Archive for June, 2010
BPR Today
The latest news along the old road…
The Hartford Courant announces my upcoming readings in Connecticut.
Officials and consultants discuss “what’s to be done” about congested, dangerous Route 1 in Greenwich, Conn.
The population of Providence is shrinking, while Boston adds residents, according to new Census figures.
An old-fashioned gas station provides some “beautification” of BPR in Orange, Conn.
The Historical Marker Database highlights an 1804 series Boston Road milestone in Pelham, N.Y.:
(image: Bill Coughlin)
KBH on The Infrastructurist
I have a guest post running on The Infrastructurist, an excellent site on all things transportation, about “how bikes saved America’s roads”:
The Office of Road Inquiry, seedling of today’s Federal Highway Administration, emerged from a feverish push to secure federal road reform known as the Good Roads Movement. In 1927, the Ford Motor Company took credit for this movement in the press. Such a claim raised few flags at the time, and it no doubt raises none today. Everyone knows the Model T changed the country forever. The notion that better roads followed a better car makes a lot of sense, which is precisely why it makes a great platform for revisionist history.
Read the rest of the post here.
KBH in Westchester Journal News
Ken Valenti, who writes the “Going Places” column in the Westchester Journal News, spoke to me about The King’s Best Highway last week, for his Sunday piece:
Jaffe looked at [the Boston Post Road] and saw a highway that at times appeared to him “as a character, as a figure almost, in American history.” And it was one that had not gotten a lot of attention.
“There wasn’t that much written about it,” he said. “But there was still a lot of story to tell.”
Valenti also spoke with Barbara Davis, New Rochelle’s city historian, who was a great help to my project, particularly in the early going. I’ll be speaking at New Rochelle Public Library this Thursday.
For more Readings, click here.
KBH in WSJ
Bill Kauffman has kind words for The King’s Best Highway in a Wall Street Journal review:
The “king’s best highway,” later known fondly as the Post Road and eventually as U.S. Routes 1 and 20, began as a series of Indian paths wending their way from Boston to New York City. Eric Jaffe, an agreeable guide, travels this multibranched highway through four centuries to provide an episodic history of roads and their ramifications.
Kauffman seems to particularly enjoy the final chapter, when I take one last spin along the old route:
In his final chapter, Mr. Jaffe rises to poetry. He sets out from the Bronx on the Post Road, or its modern overlay, imagining himself a post rider equipped with a “global positioning saddle.” For hours he motors through “a disinterested forest of franchise stores.” Everywhere he finds “cultural erasures” from the era of urban renewal—the inexcusable vandalism of the 1950s and 1960s. Somewhere, it seems, America took a wrong turn on the Post Road. Whether we can retrace our route and find the better way is a really good question.
Read the rest of Kauffman’s review here, and read this and other Praise here.
BPR Today
The latest news from along the old road…
The Community Advocate mentions my June 26 signing at Tatnuck Bookseller. (More readings, here.)
Amtrak may get left behind in race for high-speed rail.
Debates continue over two BPR crosswalks causing traffic problems in Mamaroneck, New York.
Worcester columnist Albert B. Southwick celebrates the life of colonist Daniel Gookin.
Bowery’s JMZ subway station “has seen its ridership expand 1023% in the past 20 years,” reports WSJ:
BPR Today
The latest news from along the old road…
HartfordBusiness.com salutes the “many signs of life in downtown Hartford.”
Amtrak agrees to suspend disruptive work in New Haven. (Original post here.)
Meanwhile, New Haven welcomes the International Festival of Arts at Ideas.
Yankees have “no comment” on southern Connecticut becoming part of Red Sox nation.
Someone’s upset on the Bowery (via Curbed NY and Ev Grieve):
KBH in Westport
Dan Woog, veteran freelance writer and weekly columnist for the Westport News, writes about The King’s Best Highway on his blog, 06880:
If you think writers can run out of subjects for books, I have 4 words for you: “The King’s Best Highway.” … Jaffe — a former editor of Smithsonian.com — was warned not to write a “boring” book. He hasn’t.
Read the rest of Woog’s review here. A couple nice images, and some highly informed comments, accompany the post.
The name of Woog’s blog refers to Westport’s zip code. I spent a good bit of time there in the (very) early research phases of the book. Back then I was meeting with longtime Westport resident Joan Schine, who had been a leader of Project Concern, a contentious high school integration movement, back in the 1970s.
Project Concern ended up being outside the scope of the book, but I was pleased to see that Schine was recently listed among “40 People Who Made a Difference” in Westport magazine:
As chairman of the Board of Education in 1970, Joan heroically battled considerable anger and vituperation (she even received a death threat) for trying to enact a state program called Project Concern, which sought to bus in thirty underprivileged kids from Bridgeport to fill empty seats in Westport. … Legacy: Led Westport to an examination of its conscience.
BPR Today
The latest news from along the old highway…
An archaeological dig is going on at a Dedham, Mass., house that dates back to 1641.
An “early 1800s” row house on Bowery seems in danger of demolition.
In New Haven, Amtrak “unresponsive” to complaints about construction—which begins Saturdays at 6 a.m.
My upcoming reading at Bank Square Books, in Mystic, Conn., was mentioned here.
A schoolhouse on BPR in Mamaroneck, N.Y., dates back to 1816 (via Larchmont-Mamaroneck Patch):
Bibliography Page Added
The headline pretty much says it all. Check out the new bibliography page here.
BPR Today
Hartford’s mayor in court regarding his alleged involvement with a development project on Main Street.
$2 billion for emergency mass transit aid proposed by some Northeast senators.
Another E. Jaffe drafted by the Red Sox in the 19th round.
Expressionist who painted “broken men” on Bowery dies.
In Springfield, Mass., where State St. ends and Boston Road begins (via Tommy Devine):
Bookshelf
Copyright 2010 E. Jaffe. All rights reserved.
"Kings Highway" image by Elissa Curtis.
