New York

Hamilton Grange National Memorial

/ bigdiff / 4 Comments

Since the musical, Hamilton’s home has been busier than ever. Built as a countryside retreat for his wife, Hamilton was killed in a duel only a couple of years later. But his wife and children lived here for many years, protecting his legacy and eventually donating his 18th century piano pictured above. The house itself has been moved a few blocks, twice, and the park service has only opened it for tours here in the past few years. The gardens are being regrown according to Hamilton’s old instructions, and the site is now located on the edge of a public park.

The town has grown up a bit since then. Historic Harlem is only a few blocks away, and I recommend dining at one of the old soul food restaurants with live music, if you have the time. I’m obviously in New York City, still traveling by EV, namely the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s NYC Subway.

“Who talks most about freedom and equality?

Is it not those who hold the bill of rights in one hand

and a whip for affrighted slaves in the other?” 

Alexander Hamilton

Fort Stanwix National Monument

/ bigdiff / 2 Comments

Yes, I’m back with a bang! Tesla is still working on my car (Chaco was tough on the springs), but rather than hold me hostage, they’re letting me travel around in a Model S until my car is ready. And the fort celebrates the 1777 victory for two weeks in mid-August with hourly cannon fire!

This fort has it all: drawbridge, sally-port, parapets, ramparts, and meticulously detailed barracks. And it’s open, labeled, extremely photogenic and great fun to climb around and explore. A small crowd gathers just a few yards from the cannon just below the colonial officer walking in the photo, and each step is demonstrated from candle to boom!

Long before we became an independent country, French fur traders gathered at this natural portage between the St Lawrence Seaway and the Hudson River and bought beaver pelts from Native Americans to make hats. I drove up the Hudson River Valley, along the Mohawk River and saw signs for Oneida Lake which drains into Lake Ontario. A short portage here connects the two watersheds, making this a strategic point in the middle of New York State, later connected by the Erie Canal. Control of this portage had international repercussions, as colonial powers divided up the globe.

The British built the original fort after capturing the area during the French & Indian War, and George Washington rebuilt it to defend the territory from the British. The key battle happened when a British Colonel led troops from the Great Lakes to meet with General Burgoyne’s force from Montreal in order to separate New England from the rest of the colonies. Both sides were joined by Native American warriors, and there was a particularly bloody ambush in the woods near the fort. The Patriots defended the fort for about 3 weeks before Benedict Arnold’s reinforcements (when he was still on our side) disrupted the plan, leading to Burgoyne’s surrender at Saratoga. Regardless of which side they fought on, the Native Americans were eventually forced to cede lands in New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania, in return for some annual compensation and limited sovereignty over their remaining land near here.

Thomas Cole National Historic Site

/ bigdiff / 3 Comments

Like the Oklahoma City Memorial and the Touro Synagogue, this is an affiliated site that’s run separately from the park service, so there’s a $15 fee for the house tour. I’m a fan of Cole’s The Course of Empire set of paintings, which depict the same landscape from Nature to height of civilization and to forgotten ruins. The reproduction in his old studio above is from another series called The Voyage of Life.

Cole immigrated from England in 1818 at 17 and settled in the Catskill area of the Hudson River Valley to become a painter in 1825. Witnessing both the natural beauty and its destruction due to rapidly growing industry, Cole created romantic and allegorical landscapes to convey both his love of nature and his sadness at its devastation. He was extremely influential, and there’s a whole Art Trail devoted to the landscape artists who followed his style.

“Nature has spread for us a rich and delightful banquet.

Shall we turn from it?

We are still in Eden;

the wall that shuts us our of the garden

is our own ignorance and folly.”

Thomas Cole

Martin Van Buren National Historic Site

/ bigdiff / 4 Comments

Lindenwald is a country estate on the Old Post Road between New York and the state capital Albany. The Hudson River Valley was still Dutch-speaking when Van Buren was born in a local tavern (fyi, ‘kill’ is Dutch for ‘waterway’). President Van Buren bought it in anticipation of not winning re-election, after a financial crisis and not backing Texas statehood after the Alamo. Van Buren was a political tactician who helped form the Democratic Party, managed Andrew Jackson’s campaign and became his Vice President. He expanded the franchise for white males by reducing the property ownership burden, but he restricted the franchise for black males by raising the property ownership burden. He also opposed women having any rights and continued Jackson’s cruel Native American relocation policies. The house tour was very educational, especially since I knew almost nothing about him, and I was pleased that the ranger described our 8th President’s faults without hesitation, unlike Andrew Johnson‘s ridiculous site.

Saratoga National Historical Park

/ bigdiff / 5 Comments

This boot monument may be the park’s most famous, but let me quickly set the scene. In 1777, General Burgoyne led his British Army from Canada down the Hudson River Valley to New York City (captured by the British fleet the year before), planning to separate New England from the rest of the colonies. After recapturing Fort Ticonderoga, the British marched confidently further south.

General Gates led the colonists who dug in at Saratoga to stop them. The British advance troops had marched into some fields to gather wheat, and the Americans surprised and flanked them. The British took heavy losses retreating to their own fortifications on two hills, and the Americans took the hill with the monument before night fell. The British continued retreating, became surrounded and soon surrendered.

The boot monument was for an American officer who was wounded in the leg taking that hill. It was the officer’s third leg wound in one year. He was a sometimes brilliant, extremely aggressive, apparently fearless, greedy, back-talking, insubordinate veteran, who was hated by other officers and loved by his men. He had led an unsuccessful assault on one hill, and then switched to this hill in the middle of the battle. The officer wasn’t supposed to be leading troops in the battle at all, since Gates had taken away his command. Actually, he had tried to resign, but Washington refused after learning that Fort Ticonderoga had fallen, insisting that the officer (who had helped capture Fort Ticonderoga originally) march north again. Angry at being mistreated by the army and in pain over his wounds (one leg became 2 inches shorter than the other), Benedict Arnold ended up betraying our country.

The museum also has a fascinating exhibit on the fallout of the British defeat at Saratoga. The French allied with the Americans first, followed by the Spanish & the Dutch, leading to attacks on British colonies in Central America, the Caribbean, South America, Africa, India, and Indonesia.

Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site

/ bigdiff / Leave a comment

I think this is the living room downstairs, but the European Baroque extravagance made me dizzy. I’ve now been to four Vanderbilt mansions, so I’m halfway done. Fortunately, a combination of the Great Depression, regulation and taxation ended the Guilded Age, so the mansion spree ended. FDR convinced the last owner to donate this estate to the government, since she already had several other estates.

Today’s unregulated multi-billionaires fly rockets into space, while some regular citizens lack basic healthcare available for free in other countries. Corporations have more rights than pregnant women, but they pay little to zero taxes. I think individuals should be allowed to incorporate to get similar benefits. You would only owe tax on your savings, not your income, for example. Or maybe corporations should pay taxes like we do. Either way, we need to figure out a way to make things fairer, before everyone is broke except the one guy who owns all the corporations and robot workers. Maybe after AI puts the bankers, lawyers and doctors out of work, voters will decide that the system should work for people and not the other way around.

Home of Franklin D Roosevelt National Historic Site

/ bigdiff / 4 Comments

I’m not sure why this site hasn’t been promoted to National Historical Park, since it is a presidential birthplace, childhood home, presidential home, library, and gravesite. There’s also the walled garden at Bellefield, the neighboring Eleanor Roosevelt site, and the neighboring Vanderbilt site.

These wonderful estates are a fine introduction to the historic Hudson River Valley. I enjoyed the Clinton written & narrated film in the museum, and thought $10 for the library worth it. Your park pass includes the house tour, and there’s even a cafe serving hot dogs (see ’Hyde Park on the Hudson’ with Bill Murray). I can’t complain about the three top notch tours today or anything else here. Simply superb!

Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site

/ bigdiff / 3 Comments

This is where a young nominee sought the critical endorsement of Eleanor Roosevelt. She thought him too wishy-washy on Civil Rights, and counseled him to be more assertive on the issue. JFK complied, she endorsed him, and he won by a hair. Without Eleanor, it also seems impossible to me that FDR could have overcome his crippling polio limitations and successfully campaigned for and won the Presidency. And of course, without Eleanor, it seems unlikely that the UN would have adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. After her husband’s death, she was in many ways the moral leader of the Democratic Party. She stared down the Soviets at the UN. She wrote over a dozen books. And she spoke frequently to labor, Civil Rights, and other important leaders, as well as to the public.

Her home here was also where many of the most important acts of FDR’s diplomacy took place, including playing in the pool with Churchill and famously eating hot dogs with the King of England. The house is viewable by tour (frequent in summer) and the grounds are also lovely. The site was once part of FDR’s family estate, so there’s a hiking path linking them, if you have time. The archive library & museum at the FDR site contain useful exhibits of Eleanor, so it’s wise to visit both sites together.