Tag: history

Posted on

On an Uphill Track: Funiculars

Los Angeles funicular Angels Flight - current

Los Angeles funicular Angels Flight - current

I first encountered the word funicular on a hillside in Sedona. Known as the “Hillevator” (hill + elevator), the small railway gave tourists a shortcut between Uptown Sedona and L’Auberge Resort and Oak Creek at the bottom of the hill.

Hillavator in Sedona

While I’m a bit fuzzy on the exact definition (I think it involves cables and pulleys), a funicular is basically a passenger vehicle that goes up and down a hill on a track.

Hillavator Sedona by Tiffany Joyce

By nature, they’re very localized and customized to the spot they’re in. Maybe that’s why I find them intriguing.


Angels Flight Railway, Los Angeles, California

While Sedona’s Hillevator is now out of commission, another quirky old funicular has recently come back to life. After its brief appearance in the movie La La Land, the push to restore the Angels Flight Railway in Downtown Los Angeles may have gained steam, and it reopened in August of 2017.

  • Called “The Shortest Railroad in the World,” it travels a single block.
  • At the bottom: Grand Central Market
  • At the top: California Plaza – Los Angeles Musuem of Contemporary Art, Grand Performances amphitheater, and restaurants
  • Virtual 3D tour
  • In 1901, Colonel James Ward Eddy built the Angels Flight funicular. More recently, his great-great-grandson built the Angels Flight app.
  • One way: $1

 


Penang Hill funicular

Penang Hill Railway, Penang, Malaysia

  • Longest Funicular Track in Asia
  • Located on the Malaysian island of Penang
  • At the bottom: Jalan Bukit Bendera base station near George Town.
  • At the top: former British hill station Penang Hill. The resort town’s attractions include the three-storey Astaka Cliff Cafe, which houses food courts, souvenir stands, an owl museum, and Love Lock Penang Hill.
  • Round trip: RM 30 (standard), RM 80 (fast lane)

Love Unlocked

 

Flowers in Grimsel, Switzerland Picture: KWO / Photo: David Birri http://gallery.grimselstrom.ch/grimselerlebnis/grimselwelt/taelli/
Gelmer Funicular

Gelmer Funicular, Innertkirchen, Switzerland

 

100 Street Funicular, Edmonton, Alberta

  • Opened this past December to provide wheelchair and stroller access to river valley trail system.
  • Has already been out of service repeatedly, partly because of cold weather. (Not sure why that was a surprise in Canada!)
  • At the bottom: River Valley Promenade
  • At the top: Promontory viewpoint, Hotel Macdonald
  • Free

 

Glória Funicular, Lisbon, Portugal

Ascensores e Elevador, Lisbon, Portugal

 

Images via WellingtonNZ.com

Wellington Cable Car, Wellington, New Zealand

 

Have you ever ridden in this type of vehicle? Where were you?

 

Photo sources:

Angels Flight by Channone Arif (CCL)

 

Sedona –

  • From a print of a photo I took in the early 2000s. Our friend Ozan was joking around with his hands on the window. (He’s not trapped in there or anything.)
  • Tiffany Joyce (CCL). She actually got married in Sedona when the Hillavator was still in operation!

 

Los Angeles –

 

Penang Hill –

 

Switzerland –

 

Edmonton –

 

Lisbon –

 

Wellington –

Posted on

Art Inspires Expeditions in “Headhunt Revisited” Documentary

An unusual expedition set sail from San Francisco in 1926.

Headhunt Revisited Lagoon

It was composed entirely of two women with cigarette tins full of art supplies in tow. Their destination was the South Pacific. And their mission was to document cultures in danger of disappearing.

Headhunt Revisited - Caroline Mytinger

Artist Caroline Mytinger and her partner Margaret Warner did not seem fazed by the western dismissal of Melanesians as ruthless headhunters. In fact, Mytinger often turned the phrase around, referring to the search for faces to paint as her own “headhunt.”

Headhunt Revisited documentary

The documentary Headhunt Revisited: With Brush, Canvas and Camera follows another woman-lead expedition with photographer and filmmaker Michele Westmorland retracing their steps 80 years later.

Mytinger Sketch and Westmorland photo

We travel along, not just through the Pacific but through time, as the film superimposes past and present. Its cinematographic shots are interspersed with grainy archival footage of traditional dances, art, and daily life on the islands. Westmorland’s narration dovetails with excerpts of Mytinger’s writings (as voiced by Lauren Hutton).

Elders, artisans, and family of Mytinger’s original portrait subjects share stories that give us a window into their worlds and the lives of their ancestors.

One of the artists we meet is Papua New Guinean painter Jeffry Feeger, who created a series of portraits that parallel Mytinger’s. His subjects come from the same places but are dressed in street clothes, rather than the traditional attire.

Mytinger’s portraits are like a colorful time capsule. The film is an equally vibrant exploration of the people, places, and traditions behind the paintings.

Headhunt Revisited screened recently at the Friday Harbor Film Festival, the Hawaii International Film Festival, and LA Femme Film Festival, where it won Best Foreign Documentary.

Hopefully, it will have a wider release soon. If you have a chance to see it, I recommend taking that journey.

 

UPDATE: Headhunt Revisited is now available for purchase on DVD or USB!

 

Images and preview courtesy of Headhunt Revisited: With Brush, Canvas and Camera.

Posted on

Smithsonian: Air and Space Museum and Mitsitam Café

Smithsonian American Indian Museum
Cafe at Smithsonian American Indian Museum

Cafe at National Museum of the American Indian

While I could have easily spent a full day at the Smithsonian American History Museum, a D.C.-area friend had recommended the Mitsitam Café at the Smithsonian American Indian Museum as a “little known gem.” I decided to make my way there for lunch.

Mitsitam cafe
Smithsonian Native American Museum

The cafeteria serves native-inspired foods that span the American continents. I got a buffalo burger and fry bread.

Smithsonian Native American Museum

The menu also includes options like wild rice and ceviche.

DC Museum cafe

This is definitely a place I’d like to come back to and try more things!

Smithsonian space museum

National Air and Space Museum

When I walked down Independence Avenue to the south entrance of the Air and Space Museum, I was discouraged to see a line over 100 feet long to get in. I had started back toward our hotel, when I looked back and saw that the northern entrance – along Jefferson Drive – didn’t seem to have a line! Sure enough, about five minutes later I was in the museum!

Air and space museum

So keep in mind that there is more than one entrance, especially since, as Stephanie later told me, the Air and Space Museum is the most popular of the Smithsonian museums.

Amelia Earhart

Immediately upon entering, I saw display spaces festoooned with replica and original air and space craft – a lunar landing module, the “Spirit of St. Louis,” the front half of the fuselage of a 747, rocket nozzles as big as my living room.

Smithsonian Air and Space Museum: plane

In the past I had wanted to be an astronaut, so I was particularly intrigued by the exhibits showing relics of the U.S. space program in the 60s and 70s – toolkits, suits, windowed hatches, flight manuals, and the like. There’s even a very official and ornate “certificate of merit” presented to the first chimpanzee sent to space by the U.S., which I found both ridiculous and moving. While I was certainly impressed by the spacecrafts themselves, oddly, it was these historic bits of ephemera that captivated me the most.

image

The guided tour moved a bit too slow for me, so I bailed out to cover more ground.

Smithsonian Air and Space Museum

Marty met up with me about an hour into my museum visit, so that was a nice surprise. We toured the World War II fighter aircraft exhibit together. I especially appreciated the naval aircraft display that replicated both the deck and interior of an aircraft carrier.

Air and space museum

Unfortunately, our time soon ran out at the Air and Space Museum. We went to the food court with the biggest McDonald’s I’d ever been to. There was a large seating area and lots of windows to let in light. Fortunately, we went as the day was winding down, so we didn’t have to wait in line long.

National Mall sunset

I enjoyed sitting in the gradually-emptying mega-McDonald’s and debriefing the museum sights with Marty.

Posted on

Smithsonian: American History Museum

Smithsonian American History Museum

I arrived at the National Museum of American History just in time for a guided tour. The group was small – only me – but the docent/tour guide was still more than happy to take me on the full tour.

It started with a walk through the first floor exhibit on the history of transportation in the US with early trains and automobiles on display.

Transportation Smithsonian - American history museum

My tour guide mentioned that, at any one time, there is way more stuff in storage at the Smithsonian than there is on display.

Julia Child's Kitchen - Smithsonian - American history museum

One thing that’s always out, however, is Julia Child’s kitchen, rebuilt piece by piece. It reminded me of the end of the movie Julie and Julia, where a scene in this historic kitchen fades into today’s museum display.

Uniform at Smithsonian - American history museum

Combat Zone

One standout section for me was the display on the history of war in the United States. It was more realistic than idealistic, providing insight into the enormous human toll war has had on our country.

I was also profoundly moved by a display of items left at the Vietnam Memorial including notes from loved ones and friends. I looked at the dates of the “boys” that died. Some of them were born about the same time as my father. I thought about all the friends, fathers, and uncles that those in my generations never grew up knowing.

Smithsonian lunch counter

Counter Protest

A section of the lunch counter from the Greensboro sit-in during the Civil Rights era of the 1960s was on display, somewhat unceremoniously, in a clear space between larger exhibits. If I hadn’t known it was a display, I might have just thought it was a closed (and very dated) snack stand.

When I saw the placard and description, I stood there a long time, trying to imagine how it would have been to sit there in protest years ago.

It’s easy to idealize the moral stands of the past; with the benefit of reflection and history, most would agree the Greensboro sit-in was necessary. However, in the moment, with hostile people around clamoring for “peace and order” and to “stop trespassing,” it would have been easy to flinch or doubt oneself.

National Mall

History doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It’s made up of the mundane things of life, uncertainties and all. I stared at the lunch counter and marveled in its reality. It was gathering place with ugly pastel-colored seats. A place where people sat down to eat and drink coffee. A place where people sat down to protest a kind of oppression I will never know.

With the voices of so many marginalized populations still asking for a place at the table to speak, it doesn’t feel like it was all that long ago.

 

Posted on

Teatro La Fenice in Venezia (Venice)

Teatro La Fenice

The Phoenix

For a place that’s been called “a city of stone built on the water,” Venice has had a lot of fires.

In fact, Venice’s premiere opera house only came into being because of its predecessor’s destruction by fire. Symbolically, the new theater would rise from the ashes of the old one. They named it “La Fenice,” The Phoenix.

Teatro La Fenice - exterior

First opening in 1792, Teatro La Fenice is now one of the top opera houses in Italy and one of the best-known in Europe.

While the name was chosen to commemorate the theater’s origin, it turned out to also be an ominous foreshadowing. Teatro La Fenice has been resurrected twice, after catastrophic fires in 1836 and 1996.

The one in 1836 started because of some kind of malfunction with a new stove from Austria. The 1996 inferno, however, was intentional.

Teatro La Fenice boxes

Two electricians doing renovation work on the theater were facing fines for being behind schedule. So they set the place on fire.

This (a) did not help get the project done on time, and (b) lead to each of them serving several years in jail. Not actually a helpful strategy for anyone.

I’m not sure if the electricians intended to burn it to the ground or just to singe it a bit to make their point. However, access to the theater was restricted due to the renovation project, and firefighters were not able to quell the flames before the building was destroyed. It would remain closed for the next 7 years.

 

Teatro La Fenice

House

La Fenice re-opened in 2003 with upgraded accoustics and an increased seating capacity of 1000, while its appearance matched the elegance of its previous incarnation.

Teatro La Fenice

There are five tiers of boxes, which had been “deliberately egalitarian in design” – until Napoleon came to power. To prepare for his visits to the theater, six individual boxes were combined into one royal box. This imperial loggia remains part of the current design of the theater, just above the auditorium entrance.
Teatro La Fenice

Opera

Despite a real history rife with operatic-level turmoil, the theater remains open today with a busy schedule that includes symphonies, ballets, and over 100 opera performances a year.

L'occasione fa il ladro - opera

This September, we are looking forward to seeing  “L’Occasione fa il ladro: ossia Il cambio della valigia” (The Opportunity Makes the Thief: The Case of the Exchanged Luggage), a single-act farce with music by Gioachino Rossini and libretto by Luigi Prividal.

The opera is a romantic comedy of errors that debuted in Venice in 1812.

It’s good to know that, after all that drama, La Fenice still has a sense of humor.

 

Teatro La Fenice behind the curtain

– More Info –

Teatro La Fenice:

You can see a complete performance of “L’occasione fa il ladro” by another opera company at Schwetzingen Festival, Germany on YouTube.

Photos by Michele Crosera, courtesy of Teatro La Fenice.

Proudly powered by WordPress