Ever seen one of those old-timey civil war rifles with “SPRINGFIELD, MASS” engraved on the metal slide? This is where it was made. George Washington himself authorized the construction of an armoury for the US Army in Springfield and it operated until 1968 hiring up to 14,000, or almost the Read more…
The Springfield Museums system has five museums on site and you can access all of them with a single ticket, which manifests itself as a wristband. In order of interest, they are the Amazing World of Dr. Seuss Museum (timed entry), Smith Art Museum, D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts, Wood Read more…
The empire state’s museum in Albany is a program by the University of the State of New York relying completely on donations to operate, which means it’s free. The museum is a horseshoe loop around the first floor of the building, the floors upstairs are occupied by the state archive Read more…
Anyone who has spent at least 50 hours studying 20th century architecture would recognize Albany’s Empire State Plaza as Le Corbusier’s brainchild, a one-block model of his Radiant City, except it’s not. It was a poorly-executed urban renewal project under governor Nelson Rockefeller supported by Albany mayor Erastus Corning II, Read more…
First things first – the Empire State Plaza is an exceedingly uncomfortable place to be. Aside from that, it has enough history and culture to keep a family interested for an afternoon. The New York State Museum with free admission is the only museum in town worth a visit, but Read more…
Bombardier makes planes in Toronto, Ski-Doos in Valcourt, and train parts in Kingston. The Bombardier Museum in Valcourt, Quebec, is Canada’s version of the Henry Ford Museum of Innovation in Detroit. Visitors start by watching two 15-minute long videos that introduce the life of Joseph Armand Bombardier and the company’s Read more…
After the French stole this tract of land from indigenous people, the king granted it to Monseigneur François de Laval in 1674. In 1801, Joseph Papineau, a Lower Canadian legislator, bought the land and developed it. He sold it to his eldest son in 1817, who in 1855, named his Read more…
The University of Waterloo near downtown Waterloo, Ontario, was a child of an affiliate of Western University before it became its own thing to train engineers after the Second World War. Its technical programs were advanced for the 1960s when it became one of the first Canadian universities to establish Read more…
In a small retail space in Waterloo‘s Conestoga Mall lives the City of Waterloo Museum. It’s the first museum I’ve been to that doesn’t have a permanent exhibition, the temporary exhibition changes every couple of months to keep things fresh. I visited during the space exhibit about how astronauts live Read more…
It’s more a showroom for contemporary Canadian glass work and less a story of Canadian kilns. The only thing historic about the place is the little dioramas of kilns from around the world. I wish there was more to it; being able to see glass being blown, peek inside an Read more…