Kara Baskin - Globe Correspondent February 3, 2021 11:26 am
I spent nearly a decade in Washington, D.C., after growing up outside Boston. It was so carefree. Driving was a breeze; streets were laid out in a grid and abided by simple geographic principles, such as “north’’ and “south.’’ Everyone was from someplace else, so it was easy to make new friends. The summers were humid, but the winters were mild. Nobody used flimsy lawn chairs to save parking spaces in snowstorms in fact, whenever it flurried, the entire city just shut down instead. The government didn’t always function, but the subways did.
More Museum for Your Money
A Family Plus membership to the Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites now gets you free admission to more than 1,500 museums and science centers around the country 300 more locations than last year.
In addition to free admission to the state museum in Indianapolis and 11 historic sites around Indiana, the membership also includes such notable locations as the Museum of Science and Industry and Field Museum in Chicago, the Cincinnati Museum Center, the Center of Science and Industry in Columbus and the Louisville Science Center, just to name a few.
The new additions include the National Museum of Toys and Miniatures in Kansas City, Missouri; Old Sturbridge Village in Sturbridge, Massachusetts; and Kingwood Center Gardens in Mansfield, Ohio.
Old Sturbridge Village offers winter walks of its grounds MassLive.com 1/18/2021 Cori Urban, masslive.com
Winter at Old Sturbridge Village tends to be quieter than other seasons, but quiet days here allow for longer conversations between guests and costumed historians. “If there is snow on the ground, it is especially picturesque like walking into a postcard scene,” said Daniel P. Friel, director of public and government relations. “We want to share our rural New England village through all four seasons.”
Winter Walks are being offered Jan. 22-24, Jan. 29-31, Feb. 5-7, and Feb. 12-21 and Feb. 26-28.
Visitors can enjoy a peaceful walk around the early 19th-century village and stop at numerous households and the print, tin, pottery, blacksmith and cooper trade shops. See farmers at work getting ready for the next season and visit the farm animals cattle, sheep, pigs, chickens, hens and oxen.
Rhode Island Rescues
Photograph by Gavin Ashworth. All photographs courtesy of the Preservation Society of Newport County, Newport, Rhode Island.
The story of the Preservation Society begins with the mission to rescue Hunter House (Fig. 1) and the question put to financier George Henry Warren Jr. after its purchase by his wife, Katherine Warren: “Well, you’ve got this house, now what are you going to do with it?”
In 1945, Newport stone carver John Howard Benson became alarmed that Hunter House a rare surviving waterfront property with deep ties to Newport’s history might be irretrievably lost. The residence was no longer needed by the Rhode Island Catholic Diocese, which had used it for a convent, and its survival was in jeopardy. So concerned was Benson that he and John Perkins Brown, whose Georgian Society also wished to save Hunter House, decided to speak with the Warrens. Benson and Brown traveled to the couple’s winter residence in New York City to warn, “the grea