January 2011

Finding traces of pre-earthquake San Francisco is a bit like a treasure hunt, a fascinating but not impossible challenge. “The Big Quake” and fire may have leveled three-quarters of the city, but incredibly, some landmarks were salvaged and restored and have kept their turn-of-the-century flavor. Few of the following locations were left completely (or even mostly) intact after the earthquake and fires, but with a little imagination, one can be transported back to the Barbary Coast (or belle époque, depending on one’s perspective), if only for a moment. Here are some suggestions for sampling San Francisco, 1906-style.

Have Saturday afternoon tea at the Palace Hotel . Originally opened in 1875, the grand hotel was destroyed by the earthquake and fires, and the present structure dates from 1909. The ornate glass-domed Garden Court makes an ideal setting for tea and scones. Try to picture it as the grand carriage entryway in its former incarnation.

• Through April 30: Some 40 Philadelphia hotels are offering the Ben’s Birthday Hotel Package, which includes one or two hotel nights, two tickets to the “Benjamin Franklin: In Search of a Better World” exhibition (see below), and the “Little Book of BENefits,” a packet of coupons that offers discounts throughout the city. Book online at www.gophila.com/go/ben .

• All year long: Following in Franklin’s Footsteps. Self-guided walking tours covering Philadelphia landmarks known to the Founder in his time. Starts at the site of Franklin’s home, in Franklin Court. www.nps.gov/inde .

The Benjamin Franklin House is ideally located in central London, close to Trafalgar Square, Charing Cross, and the Strand. The two nearest tube stops are Charing Cross and Embankment, at opposite ends of Craven Street. The house is open to the public Wednesday through Sunday, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Admission is eight pounds for adults and five pounds for seniors, students, and children ages 5 to 12. The Web site is www.benjaminfranklinhouse.org and the phone number is 011 44 (0) 20 7930 9121.

Craven Street has some other American connections. Aaron Burr occupied No. 30 for a time (as did the staff of the Benjamin Franklin House, when construction forced them out of No. 36). In 1849 Herman Melville spent a couple of months at No. 25 while he tried to find an English publisher for his novel White-Jacket .

This is the twentieth issue of American Heritage that we have given over to travel. In April 1987, when we put together the first one, we were confident that our readers would enjoy exploring the way the past has shaped all the appealing places we head to on vacation or simply come upon on the way to somewhere else—the shuttered mansion you pass every day while going to work, for instance.

As the years went by and we added more April issues to our little library of travel, others took note; not just publications but cities, rural regions, and entire states began to talk about, and put their money toward, the appeal of “heritage travel.”

As Anne Keigher, an architect who's deeply involved with the London house that Benjamin Franklin called home for almost 16 years, shows me around the place and points out a supporting pillar in the basement. “This original pier needed new concrete footing poured beneath it, so we were digging down to shore it up,” she says. “That’s when we discovered the bones.”

I know of no Supreme Court decisions on what constitutes a pizza in America, but if the Justices ever need guidance, they might well turn to the rubrics drawn up by the august Associazione Vera Pizza Napoletana that stipulates exactly what does and does not constitute a true Neapolitan pizza, including ingredients, size, cooking method, oven temperature, and the height of the crust’s edges. Here are some in the United States that I think would handily pass the test; they have certainly passed my own personal taste test.

Lombardi’s

32 Spring Street, New York, N.Y., 212-941-7994.
You gotta hand it to them: Lombardi’s was apparently the first to sell pizza in America, and it was clearly the standard the pizzerias that followed had to meet or beat. It is still a great pizza— misshapen, steaming, slightly puffy, with a yeasty crust and wonderful gooeyness to the creamy, full-flavored cheese. The pizza bianca (white pizza), with three cheeses, garlic, and olive oil, is pretty terrific too.

It has been the received wisdom of the suburban age that kids grow up better in the country, where there is access to fresh air, trees, wildlife (although not too much of it, please), and other good things.

Well, I grew up in one of the densest urban environments in the country, the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and I certainly never felt deprived of any of these things. The reason is simple enough: I had the greatest backyard imaginable to play in, Central Park. It is 843 acres of fresh air, trees, and wildlife. More than 200 species of birds are to be found there, and many nest, including the world’s most famous red-tailed hawks, Pale Male and his mate, Lola, who live in luxury on a ledge at 927 Fifth Avenue. There are lakes, brooks, and ponds, vast lawns, a bowling green, baseball fields, and a place for sailing model boats (immortalized in E. B. White’s Stuart Little).