The Future is not Today: November 2014

A couple of weeks ago MeAsWe and I (or is that Me) headed for Ohio. Now we could have taken I-90 all the way there, but what fun would that have been, so we headed thru Connecticut into New York and finally picked up RT 6 somewhere around Scranton PA. To make a little time we did use I-84 to get out of New England.

Having left around 8am with just coffee we stopped in Sandy Hook, Newtowne, CT for a pitstop and found the Sandy Hook Diner.

Right inside the door was this guy having coffee.

The menu featured Homemade Hash. You can see the edge of MeAsWe's French Toast.

Breakfast and lunch done with we hit our first stop, The African - American Cemetery in Montgomery, NY. This cemetery has about 100 internments believed to be made up of African slaves brought here by the earliest settlers of the region.

In Middletown NY we picked up some more historic sites. Church was established in 1785. This church was the third on this location, built in 1872.

First Congregational Church Middletown NY

Also on the Register is the Paramount Theater, Art Deco in style, built in 1930.

Last stop in Middletown was the Webb Horton Mansion. Webb made his fortune in the tanning business and oil. At the age of 76 he began construction on this house. It was completed in 1906 at a cost of a million dollars. Webb died before he could spend a single night in the house. It is now the administrative offices for SUNY Orange.

In Lords Valley we stopped briefty to pick up this house on the register.

We finally had crossed RT 6 our main road to traverse PA. Had a couple stops along the way. In Hawley it took a while to figure out how to get to this place, but we did. The Connor J.S. American Rich Cut Glassware Factory was built in 1890 converted to a silk throwing mill in 1926 and then a hotel in 1988.

O'Connor J.S. American Rich Cut Glassware Factory

Stopped briefly in Carbondale to pick up the city hall

At this point I realized we were not going to cross PA along RT 6 in the sunlight. There was one spot that I wanted to see again, having stopped here in 2006. The Tnkhannock Viaduct was completed in 1915 and was the largest concrete structure in the world.

With the sun going to disappear in the next 30 minutes or so, eliminating any nice visuals I opted to head north back into New York for Rt 17/I-86. When planning this trip there did not seem to be an abundance of the motels on the web. Binghamton was too close, so we headed for Jamestown NY. We hit snow along the way and some points it was near white out situations. Not alot of accumulation, but enough to slow down to the 50's. The next morning we awoke to the first snow of the season, yuck.

What I didn't know when we decided on Jamestown, Lucy (Lucille Ball) was born here and there was a museum.

Since we headed off route yesterday, there was one place I wanted to visit before we got to Ohio. The Drake Oil Well, located in Titusville PA, was the birthplace of the oil driling industry in the US. It is a National Historic Landmark, Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark, and a National Historic Chemical Landmark.

Last stop before heading into Geneva, OH for the night was Joshua Reed Gibbings law office. A National Historic Landmark, Gibbings was a die hard abolishinist and a member of the US House of Representatives. He was so opposed to slavery, that he advocated violence against slave owners. He became one of the founding members to the Republican Party. Thats the history. When we came into Jefferson OH I had the law office right where a McDonalds was. We drove around a bit looking for the place and finally decided to grab a bit to eat. I headed for the mens room before ordering. The wall paper just outside the rest room had the National Historic Landmark plaque in the paper. WOW. This must have been custom wall paper, more of a large photo. Apparently the law office was moved so that McDonalds could be built here. One of the local folks gave us directions and we must have passed the building 2 or 3 times before we spotted it.

Grabbed a couple of pictures and headed for Geneva. This was the end of day 2.

Up bright and early to head into Cleveland to enjoy the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This was the purpose of the trip. Harold, my best friend in college, best man at one of my weddings and all around great guy was going with us. More snow last night was no problem, however the Browns were playing at home so parking became was filling up fast, but we still managed a spot right next to the museum.

While not a long walk, with my ankle the way it is, a short walk feels like a long one. We paid the admission, I took my first picture and the battery started flashing red. I had committed the one of the 8 deadly sins of photography. The spare battery was in the car. Really ???

Janis Joplin Porche

Pink Floyd The Wall

We spent about 5 hours at the museum and I really enjoyed looking at all the guitars, reading some of the information, scanning the old contracts for concerts and stuff like that. The did have a special section for the electric guitar featuring the Les Paul. Harold had me take pictures of one in particular especially close ups of the height of the strings off the pickups. He restores guitars and was looking for some guidance on how high the strings were set off from the first pickup. He guessed this particular model was worth around $250,000 being a 1959 Les Paul and that pricing doesn't include the Who owned it markup. This paricular one is owned by Garry Rossington of Lynyrd Skynyrd and on display in Cleveland.

We left the museum around 3pm, well ahead of the Browns fans. One last pic of a National Historic Landmark and our trip was complete, except getting back home.

Hit Worcester again today, just to get some exercise and knock off some more of the historic places in Worcester. Concentrated on places other than the 3 deckers, which there is plenty of those to get.

First stop was Hope Cemetery, that was fashioned after the pastoral trend in the mid 1800's. The granddaddy of all in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Watertown. This was America's first garden cemetery. Hope Cemetery followed this same philosophy, however no where near as interesting. It was first established in 1854 and has over 14,000 guests that stay here.

Not too far away is the Webster St Firehouse. At first glance I thought this was an entirely new station, however I realized the façade and middle part of the building was still the original structure. It was built in 1893.

I drove past the next place twice before I realized where it was. I even knew it was a bank. Stearns Tavern was built in 1812, although there is some history dating back to 1776. It was originally on Main St and moved to this spot on Park Ave.

The Downing Street School was built in 1891 and is now part of Clark University. It's Romanesque Revival style is unique for Worcester Public Schools.

Over to Woodland St for the Woodland Street Firehouse. Built in 1886 is very similar to the Cambridge St Firehouse pictured a little further on. The arched doors for the fire apparatus is kind of neat. All of these firehouses had the tower in the back. I can only guess these were observation towers.

Heading for the next historical spot this mural grabbed my eye. I actually circled around the block to get a picture of this. Reminds me of the OSJ treasure hunt where murals was a subject. Got talking to a guy on the street about it and it is a picture of San Juan, Puerto Rico.

The Worcester Corset Factory building was built in several stages starting in 1895 with the final stage in 1909. It started out as a place that made the hoops for the hoops dresses which were fashionable at the time. When they fell out of favor, David Fanning began making corsets. At its peak the place employed more than 2000 folks. Today it is residential property.

Cambridge St had 2 locations to grab. The Cambridge School built in 1869 and the Cambridge St Firehouse (1886). This area was known as South Worcester and was relatively a new neighborhood in the mid 1850's. It came about from the Whittail Mills that employed a huge amount of people.