le blog | Images Voyages Impressions

(texte en français ci-dessous) Take a cable car in NYC As unbelievable as it seems, you can really take a cable car in New York! You just have to go to 59th Street on 2nd Ave and you will find the station where you can take one of the two trams that go from Manhattan to Roosevelt Island. Built in 1973 to compensate for the delay in the construction of the metro that was supposed to go to the island, they remained in operation after that with more or less long interruptions and changes of cabins over the years. To take one, it will only cost you the price of a metro ticket and as they operate very regularly and can carry 110 people each, the wait should not be too long. You'll go over the East River and see the mighty Roosevelt Bridge that goes to Queens. You'll also have great views of Manhattan and then you'll arrive to a haven of peacefulness compared to where you started. If you are looking for a quiet spot to picnic, the parks along the river could well answer your ques...

(texte en français ci-dessous) The Gloden Stairs | Boston immigration Even if Ellis Island in New York harbor is the symbol of immigration to the USA during the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, Boston was at that time the second point of entry into American territory. There were up to 8 landing wharfs for passenger boats coming from Europe, each with its immigration station and federal agents going from one to another to check papers and administer medical tests. That of Grand Junction in East Boston - where Piers Park is now, was the most important and it is therefore also in East Boston that you can still find the most remnants of this activity. First, the explanatory panels located at Piers Park and Navy Fuel Park which give you an overview of what immigration was like at the time (see the photos at the end of the post). Then, along Marginal Street and opposite to Piers Park 2, the Immigrant House whose name you will still find on the facade if you look up at t...

  (texte en français ci-dessous) NYC: 17,000 water tanks If you go to New York, it's obviously not for the water tanks that adorn the roofs of the city. You will however only need to spend a day there to see them everywhere. You may even get attached to them and start looking for them when you are in places where the buildings are more than 6 floors high. Despite their sometimes decrepit air and their astonishing wooden structure, they are still in activity. Three family-owned companies have shared the market for about a century and continue to install or maintain them. There are even some in the skyscrapers - although more modern and made of steel, but you don't see them because they are hidden in the structure. The One World Center has sixteen, for example, located at different heights of the tower to allow their filling in stages. Like all the others, they ensure that the floors above the sixth have running water. Below, the water coming from reservoirs to the north of the...

  (texte en français ci-dessous) Chicago Smart Museum of Art and site of the 1st nuclear chain reaction There are often small contemporary art museums here and there that are overshadowed by larger, better-known ones but still turn out to be great discoveries. The Chicago Smart Museum of Art is one of them. Located as is often the case on the campus of a university, here the University of Chicago in the Hyde Park neighborhood, the modernist building that houses it immediately gives an idea of ​​what you will find inside: modern and contemporary art but also Asian art and European art from before 1900. This museum opened in the 1960s thanks to a donation from the Smart family, magazine publishers and documentary film producers. It has several thousand pieces collected over the years thanks to various donations and it is intended as much for the education of students on campus as for the general public. Its entry is therefore free, and you will spend about an hour visiting its exhib...

(texte en français ci-dessous) The Charlestown Bells If you follow Walk in Boston # 5, the historic Charlestown (the link is at the bottom of the page), you will pass over locks and once on the Charlestown side, on your left, you will see steel tubes attached to the path's protective barrier. There will also be handles that protrude so that you can operate them. Don't hesitate to do so, you are in front of "the Charlestown Bells", a musical sculpture created in 2000 by Paul Matisse following a commission from the city. This is probably not the Matisse that the title made you think of but it is a Matisse all the same, known, among other things, for his musical installations. He is in fact one of Henry's grandsons and he lives in Massachusetts. To return to the handles, they will operate small hammers that will strike the tubes, thus creating a small chiming symphony as you walk. You are not a musician? It doesn't matter, the music will still sound right excep...

  The Morris-Jumel Mansion is the oldest house still standing in Manhattan, but it is also one of the most difficult to reach, tucked away in a corner of Washington Heights and overlooking the East River. This makes its visit all the more interesting because you can be sure that you will not be lost in a crowd of tourists. To get there after a long journey in this part of Manhattan far from the beaten path but full of surprising discoveries, you can follow Walk in NYC # 15, in Hudson Heights and Washington Heights. Once you arrive at the edge of the manor, you will be in the beautiful Jumel Terrace Historic District with its rows of brownstones houses in the Queen Anne, Renaissance or Neo-Romanesque style; in front of the manor, there will be Sylvan Terrace which is the subject of another article on this blog. The visit of the manor will take you about an hour if you do it yourself (there are also guided tours if you prefer) and will probably be preceded by a quick introduction o...

  (texte en français ci-dessous) Chicago boulevards When you arrive in Chicago and start driving through the suburbs, you will quickly notice these huge boulevards with their central two-lane arteries and the adjacent lanes on each side, all planted with trees and lined with magnificent mansions. Built over about 7 decades since the 1870s and intended to justify Chicago's motto (Urbs in horto - the city in the garden), it now gives a particular character to the city and especially to its neighborhoods far from the center; they are thus connected by greenways where residents can go running and/or enjoy the lawns to relax when the weather is nice. They also provide access to a whole set of landscaped parks, often with recreation pavilions, small lakes, beaches, and sports fields. The system is in fact so original that it has been classified as a historic monument since 2018 for at least forty kilometers. As it was developed, it attracted wealthy families who settled on its banks in ...

(texte en français ci-dessous) Welling Court 150 murals To see the Welling Court 150 murals, the largest public space dedicated to this art in NYC if not in the USA, you will need to go to Astoria in Queens. If you like walking, you just have to follow Walk in NYC # 6, along the East River, part 3 . It starts on Roosevelt Island and explores this part of the city. The murals will be about halfway through the walk, just past Socrates Park which houses contemporary sculptures. Both locations are free to visit. The Welling Court murals project began in 2009 when locals gathered at Ad Hoc Art, a street art gallery in Bushwick. They wanted to ask artists to come up with ideas to make their neighborhood more pleasant. It only took a few months for the first murals to appear, about forty in all. Since then, in June and annually, they are covered by others and gradually colonize all the walls of the district. This means that from one year to the next, you will...

  (texte en français ci-dessous) Chinatown Chicago Chinatown Chicago is one of the largest Chinese communities in the United States and continues to welcome new immigrants, making it one of the most authentic in the country. Founded in the 1912s by the powerful Merchants' Association to escape the discrimination that the Chinese population was beginning to feel in the city center, the neighborhood was limited in its development following racial tensions with other adjacent communities. This makes it an easy place to explore on foot, filled with shops with colorful signs that are impossible to read if you don't know the language, and a constant buzz of activity on its two main streets. If you want spices, vegetables, cakes or clothes that you can't find anywhere else, this is the place to go, as well as a newer pedestrian complex where you'll find shops on two floors and of course, everywhere, architecture and patterns reminiscent of China. A cha...

 King Drive, Bronzeville (texte en français ci-dessous) Perhaps one of the best ways to experience Bronzeville, Chicago's historic black neighborhood, is to walk along Martin Luther King Jr. Drive from its intersection with E 47th St to its intersection with E 32nd St. In the span of 14 blocks and with detours along S Calumet Ave, you will have explored much of its cultural and activist heritage and, with any luck, had the chance to chat with some of its residents who will tell you more about the place. This is what the self-guided Walk in Chicago # 12 offers you to do (see link below), adding a final section towards the Illinois Institute of Technology and its modernist architecture. King Drive, as the boulevard is now known, was once called Grand Boulevard and when you stroll along some of the 19th century Victorian mansions that line it, you’ll understand why. It’s also the heart of Bronzeville, the black metropolis that had its heyday in the 1930s. Y...

  (texte en français ci-dessous) Hispanic Society Museum & Library The Hispanic Museum and its library are located quite far off the beaten path in Washington Heights in Upper Manhattan. Follow Walk in NYC # 15 and this is where you will end your route; it is also a place not to be missed if you are in the area. It will take you about an hour to see everything and to get there, you will first have to cross the Audubon Terrace flanked by superb statues and lined with 8 American Renaissance Beaux-Arts style buildings. You will then be able to thank Archer Milton Huntington, an heir to the Southern Pacific railroad company, for creating there this imposing ensemble at the beginning of the 20th century, on land previously owned by James Aububon. His architect cousin drew the plans and his sculptor wife decorated the terrace. He also brought in other cultural institutions to occupy the adjacent buildings. He actually envisioned this as a new cultural enclave in this still rural but...