a third generation San Franciscan. That is what Mr. Toads Tours offers in San Francisco, California. Local knowledge.

The reproduction 1918 Packard vehicle seats about 8 people and is very fun to ride in as we honked at passersby! They have a small fleet of these vintage cars that run on propane. A big part of the charm is that we could see areas that larger vehicles couldn’t explore. We went behind Coit tower, up into Russian Hill and really explored the neighborhoods. It’s great for small groups. It was personal and geared to the audience’s interests instead of a canned presentation on a pre-planned route. It’s the type of tour you can take more than once. I really enjoyed it. Ribbit…