World Trade Center Reborn

I had an amazing experience on my way to the BBC's NYC bureau for my recent Halloween appearance (topic: The Addams Family vs. The Munsters). The journey there took me by the World Trade Center, which I hadn't visited in several months, perhaps as long as a year or two. And to my delight, for the first time since Sept 11, I felt there was a THERE there, that it was no longer a work in progress or a construction site. It felt for the first time much as it had back on September 10, 2001, before the attack, a humming, vibrant place, full of workers and tourists bustling about, enjoying the various spaces as they were meant to be enjoyed. Make no mistake, there is a memorial to the dead there now, and there was no such thing there before. And while that corner of the complex is appropriately somber, it no longer feels oppressive. As those horrific events recede into history it feels something more like the nearby Irish Hunger Memorial. It is something to reflect upon; it is not something to crush and paralyze us. It has been almost 20 years now. Moving throughout the WTC, I had a sort of calm feeling that though the hundreds or thousands of people around me were not necessarily New Yorkers who had been here on that day, in fact the odds were that they weren't, that that was okay. Time has passed. The city has moved on and that is healthy. People have worked together and they rebuilt this place and it seems to be working out. It gives me hope for the future.

This sculpture, once in the middle of the plaza between the Twin Towers, was damaged when they fell. Now it rests in a raised green space not unlike the High Line. 

A Philadelphia Side Trip

A sad errand brought us down to Philadelphia over the weekend, and I took the opportunity to visit a site from my family history, not far from Independence Hall. 

My (8th) great grandfather Reese Price (1679-1760) was landlord at the Blue Anchor Tavern at the intersection of Dock Creek (now Dock Street) and Front Street, at the Riverfront in Philadelphia. 

I'm not sure which corner the tavern was on, so I photographed 'em all. 

Visiting in person was edifying, as there were other clues about the neighborhood nearby, namely in the form of two other nearby taverns, just yards away, which provides a portrait of a riverfront neighborhood that was once full of such taverns. 

The original City Tavern was torn down in 1975 and subsequently rebuilt. 

In 1747 Rees donated some Price land for the building of a school for the Friends Community in the Welsh Tract, where the family had settled it. In August and September 1777 the Revolutionary War came to the Price’s front yard. The battles of Germantown and Brandywine were fought nearby and Washington’s troops camped out on the Price’s lands. There is an anecdote of officers coming into the house and being disappointed in their request for spirits, as it was Sunday, although the Prices did provide them with refreshments. But visiting these sites will await a future visit. 

A Pilgrimage to Concord

Booked to speak at the Concord Players centennial celebration, I made sure to arrive a few hours early so I could do a little sightseeing in this American mecca. My Concord ancestors include my 9th great grandfather John Bellows (1622-1683), and my 8th great grandfather Thomas Estabrook (1629-1713), brother of Rev Joseph Estabrook, pastor in Concord for 44 years, for whom the Estabrook Woods is named. Several relatives fought at Lexington and Concord in the American Revolution. I am also related (more distantly) to most of the Transcendentalists and other writers of Concord, whom I've read widely and influenced me immensely: Emerson, Thoreau, the Alcotts, and Hawthorne, et al. I found however that a couple of hours in Concord was not nearly enough to see everything I wanted to see. That would require at least a couple of full days. So I shall have to return one day. But I did get to stroll around the town, and to see Walden Pond. And for my account of the Concord Players event, go here. 

Port of Call: Portland, Maine

Having a layover of some days between Boston area engagements I took the opportunity to spend some quality time with my sons in Portland, Maine. I had lived there myself for a few months when I was about their age, and I was excited by the prospect of revisiting old haunts, in addition to spending time with the progeny.

Portland is the hometown of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (see below). The poet himself is buried in Massachusetts but I came across this crypt containing his parents in Portland's Western Cemetery

Longfellow Statue, Longfellow Square

Portland Stage Company, where the first professional production of one of my plays occurred in 1988, the one-act "White Trash". 

Nor'easter outside my window -- what could be more Maine than that?

Charlie and I at Longfellow's boyhood home

Charlie in the writing nook in the Wadsworth Longfellow House 

Longfellow's childhood bedroom

Statue of movie director John Ford, also born and raised in Portland

The former site of the Tree Cafe, where productions of early versions of my plays "Universal Rundle" and "Nihils" were staged in 1988. 

The apartment building where I lived in 1988 and wrote the song "Body Throbbing Sunburn", which we later used in the show "Willy Nilly" in 2009. 

Portland's Old Port. The remaining photos depict a glorious day of kicking around the Old Port and Peak's Island. 

Next stop: Concord, Mass.