What makes a city “hot”?

Personally, I like to think a city’s reputation is like a stock. You might buy, sell or short it, but to most travel professionals a hot city means a rising one that suddenly, and seemingly out of nowhere, has become desirable and in demand.

The ingredients? A mix of affordability, authenticity, creativity, optimism and civic ambition. And often a quirky feature that makes it unique.

Now, Detroit is the latest town to strut down the red carpet. It’s got great press (see the New York Times, Travel + Leisure and Wallpaper magazine), rising tourism numbers, retro skyscrapers and Dan Gilbert, its local boy-turned-billionaire just announced plans to completely transform the Motor City’s riverfront. The price tag: more than $1 billion.

But heat flits. Rizz’ll fizzle. Ask Seattle, Nashville and Austin.

Here’s the next question: If Motown’s the destination-of-the-moment, where might travelers be heading a few years from now?

I don’t know if I’m smart money, but I have a few hunches. And there is one I’m rooting for.

Tulsa.

You heard me. Tulsa. Oklahoma.

There have been portents. In December 2025 The Wall Street Journal listed Tulsa as one of the world’s top 10 global travel destinations and an April 2026 article reiterated its cultural allure. Evidence keeps accumulating. In 2025 tourism shot through the roof—with a total of some 10 million visits recorded that year according to the Journal-Record. New York University opened NYU Tulsa, offering undergraduate and graduate programs that use the city as a classroom for issues ranging from urban policy to the history and contemporary life of Oklahoma's 39 tribal nations. It, too, owns a treasure trove of 1920s skyscrapers. And it’s now a music heritage must-stop (keep reading).

When I visited Tulsa last year, I found a city with moxie, creativity and an unusual willingness to tackle problems.

Tulsa Remote is a good example of this.

Instead of shelling out tax breaks to lure companies to Tulsa, the city decided to recruit something more valuable: talent. Beginning in 2018 the new program began offering remote workers $10,000 to move to town. It was a simple idea. If people could work from anywhere why not work from Tulsa? And it worked.

More than 4,000 people have since relocated to Tulsa and injecting an estimated $878 million into the local economy. Even more impressive: after two years 80 percent stayed. An independent analysis by the W.E. Upjohn Institute found the economic benefits outweighed Tulsa Remote’s cost by four to one.

That strategy can build a future.

And here’s the thing: These days economic development and tourism rise together. What draws workers intrigues travelers, too. Tulsa’s arranging a city with something for them all.

The Gathering Place opened in 2018 abd is an extraordinary 66.5-acre riverfront park along the Arkansas River. The George Kaiser Family Foundation donated roughly $465 million, one of the largest private donations ever made to an American park. Designed by Michael Van Valkenburgh and Associates, the Gathering Place knits together playgrounds, gardens, wetlands, cafes, performance lawns, public art and year-round programming to become Tulsa’s communal backyard.

Or, if you prefer, Disney World without an entrance fee.

The park is meticulously cared for by a non-profit conservancy with a level of devotion more akin to the grounds of an European palace rather than an American public park. The Gathering Place also demonstrates an idea too many cities forget: public space isn't an expense. It's an investment in civic life and a promise to ordinary citizens.

Then there’s the fabled Route 66 - which runs 28 miles through town. Tusla turned its stretch of the Mother Road into something akin to a linear museum. It restored old neon signs and installed new ones, some 90 in all. Visitors can follow a self-guided “Neon Sign Tour,” stop at whimsical roadside landmarks such as Buck Atom’s Cosmic Curios and if they want to understand the role transportation and the oil industry played in Tulsa’s development, drop by the Route 66 Historical Village.

And better yet, the road still tastes like Route 66.

Hungry visitors can grab hamburgers at Arnold’s Old Fashioned Hamburgers or Howdy Burger, dive into chicken-fried steak at Tally’s Good Food Café, or sample a bowl at Ike’s Chili. Or pig out at the Mother Road Market, a busy food hall and culinary incubator where next-generation chefs are busy cooking up new dishes.

Tulsa also understood something else, too. Real cultural attractions forge deeper bonds with travelers than Instagram posts.

Tulsa had already developed its own soundtrack. The Tulsa Sound emerged in the late 1950s, blending blues, country, rockabilly, jazz and gospel into a distinct genre championed by J.J. Cale, Leon Russell and others. The city transformed that musical legacy into something lasting.

In 2012 the city turned a downtown industrial site into Guthrie Green, a 2.6-acre downtown park named for an Oklahoma native son, the folk singer Woody Guthrie (1912-1967). For Tulsa, it became an outdoor living room where free events, farmers markets and music festivals could anchor an emerging Arts District.

Opened in 2013 and facing Guthrie Green, the Woody Guthrie Center preserves the folk singer’s handwritten lyrics, journals, guitars and thousands of archival materials documenting his life and the social movements he inspired. Next door, the Bob Dylan Center (opened 2022) houses more than 100,000 artifacts—from notebooks and manuscripts to unreleased recordings and films. Tulsa is now an unexpected pilgrimage site for musicians, scholars and fans of both singers from around the world. Together they do something few cities have managed: turn music from entertainment into history, scholarship and civic identity. They’re permanent cultural institutions that give Tulsa a reason to be visited—and revisited.

Rumors circulate that Tulsa is recruiting other musicians’ archives to join this pantheon. Who might it be? Johnny Cash? Linda Ronstadt? Bruce Springsteen? The names produce only enigmatic smiles.

Tulsa also chose to confront and share some darker chapters of its history rather than bury them. In the Greenwood District, once celebrated as the "Black Wall Street,” the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre decimated one of the nation’s most prosperous Black communities, killing up to 300 people and leaving thousands homeless. Today, the museum Greenwood Rising uses immersive exhibits, oral histories, and archival materials to tell that story with unflinching honesty.

One particularly striking display uses a clever blend of AI and holographic effects to place you in a Greenwood barbershop in 1921. Between snips of their scissors, the barbers talk about their everyday hopes and dreams—a future cut short when the violence began. You walk through the rest of the museum feeling their loss.

It is not a comforting experience, but Greenwood Rising isn’t remembering a tragedy from 1921. It’s asking a community what remembrance, justice and renewal should look like.

Those questions are worth asking. Museums may preserve the stories, but it’s barbershops and neighborhoods that keep conversations alive.

If the Guthrie and Dylan archives established Tulsa as an unexpected music capital and Greenwood Rising confronted a terrible chapter in the city’s history, the 2027 reopening of the Gilcrease Museum might make Tulsa an important place for understanding the American story itself.

Thomas Gilcrease (1890-1962) was an oilman, art collector and citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. He struck it rich from oil discovered beneath his allotted Creek land. Rather than spend his fortune on European masterpieces like some New York swell, Gilcrease chose a different goal: to assemble the finest collection he could of the peoples, art and history of the Americas.

He founded the museum in 1949 beside his own sandstone home. It quickly grew into “a Smithsonian of the American West,” encompassing paintings, sculptures, rare books, maps, manuscripts, and Native American artifacts. Financial troubles nearly forced Gilcrease to sell the collection in the early days, but local voters stepped in, approving a bond issue that kept it intact and permanently in Tulsa.

Now comes its most ambitious chapter yet.

After a five-year closure, the Gilcrease is scheduled to reopen in 2027 in an entirely new building designed around its extraordinary collection. Visitors will walk through displays organized from a collection of more than 300,000 works and artifacts, representing hundreds of indigenous cultures across the Americas.

For both visitors and residents, these institutions illustrate a city interested in permanent cultural capital rather than a two-day pop-a-palooza or another round of margaritas for a bachelorette party.

Successful cities don't collect visitors. They build reasons to return.

But there’s a catch. You knew there would be.

Success can give, but it also takes. It’s a familiar pattern. Artists and entrepreneurs discover an affordable, distinctive city. Visitors follow. Hotels rise. As do rents. Apartments fill up. Then come the pedal pubs, party buses and social influencers. Neighborhoods become backdrops. Local businesses become attractions. Logos get larger.

What felt like an authentic town becomes a brand.

There are cautionary tales. Nashville still has talented musicians and resonant neighborhoods, but many longtime residents argue the Music City increasingly presents a caricature of itself to visitors. Austin, meanwhile is no longer weird. It’s grown predictable. Seattle? It went from sleepless to homeless when the tech bros boomed, real estate prices skyrocketed and a lot of locals got shut out of the party.

So if Tulsa heats up, it’s going to have to make some decisions.

Can it welcome newcomers without losing the qualities that attracted them? Can it remain affordable while encouraging investment? Can it grow but still stay true to itself?

I’m rooting for them.

Cities don’t suddenly blaze brightly to life. Usually they begin to oscillate and hum, sending up sparks a few years before the traveling world notices.

Maybe in a few years we’ll all discover we’re living on Tulsa Time.

Other American towns worth the trip:

• Spokane - Stands strong after the fires.

• Madison - Decency defined. And great deviled eggs.

• Cleveland - They never fussed with it. It’s the reason to go.

Field Notes:

Touring Route 66. Tulsa’s 28-miles stretch of the Mother Road shows off restored neon signs, vintage motels, diners and other roadside attractions. Download the city’s Route 66 map before you set out. Directions: Begin at the eastern Route 66 Gateway and follow 11th Street and Southwest Boulevard. Tele: Tulsa Visitor Information: (918) 585-1201

Mother Road Market. Part food hall, part culinary incubator, Mother Road Market showcases Oklahoma chefs and food entrepreneurs. Whether you’re craving barbecue, ramen, tacos or pastries, it’s a one-stop intro to Tulsa’s evolving food scene. Address: 1124 S. Lewis Ave. Tele: (918) 895-7998.

The Gathering Place. One of the newest and most successful urban parks built in America this century. Built along the Arkansas River it sports imaginative playgrounds, gardens, lakes, cafés and miles of walking trails—all free. Address: 2650 S. John Williams Way E; Tele: (918) 779-1000.

Woody Guthrie Center & Bob Dylan Center The city’s two music museums sit side by side, making it easy to explore them together. The Woody Guthrie Center celebrates Oklahoma’s folk troubadour. Address: 102 E. Reconciliation Way; Tele: (918) 574-2710. Next door the Bob Dylan Center houses more than 100,000 manuscripts, recordings, films and artifacts from America’s best singer songwriter. Address: 116 E. Reconciliation Way; Tele: (918) 392-3483.

Greenwood Rising. Through immersive exhibits, oral histories and innovative multimedia, the museum tells the story of Black Wall Street, the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre and the neighborhood resilience. Leave time afterward to walk Greenwood itself—the museum prepares you for what you’ll see outside its doors. Address: 23 N. Greenwood Ave.; Tele: (539) 867-3173.

Church Studio. Leon Russell transformed a local neighborhood church into a legendary recording studio. Today it’s a museum and still books musicians to record inspired by the remarkable performers who worked here. Address: 304 S. Trenton Ave.; Tele: (918) 894-5657.

Philbrook Museum of Art. The Italian Renaissance-style mansion of oilman Waite Phillips is now home to a collection of American, Native American and European art and 25-acres of Tuscan-inspired gardens. You’ll wander. Both outside and in. Address: 2727 S. Rockford Rd.; Tele: (918) 748-5300.

Gilcrease Museum. One of the nation’s premier collections of Western art, Native American history and artifacts spanning 12,000 years. Set on 460 acres overlooking Tulsa, it’s worth the trip as much for its setting as for its extraordinary collections. Check reopening dates before planning your visit. Address: 1400 N. Gilcrease Museum Rd.;Tele: (918) 596-2700.

A note on AI: I use AI like I might use a good research assistant and copy editor—if I could afford them—to chase down references and links, flag things worth checking, and find errors, grammatical mistakes and clumsy prose. I verify the facts and print corrections when wrong. The ideas, words, observations and opinions are my own.

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Of all the cities I love, New Orleans is one of the easiest to get “lost in place.” But where to do so now? I asked local writer Sue Strachan, a social historian who believes you can learn most everything about a city in its favorite bars.

For more than two decades, Strachan’s chronicled New Orleans through its cocktails, cuisine, architecture, music, neighborhoods and the people who animate them, exploring how food and drink become windows into history, identity and class.

Her journalism has appeared in The Times-Picayune, The New Orleans Advocate, TIME Asia, Preservation in Print, Louisiana Life and numerous other regional and national publications. Whether she’s writing about a drink, a community or an ancient building, her work reveals the stories that survive long after fashions change.

Strachan’s first book, The Café Brûlot (2021), traced the history of New Orleans' signature after-dinner coffee ritual. She followed it with The Obituary Cocktail (2025), an affectionate detective story about one of the city's nearly forgotten drinks, its eccentric devotees and the bohemian café society that embraced it. The book was featured by The New York Times and became a finalist for the 2026 James Beard Award.

“I’ve spent my career at the intersection of culture and human behavior,” she says, “with a drink at the ready.”

Below, are three of her favorite bars where travelers can meet New Orleans head on:

Fives (529 St Ann St.). “Fives is a sophisticated French Quarter bar located in the Lower Pontalba Building on Jackson Square. The Square is where real New Orleans meets the tourist industry because real New Orleanians don’t often visit Bourbon Street—except for Galatoires. Fives is sexy—a bar where you might find the vampire Lestat holding court.”

“Sit to the left, where you can observe both the bar and any antics unfolding the street. Order your Obituary Cocktail here. They pour Jade Nouvelle Orléans Absinthe. The brand’s made by Ted Breaux, a local guy who in 2007 was instrumental in getting absinthe back into the United States. Fives is also known for their oyster bar and seafood. I recommend the raw oysters—they pair well with the Obituary.

“Drink the first one and you’ll want to order caviar next. Do it. You’ll have my blessing.”

Cure (4905 Freret St.). “This legendary bar’s located Uptown in a rising neighborhood now at full roar. Freret Street is a busy mix of restaurants—Southern cuisine at High Hat Cafe; beef wellington at Husky; hot dogs at Dat Dogs. Cure is in an old New Orleans firehouse featuring moody lighting and quirky art like 19th Century prints of our city mascot, the palmetto bug. The lighting’s superbly romantic, giving it a date night vibe but it’s also a comfortable place to meet friends. And its welcoming—you won’t dissed for ordering the “wrong” drink.

“Now, cocktails never left the menu in New Orleans when the rest of the world abandoned them. Cure upped the ante and jumped start the contemporary cocktail scene here. You must order the Old Fashioned. They do it old school style without the cherry—but you can ask for one.

“Or try the Baller Old Fashioned made with Blanton’s Bourbon, Angostura and Bittercube orange bitters and then garnished with orange peel.”

Avegno (1726 Soniat St.). “This is a special sort of Uptown bar. You can drive by and miss it. There are no outside signs to point it out so it’s got a speakeasy aura. But once inside Avegno feels like a private London club—lots of young professionals, Gen X socialites and other bar aficionados.

“It opened as the sister bar to Gautreau’s, a famous New Orleans restaurant since the 1980s. The owners wanted a place next door where customers could wait for their reservations. And now it’s become the ‘bar of the moment’ — a social hot spot for drinks and small plate snacks. Its centerpiece is a portrait of the woman made famous by Sargent as Madame X. Her real name was Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau, and she was from New Orleans. Avegno feels exclusive but anyone can go.

“Be adventurous—take the streetcar there. The bar's just three blocks north of St. Charles Avenue, and the streetcar ride is part of the evening.”

As peak hurricane season approaches, Strachan will keep one eye on the Gulf for the next named storm and the other on the next empty barstool, convinced the city’s most revealing stories are those told to travelers across a zinc-topped bar.

You can order her books here and here.

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Three other cities uniquely themselves. And more Sue Strachan:

• Riga’s Wild World of Art Nouveau

• Palm Springs and its Star-Struck Ways

• In Budapest a Parliament to Rival London’s

• Sue Strachan

Field Notes:

Lower Pontalba Building: Completed between 1849 and 1851, the Lower Pontalba Building was commissioned by Baroness Micaela Almonester Pontalba and remains one of the oldest continuously occupied apartment buildings in the United States. Together with its twin across St. Ann Street, it frames Jackson Square with nearly 700 feet of cast-iron balconies that helped define the French Quarter’s architectural character. Wander beneath the arcades, browse the shops, then look up—the apartments above reveal the apartments’ real beauty.

Jackson Square: Originally laid out as the Place d’Armes in 1721, Jackson Square has been the civic heart of New Orleans for more than three centuries. At its center stands Clark Mills’ 1856 equestrian statue of Andrew Jackson, commemorating the hero of the Battle of New Orleans. The square is framed by the soaring St. Louis Cathedral, the Cabildo, and the Presbytère, creating one of America’s most recognizable historic vistas. Yet it never feels like a museum. Street musicians, artists, tarot readers and brass bands ensure the city keeps performing long after the history books close.

Food & Drink

Galatoire’s: Since 1905, Galatoire’s has defined old-line New Orleans dining. Jackets remain the norm, waiters often serve generations of the same families, and Friday’s long lunch is practically a civic institution. Order classic Creole fare, settle in, and don’t watch the clock—lingering is part of the tradition. Address: 209 Bourbon St.; Tele: 504-525-2021.

High Hat Café: This Freret Street favorite helped transform the neighborhood into one of the city’s liveliest dining corridors. The no-pretense menu celebrates the modern South with fried chicken, shrimp remoulade and catfish served without pretense. You’ll find more locals than visitors, which is exactly the point. Address: 4500 Freret St.; Tele: 504-754-1336.

The Husky: One of New Orleans’ newest destination steakhouses, The Husky pairs beautifully aged steaks, polished cocktails and an energetic neighborhood atmosphere. Stylish not stuffy, it’s the sort of place locals choose when the evening deserves a celebration. Address: 4510 Freret St.; Tele: 504-766-7159.

Dat Dog: Only in New Orleans could a hot dog become this inventive. Choose from alligator, duck, crawfish sausage or traditional beef, then pile on toppings ranging from crawfish étouffée to guacamole. Casual, inexpensive and gloriously over-the-top, it’s a perfect stop before a night on Frenchmen Street, where they have a second restaurant. Address: 5030 Freret St.; Tele: 504-899-6883.

Gautreau’s: Hidden inside a former neighborhood pharmacy in Uptown, Gautreau’s has quietly earned a reputation as one of New Orleans’ finest contemporary restaurants. Chef-inspired Louisiana ingredients meet classic French technique in an intimate dining room that values substance over spectacle. Reserve ahead, then let the kitchen guide your evening. Address: 1728 Soniat St.; Tele: 504-899-7397.

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They arrive early, especially in summer when the arid Coachella Valley heat can sear the nasal passages and redden the skin.

The pilgrims enter the grove of palm trees in downtown Palm Springs and stand before a 26-foot-tall Marilyn Monroe. The 17-ton painted stainless steel and aluminum statue Forever Marilyn, by Seward Johnson, freezes the Hollywood icon at the exact moment a whoosh of air from a subway train sends her white dress billowing skyward in the 1955 film The Seven Year Itch.

The tourists pose between her spread legs, giggling, photographing one another, then glancing upward, some with embarrassment, others with wonder.

To the great annoyance of the breeze-block politburo, local elites who prefer their culture high-end and clean-lined like the architectural festival called Modernism Week, the campy statue has become Palm Springs’ iconic symbol, as inseparable from the city as the Statue of Liberty is from New York.

This raises a question.

Visit Palm Springs and you’ll spot Marilyn all over town—from the towering sculpture to souvenir shop t-shirts to AirBnb fridge door magnets. On May 30, 2026—the day before the centennial of her birth—1,034 people of both sexes donned blond wigs and white skirts to gather in the statue’s shadow. They broke a Guinness World Record for so many Marilyns in one place.

No where has embraced Marilyn Monroe more enthusiastically than Palm Springs—far more than LA, the sprawling metropolis where she lived her life.

Why?

It’s not the film actor. That person is long dead.

It's “Marilyn” the persona this city loves—sex and sunshine, glamour and reinvention—the intoxicating feeling that life could be, should be, like the first days of summer vacation.

And that describes Palm Springs, too.

She and Palm Springs grew famous together. Explore the town and much of what you encounter are lovingly preserved symbols of a certain sort of 1960s Space Age optimism: Kidney-shaped pools, cocktail patios, bossa nova on the hi-fi, low-slung modernist roofs, Tiki bars and rosé sunsets. Marilyn slips into the landscape as naturally as a butterfly chair or a Slim Aarons photograph.

She’s just another piece of mid-century design.

A perfect fit.

Except Monroe wasn’t here all that much. She lived and worked in Los Angeles. But it was darker there. Los Angeles was where Norma Jean became Marilyn, where Hollywood created her and consumed the woman underneath. Success brought exhaustion. Fame brought disappointment. Then barbiturates, and on August 4, 1962, a fatal overdose. They buried her in Westwood. LA mourned, then moved on.

A growing city had bigger fish to fry.

In Palm Springs, her legend only grew. Like George Washington, Marilyn slept everywhere. She drank here. Ate there. Checked in at this hotel. Trysted with JFK at that one. (A documented Kennedy hook-up happened—but in Palm Desert, not Palm Springs.)

Evidence of her time here, however, is surprisingly thin, and the facts tend to be as ephemeral as her boop-boop-de-doop whisper. Realtors, for example, connect her to all sorts of houses in Palm Springs, including one on Rose Avenue she supposedly owned. It’s good for business.

But it’s mostly bunk.

Little can be certain save for paparazzi photos and gossip column mentions.

Marilyn pops up everywhere in Palm Springs, but if you want to go looking for the actual places Monroe played and stayed, those are a precious few. I can tell you two for certain:

The Racquet Club, 2743 N. Indian Canyon Drive. This is Ground Zero for the Palm Springs - Monroe connection. In 1949, the Racquet Club just north of Vista Chino Blvd was the place to see and be seen. Charlie Farrell’s playground wasn’t merely a tennis club. It was Hollywood in the desert. Lucille Ball, Bing Crosby, Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra all came. Bob Hope was practically furniture. They would wander the grounds in swim suits. Studio executives held court beneath striped umbrellas, and the pool boys remembered everyone’s drink before they ordered it.

Also here an unknown 23-year-old contract player.

Photographer Bruno Bernard—better known as Bernard of Hollywood—had brought her to the club for a publicity shoot around the swimming pool. The photos show Monroe on a diving board in cork wedgies wearing a cornflower blue two-piece suit desperately hoping Hollywood would notice.

It did.

The William Morris Agency’s Johnny Hyde, one of the industry’s most influential agents was also at the pool. Whether this was their first meeting or merely the one where their relationship deepened is still debated, but historians agree that after this Palm Springs weekend, Hyde became Marilyn’s fiercest champion. He negotiated better contracts, got her better roles. He persuaded skeptical studio executives Monroe was more than another empty-calorie blond. Within a year she appeared in The Asphalt Jungle and All About Eve. Soon after came a new Twentieth Century-Fox contract.

Palm Springs changed Monroe’s life.

They should have put up a plaque, but the Racquet Club closed years ago. Fire consumed most of the property in 2014. Today it’s fenced off, no access allowed, awaiting redevelopment. The pool is drained and filled with dirt. But this is where the world’s most famous sex symbol began her rise.

The Rendezvous Hotel, 1420 N. Indian Canyon Drive. Before it was the Rendezvous Hotel, this modest one-story three-star operated as the Mira Loma Hotel, one of Palm Springs’ smaller hideaways. It wasn’t the grandest resort in town. That was the point.

Marilyn returned here repeatedly in the early 1950s, slipping away from Los Angeles for weekends when Palm Springs was still less than a two-hour escape from the studios. It was no hideout. Palm Springs wasn’t built for anonymity. But compared with Hollywood, the desert allowed celebrities an opportunity to linger by a pool without feeling every movement was another publicity photograph. Escape. That’s what the Mira Loma was for.

She routinely booked the far southeast corner room because it offered maximum privacy. It sits in the original 1930s part of the building. The Rendezvous reimagined it as the Pretty in Pink suite, decorating it in pink accents, vintage memorabilia and photos of her.

What makes it interesting isn’t simply that Marilyn slept there. It’s that guests could still walk through essentially the same courtyard and feel the same twilight winds rustling the palms. The hotel is closed for renovations, and scheduled to reopen in late 2026 under a new name: The Pink Palm Inn.

The new owners say Marilyn’s old room will stay pink.

There’s something fitting about that. Palm Springs never tried to outgrow Marilyn Monroe. It has simply folded her into the landscape, along with the mountains, the lemon-colored sun and cool turquoise pools, and the geometric lines of its Mid-Century architecture. In a town built on curating its visual heritage, past performance is a guarantee of future results. They’re like diamonds.

And diamonds are both forever and a girl’s best friend.

Have you visited the Forever Marilyn statue ? Is it an eyesore or is it an appropriate symbol of Palm Springs? Have your say below.

Leave a comment

Other American icons:

• Dude Ranches - Still galloping along

• Why Madison, WI, is “Destination Decency”

• California’s Vesuvius? It’s not just earthquakes for the Golden State

Correction: The gathering of the 1000 Marilyns took place on May 30, 2026, not May 31.

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I want to travel more often to places where someone still cares enough to make a proper deviled egg.

Madison, Wisconsin, is one of those places.

This may sound like nostalgia, but it isn’t. It’s decency on a platter. Think about it: A good deviled egg isn’t expensive. It simply requires that someone thought another person was worth the effort. The egg boiled to perfection. A little paprika dusting atop the filling. It’s a small act of care—a kindness, even. And these days caring feels more rewarding than a caviar bump. You have to choose to care.

Madison reminds me that cities make choices, too.

Some places spend money performatively. They preen, like Miami. They air kiss like Cannes. They price themselves out of reach. Viva, Las Vegas. There are cities that never sleep like New York. And those that twinkle in a sort of dream state like Dubai.

We live in an era where the wealth is indecent, the politics are indecent and the price of everything is truly scandalous. Madison, in contrast, is fundamentally a decent place.

Those glittery destinations build monuments to exclusivity and make visitors feel they’re always just one credit card swipe away from belonging. Madison spends its efforts making you feel like you fit right in by making the little things better. It offers bike paths instead of bottle service. Supper clubs instead of private clubs. Produce markets instead of luxury retail.

Those are decent things. And I think, especially now, decency is worth a visit.

I realized this on a warm July night on a blanket on the grass at the State Capitol. Everywhere you looked knots of families and friends had gathered to hear the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, accompanied by Madison hip-hop artist Rob Dz. There was also room for some John Phillips Sousa, and the conductor asked the military veterans attending to stand. A lot of people got up and the applause was warm and sustained. These were sons and fathers, daughters, friends and neighbors. Not a vicious word, nor a coarse attack. Madison respects its citizens. And its visitors. The finale was the 1812 Overture. As the cannons fired, each roar felt like a revelation.

I’m increasingly impatient with travel’s focus on ostentation, exclusivity, and “luxury”—a descriptor as ubiquitous as it has become meaningless. No one is fooled yet everyone repeats the mantra.

Madison doesn’t speak that language. And Wisconsin’s capital is getting second looks these days because of it. It’s green and leafy with a terrific botanical garden, the Olbrich, that’s free to all. It’s got a lot of James Beard attention with restaurants like Fairchild (a winner) and Ahan (a runner up). It’s proud of hosting the country’s largest local farmers’ market. And the bars! Madison dearly loves to swill and socialize and saloons like Lola’s and Public Parking (James Beard saluted them, too) are the way bars in San Francisco used to be before the tech industry ruined them: approachable, sassy and inspired. Public Parking pours a cognac and armagnac cocktail called “Bonsoir Subaru.” And if you don’t like that try “Ceausescu, December 25th, 1989” which commemorates the date of the Romanian dictator’s execution with Aquavit, dry vermouth and borscht. Bottoms up.

Madison jujitsus pretension like Elvis on the corner of Hwy 51 and East Washington Avenue when he stopped his limo during a 1977 tour to get out and break up a brawl with a few deft karate moves. Madison put up a plaque to commemorate the battle. Madison would. It’s like that. It made the plastic pink flamingo the city bird.

“My biggest competition,” says Tyler Leeper, a businessman whose Madison Boats rents kayaks and paddle boards and conducts sunset pontoon cruises on the city’s twin lakes, Mendota and Monona, “isn’t another company. It’s all the other things people can do here on a Saturday night.”

One thing they do is order up some deviled eggs at the Harvey House, Madison’s high-end reimagined Wisconsin supper club. It’s a nice restaurant you want to dress up for but without the velvet ropes. The young staff have the infectious warmth that invites you in to their delicious world. Nobody here is performing hospitality. They’re just practicing it.

Towns reveal themselves not by what the flaunt but by what they care for. For Madison that tally includes:

• Two hundred miles of bike paths.

• Two lakes that belong to everyone.

• Kevin the bartender at the Edgewater Hotel, who remembered my name, not my room number.

• A golden-roofed Thai temple, one of only four outside Thailand. The artisans flew from Bangkok to build it on September 11, 2001—theirs was the last plane allowed to land in Chicago before American airspace closed. In those awful weeks that followed, they labored over every detail, reconstructing the Buddhist shrine in the Olbrich’s garden. Madison has cared for it ever since.

None of these things will make a list of the world's most luxurious experiences. But together they create something that's really rare out in the world: the feeling that you're welcome without first proving your worth.

That’s why towns like Madison matter. In an age of exclusivity it choses hospitality. And I’ll take that any day of the week. Along with the deviled eggs.

More towns worth their salt:

• Spokane, Washington

• Cleveland, Ohio

• Napa, California

Field Notes

Stays

• The Edgewater Madison’s landmark lakefront hotel offers 202 rooms overlooking Lake Mendota just steps from downtown and the University of Wisconsin. Rooms pair contemporary comfort with sweeping water or Capitol views, while the spa, restaurants and lakeside terraces make it a destination in its own right. It remains the city’s premier hotel. Address: 1001 Wisconsin Pl. Phone: (608) 535-8200 Rates from: approximately $119 (seasonal promotional rates)

• Mansion Hill Inn Owned by Trek Bicycle, this elegant 10-room boutique inn occupies a restored Victorian mansion a short walk from the Capitol Square. Individually decorated rooms, generous breakfasts and gracious service make it feel more like a private home than a hotel. Borrow one of the complimentary bicycles to explore the city the Madison way. Address: 424 N. Pinckney St. Phone: (608) 255-0172
  Rates from: approximately $280

Food and Drink

• Fromagination A Madison institution, this independent cheese shop showcases Wisconsin’s extraordinary dairy culture with hundreds of artisan cheeses from across the state and beyond. Friendly staff happily offer samples and pairing advice, making it as much an education as a shopping stop. Don’t miss the aged cheddars and locally made accompaniments. Address: 12 S. Carroll St. Phone: (608) 255-2430

• Fairchild James Beard Award-winning chef Itaru Nagano’s intimate neighborhood restaurant turns Midwestern ingredients into refined, seasonal plates without pretension. Expect an ever-changing menu, thoughtful wine list and warm, polished service. Reservations are essential. Address: 222 Fairchild St. Phone: (608) 294-1005

• Ahan Chef Jamie Brown’s celebrated restaurant blends Southeast Asian flavors with Wisconsin ingredients in creative, deeply personal cooking. The menu draws inspiration from Laos, the Philippines and Thailand while remaining unmistakably local. James Beard recognition has made it one of Madison’s hardest reservations.Address: 744 Williamson St. Phone: (608) 416-5547

• Harvey House This stylish reimagining of the classic Wisconsin supper club celebrates Midwestern hospitality with polished service and nostalgic favorites elevated by first-rate ingredients. Start with the deviled eggs before moving on to fish fry, prime rib or handmade pasta. The room feels celebratory without ever feeling exclusive. Address: 644 W. Washington Ave. Phone: (608) 416-5540

• Public Parking A most inventive cocktail bar. Public Parking serves imaginative drinks with equally imaginative names in a relaxed neighborhood setting. The atmosphere is playful rather than precious, making it easy to linger over another round. Bartenders are as engaging as the cocktail menu.Address: 1857 E. Washington Ave. Phone: (608) 467-3134

• Lola’s Hi/Lo Lounge Part neighborhood tavern, part retro cocktail lounge, Lola’s is known for creative drinks, an easygoing crowd and one of Madison’s best patios. It captures the city’s sociable spirit without trying too hard. Come for happy hour and stay well into the evening. Address: 2436 Pennsylvania Ave. Phone: (608) 286-9152

Other

• Olbrich Botanical Gardens Madison’s 16-acre botanical garden is one of the city’s great civic gifts, with free outdoor gardens, a tropical conservatory and a serene Thai pavilion. The rose garden, perennial borders and seasonal displays reward lingering rather than rushing. Go early in the morning or near closing time for the quietest experience. Address: 3330 Atwood Ave. Phone: (608) 246-4550

• State Capitol Tours Free guided tours of Wisconsin’s magnificent State Capitol reveal soaring marble rotundas, mosaics, murals and one of the country’s largest domes. Lasting about an hour, they also include access to the outdoor observation deck when it’s open, with sweeping views over Madison’s lakes and downtown. Self-guided visits are also welcome whenever the building is open to the public.

  Address: 2 E. Main St. Phone: (608) 266-0382

• Madison BCycle With hundreds of bikes and dozens of stations, Madison BCycle makes exploring the city’s lakes, parks and neighborhoods remarkably easy. Both classic and electric bikes are available through the app. It’s one of the best ways to experience Madison’s celebrated cycling culture. Rates: $20 a day with unlimited one hour rides.

• Madison Boats Choose from kayaks, paddleboards, pedal boats and pontoon cruises to experience Madison from Lakes Mendota and Monona. Rentals are available from several lakefront locations throughout the warmer months. Sunset cruises are especially popular. Address: 1136 E. Johnson St. Phone: (608) 246-3138

All I wanted was sleep.

Instead, checking in after midnight, I’m listening to laughter echo from the Peacock Room, a storied bar inside Spokane, Washington’s Davenport Hotel. The voices are friendly and loud, the way people who like each other talk after having a few. A middle-aged couple emerges from the crowd and leans into one another as they disappear into brass-trimmed elevators beneath the carved ceilings and chandeliers.

The scene feels strangely familiar, though I can’t say from where. The Davenport, opened in 1914, exudes the old-school glamour the Overlook did in The Shining but without the creepy twins and all the REDRUM. The chatter I’m hearing isn’t haunted. It’s comforting, like another lost year—1956 perhaps—when you dressed up for downtown, the hotels stayed up late and strangers could still debate politics—I Like Ike!—without today’s Facebook-fueled rancor. I collapsed on a king-size bed with a towering French Empire-style headboard. Like I said, old-school.

Around four in the morning, a rumbling through downtown awakens me. It’s a real freight locomotive. A working train still hauling things across the American West.

Lying there in the dark listening to that clanging call from another time, I fall in love with Spokane.

The next morning I begin to understand why. Past and present don’t compete in Spokane (pop: 231,000), they cooperate. Grand hotels and Anthropologie coexist along with box cars and pour overs. It’s where 1900 labor organizers and 2026 web designers walked the same streets, even worked in the same buildings. Where teenage girls sporting black Cher-styled eye-liner, combat boots and fishnet body stockings browse vinyl records with the same singular focus wading moose browse the willows on the Spokane River.

Moose. Cher eyes. Box cars. Spokane is weird-wonderful the way David Lynch is weird-wonderful.

No surprise, really, when I discover the late film director lived here as a child. Lynch didn’t invent weird America so much as recognize it. Spokane came with all the ingredients. Just add the water.

And that means the Spokane River. Along its 111 mile-course, the Spokane does what rivers do—eroding rock, drawing people, powering industry, and coursing whitewater through a city that never stops listening to it.

Riverfront Park occupies 100 acres along the river on what was once a tangle of railroad yards until the city cleared it for Expo ‘74, an environmentally themed World’s Fair that was the first great example of Spokane’s adaptive reuse. It was an optimistic act of urban recycling. The locomotives disappeared, along with the railroad station leaving the Great Northern Clocktower, the sweeping cables of the U.S. Pavilion and a recycling station in the form of a garbage-eating mechanical goat. For $13.95, the Numerica SkyRide carries visitors over the Spokane River and out above the falls. You’re floating over a canyon where the river drops violently across the rocks. Momentarily, the modern city seems overwhelmed by churning rapids.

Looking into the gorge it’s easy to imagine a young Lynch filing away images of rushing water, and industrial power plants to surface in the Twin Peaks opener.

In Spokane nature is never very far away. That becomes even clearer paddling a raft through the river’s rapids just a few minutes from downtown. The Spokane River isn’t a recreational afterthought squeezed into an urban corridor. Now cleaned up and suitable for rafting, swimming and tubing, it remains the city’s central character. Eagles circle overhead. Ponderosa pines lean toward the water. Jesse, my guide from Wiley E. Waters Rafting, tells me it’s common to see moose here. “Like the rest of us, they head to the river in the hot summer months.”

That’s Spokane’s sleight of hand. It never asks you to choose between nature and civilization because it never quite separated the two. On the city’s South Hill, Manito Park offers the same lesson. Its elegant Japanese Garden and sweet-scented Rose Garden are stitched seamlessly into a neighborhood of Craftsman-era bungalows

But these idylls rest along a historical tension in the city’s rise. Spokane isn’t just a cityscape, but a collision between labor and wealth that’s cemented into its thick brick warehouses and handsome Beaux-Arts buildings. Every corner tells the story of turning the wild, extractive West into something permanent. By the 1890s, timber, railroads, and the silver pouring out of Idaho’s Coeur d’Alene mines had transformed a rough frontier settlement into the commercial capital of the Inland Northwest. Mining fortunes and lumber money paid for grand banks, department stores, and lavish hotels. The elegant, seven-story Peyton Building, completed in 1898, announced that Spokane intended to matter.

The Davenport, where I’m sleeping, became the clubhouse for this sudden, massive wealth. Opened in 1914, the 14-story structure boasted over 400 rooms cooled by insulated pipes and ducts—a first in hospitality history. Known as Spokane’s “living room,” the Davenport drew the timber and silver barons who brokered deals in the Peacock Room and by the lobby fireplace.

But workers arrived by the thousands, too. Not all of them were content enriching the men in those boardrooms. In 1909 and 1910, Spokane’s downtown streets became conflicted ones during the Free Speech Fights, a labor rights battle led by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). The punk rockers of the union movement, the Wobblies deliberately filled the local jails by violating ordinances designed to silence labor organizers. It was messy, theatrical, confrontational—and unmistakably Spokane.

History has a funny way of lingering in Spokane. Not always in ideology, but in temperament.

Across from the Davenport, Baby Bar is the sort of tiny neighborhood haunt where the bartender gets busy feeding grapefruit into a steampunk-like juicer to make Greyhounds that two regulars insist I order. Before long we’re yakking like old friends. In an era when so many cities feel curated and transactional, Spokane feels willing to improvise—a place where strangers strike up conversations, old buildings find unexpected second lives, and a quiet skepticism toward polo shirts and the predictable floats beneath the surface.

Around Spokane that history often shows up with menus. Dry Fly Distilling now occupies a former newspaper printing plant. Down the block, Revival Tea Company’s tasting room operates out of a subterranean brick basement that once served as a Prohibition-era speakeasy. Near the core of downtown, refugee chefs at Feast World Kitchen have transformed a former furniture store into a vibrant, cross-cultural restaurant where the menu changes daily with the nationality of the cook.

Nowhere is this instinct for preservation more profound than the Davenport. Like so many grand American hotels, the Davenport gradually fell from grace in the late twentieth century, shuttering its doors and staring down what seemed an inevitable date with the wrecking ball. Ironically, the very technology that had once made it a marvel of modern luxury ultimately saved it.

When the hotel opened in 1914, its pioneering climate-control system relied on pipes insulated with asbestos, then celebrated as the Industrial Age’s wonder material. Decades later, it had become a toxic liability. Any developer hoping to demolish the Davenport first faced the staggering cost of asbestos abatement. The cost of destruction bought it something far more valuable than insulation: time. Long enough for local entrepreneurs Walt and Karen Worthy to invest $38 million restoring Spokane’s grand hotel to its former glory.

A mad crush makes for sweeping pronouncements. Maybe my hearthrob isn’t America’s last good place. But Spokane may be one of the last cities that still feels comfortable with its contradictions. Goth kids mix with Rotary Club members. Grand hotels survive because asbestos once insulated their walls. Speakeasies become tea parlors. Printing plants become distilleries. Rivers welcome whitewater paddlers.

Spokane never became what anyone expected, and the freight trains still rumble in the night. At 4 AM in bed at the Davenport, that’s reason to fall in love.

If this is your first visit to Lost in Place, you might also enjoy:

• Cleveland isn’t fixed yet and that’s terrific

• Three stories from Philadelphia for the nation’s birthday

• Riga, Latvia, is an architecture buff’s paradise

Field Notes for Spokane

Tours:

Visitors can uncover Spokane’s history on free summer walking tours of Riverfront Park, or explore downtown’s architectural highlights with Wander Spokane. The Davenport Hotel offers a self-guided tour of the interior.

Food:

Indicana Indian and Mexican cuisines collide in unexpectedly harmonious ways thanks to owner Noreen, who first honed her craft at Feast World Kitchen. Tacos stuffed with tikka flavors and fragrant curries make this Perry District restaurant one of Spokane’s most inventive dinners. Address: 1020 S. Perry St; Tele: (509) 290-5639

Ferguson’s Cafe A Garland District institution with movie-star credentials, this retro diner appeared in Vision Quest and Benny & Joon. Come for the cinnamon rolls, omelets, and a slice of old Spokane that hasn’t forgotten what breakfast is supposed to be. Address: 804 W. Garland Ave; Tele: (509) 325-3482

Gander and Ryegrass Chef Peter Froese’s ambitious tasting menus have helped put Spokane on the culinary map. The six-course “Marathon” experience combines local ingredients with serious technique and enough creativity to justify the stretchy pants. Address: 404 W. Main Ave; Tele: (509) 315-4613

Feast World Kitchen Part nonprofit, part culinary incubator, Feast World Kitchen gives refugee and immigrant chefs a chance to share the flavors of home while building businesses. The menu changes daily, making every visit a surprise and every meal a lesson in Spokane’s evolving identity. Address: 1321 W. 3rd Ave.; Tele: (509) 608-1313

House of Brunch This lively downtown favorite leans into modern brunch culture with creative plates, espresso drinks, and enough energy to start the day right. Yes, mushroom coffee is on the menu. Address: 818 W. Riverside Ave.; Tele: (509) 413-9679

Drink

Indaba Coffee Coffee culture in Spokane is less about laptops and hustle than conversation and community, and Indaba embodies that spirit. Its downtown café serves excellent coffee with an easygoing atmosphere that feels distinctly Eastern Washington. Address: 518 W. Riverside Ave: Tele: (509) 822-7182

Dry Fly Distilling Washington’s first legal distillery opened in a former newspaper printing plant, proving that Spokane has a talent for repurposing its industrial past. The vodka, whiskey, and gin are all crafted with regional grains. Address: 1021 W. Riverside Ave; Tele: (509) 489-2112

Revival Tea Company Located inside a former speakeasy, Revival Tea handcrafts blends and offers tastings that feel both old-fashioned and modern. The founders have grand ambitions for tea, but the experience remains warmly personal. Address: 415 W. Main Ave., Suite 100; Tele: (509) 315-8099

The Emporium The circular bar at Spokane’s Davenport Hotel sits beneath one of America’s great hotel lobbies. Cocktails, martinis, and a touch of railroad-era glamour make it an ideal perch for watching Spokane go by. Address: 10 S. Post St; Tele: (509) 789-6848

Arbor Crest Wine Cellars Set on the former estate of inventor Royal Riblet, Arbor Crest pairs sweeping views with approachable Washington wines. It’s hard to decide whether the scenery or the rosé deserves top billing. Address: 4705 N. Fruit Hill Rd; Tele: (509) 927-9463

Baby Bar
Tiny, quirky, and beloved, Baby Bar has inspired devotion from everyone from locals to singer Neko Case, who once declared it the best bar in America. Order a drink, squeeze in, and see if she’s right. Address: 827 W. 1st Ave: Tele: (509) 847-1234

Stays

The Historic Davenport Hotel is more than a place to sleep—it’s the emotional center of the city and one of the West’s legendary historic hotels. Opened in 1914, the Spanish Renaissance landmark nearly disappeared before an ambitious restoration returned its marble lobbies, soaring chandeliers, Peacock Room Lounge and legendary Palm Court Grill to their former glory. Even if you’re not spending the night, stop in for a cocktail beneath the stained-glass ceiling or afternoon tea. though they fluctuate seasonally. Address: 10 S. Post St.; Tele: (509) 455-8888; Rates: from about $190

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America turns 250 this July. Not exactly feeling it? Come to Philadelphia. No place is leaning harder into the celebrations than the City of Brotherly Love. Yet after wandering through town a few weeks ago I discovered the most interesting expressions of patriotism aren't simply retelling the familiar story of powdered wigs, tri-corner hats, and founding fathers. These exhibits are asking a more useful question for our moment: whose stories have we overlooked?

Museum of the American Revolution. If you’ve already done Independence Hall and lined up for the Liberty Bell, this is the best place to understand how the Revolution’s story unfolds in all its blood and glory with bright graphics, intriguing artifacts and even George Washington’s tent. But it’s a complicated journey. Wisely, the museum’s major sesquicentennial exhibition focuses on the idea of America, rather than the battles. The Declaration’s Journey, follows the afterlife of the Declaration of Independence—how a document drafted in Philadelphia inspired independence movements from Latin America to India and became a touchstone for reformers, abolitionists, and civil-rights leaders across the planet.

It moves you quietly. The museum designers juxtapose Thomas Jefferson's elegant Windsor chair he used while drafting the Declaration of Independence in 1776, with the hard metal bench from the Alabama jail cell where Martin Luther King Jr. penned "Letter from Birmingham Jail" in 1963. More than a patriotic recitation of facts, it’s a look at how revolutionary ideas escaped the room where they were written and began circling the globe. The Philippines in 1898, Czechoslovakia in 1918, and Eleanor Roosevelt's 1948 work on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights echoed ideas and words first expressed in 18th Century Philadelphia. Expect rare items, surprising international connections, and enough moral ambiguity to remind you that liberty has always been a work in progress.

The Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History. Just steps from Independence Mall, the Weitzman is using the anniversary to tell a parallel American story. Its new exhibition, The First Salute, examines the role of Jewish American and overseas communities in the nation’s founding era, including some surprising international connections that helped shape the young republic. This particular story concerns the Jewish merchants on the Caribbean island of St. Eustatius who helped supply the American rebels with arms only to face persecution and exile by an angry British governor.

The story is told with cinematic flourish thanks to the magic of AI generated film and special effects. It fooled me but was assured each frame reviewed by historians for accuracy. More broadly, the museum’s main galleries, currently being renovated, explore nearly four centuries of Jewish life in America, tracing how successive waves of immigrants navigated the promises—as well as the contradictions—of the American experiment. In a city crowded with Revolutionary landmarks, the Weitzman reminds visitors that the nation’s story was never as simple or uniform as school textbooks suggested.

Penn Museum. The newest and perhaps most provocative perspective comes from the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, where Native American voices take center stage in a permanent exhibition of the first people in America. Rather than treating Indigenous peoples as a pre-American footnote, the museum presents Native nations as living communities with distinct identities, histories, and futures.

Hundreds of objects are interpreted alongside contemporary Native perspectives, challenging visitors to reconsider what America looked like before 1776—and what it still looks like today. For a 250th anniversary trip, it serves as a useful reminder that before there was our Revolution, there were already nations here on the North American continent.

The thread connecting all three museums is simple but as symbolic as the strands Betsy Ross labored over: Philadelphia’s best exhibits aren’t celebrating a birthday. They’re widening the guest list. From global revolutionaries to immigrants to Native nations, these institutions are turning the nation’s 250th into something more interesting than a party. They’ve started an insightful conversation about who gets included in the story of the United States.

More all-American places to consider this summer:

• Lake Tahoe

• Letchworth

• Cleveland

Field Notes

Links to Like:

• Museum of the American Revolution The best place in Philadelphia to understand how the Revolution actually unfolded, beyond the familiar images of powdered wigs and patriotic paintings. Admission: $25 for adults Address: 101 S. Third Street; Tele: (877) 740-1776

• The Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History Located just steps from Independence Hall, the Weitzman explores four centuries of Jewish life in America. Admission: Free (special exhibitions may require a ticket); Address: 101 S. Independence Mall East; Tele: (215) 923-3811

• Penn Museum One of America's great archaeological museums, the Penn Museum is increasingly placing Indigenous voices at the center of its interpretation. Admission: Adults $18; Address: 3260 South Street; Tele: (215) 898-4000

Philly Eats

• Elwood. If the museums tell the story of America's founding, this BYOB Fishtown restaurant lets you taste it. Chef Adam Diltz revives forgotten dishes like catfish and waffles and braised venison, drawing from the diverse culinary traditions that once made Philadelphia one of the young nation's great food capitals. Address: 1007 Frankford Ave. Tele: (215) 279-7427

• K’Far. This breakfast and lunch cafe features Jersualem-style bagels, oval and covered with sesame seeds. Try one with the labneh trio: Sumac, za’atar and honey pistachio. Address: 110 S. 19th Street; Tele: (267) 606-6590

• Franklin Fountain. One of Philadelphia’s old-fashioned pleasures. An authentic ice cream parlor with a marble soda fountain, homemade sundaes and a crowd eagerly eating the cool and delicious treats from cup or cone. Address: 116 Market Street; Tele: (215) 627-1899

Tours and Perspectives

Philly History Pop Ups. Tour guide and city expert Cara Schneider Bongiorno shares her love of the region through Philly History Pop Ups, an occasional lecture series. While her presentations are usually conducted at a single location, Bongiorno will also book private tours. For availability contact her at PhillyHistoryPopUps@gmail.com Tele: (215) 206-2034.

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Thirty years ago I rebuilt the Titanic. As co-founder of CyberFlix, an innovative CD-ROM gaming company, I spent one full year of my life with the ship in digital drydock, writing the gameplay for a computer adventure about the sinking, inventing characters, writing dialogue and doing exhaustive research. The Titanic as computer game. Nobody had done anything like it. But we did in 1996. And in a stroke of dumb luck the game shipped right around the time the movie took off.

James Cameron, Jack and Rose, thank you very much.

Recently in Northern Ireland, I wanted to see Titanic Belfast, the museum devoted to the legendary, if ill-fated, liner. It sits smack on the spot where RMS Titanic and her sister ship the RMS Olympic were originally designed, constructed, and launched in the Harland & Wolff shipyard. There’s nothing left of those mighty slipways. Outmoded by innovation and pulverized by neglect they vanished. In their place rises the eight-story museum clad in silver anodized aluminum looking like an assemblage of thrusting ship prows straining in every direction.

But what makes Titanic Belfast remarkable isn’t its architecture, it’s this: The museum’s not about a sinking. It’s a museum about beginnings. And the story unfolds at the site where an enormous explosion of vision, technology and ingenuity came together. Titanic was part of a bright future. Even its name sounded monumental. White Star favored names ending in "-ic," Oceanic. Titanic. Britannic—words seemingly carved in marble rather than painted on steel. They sounded less like ships than declarations of supreme assurance.

So the museum begins not with the ship but with the confident city that dreamed it into existence. Before there is a Titanic, there is Belfast. And the displays return visitors to a smoky, clanging city intoxicated by its own industrial prowess. One of the first surprises is the prominence of the linen industry. At the turn of the 20th century Belfast was known as "Linenopolis," producing vast quantities of linen for global markets. Displays explain how the textile and the fortunes it made helped fuel the city’s industrial rise. Nearby, giant maps and photo montages reveal a metropolis humming with shipyards, rope works, engineering firms and factories. You can’t help marveling at both the ingenuity and audacity that summoned Titanic into being. Call it the “Belfast Moment” when the future appeared limitless and tomorrow’s triumphs seem inevitable. No iceberg appeared on the horizon to alter that. As they say in Belfast: “She was alright when she left here.”

Ensuing galleries detailed the ship’s construction and the extraordinary care and creativity that went into recreating an entire society at sea. Displays showed samples of the carpeting, wallpaper, upholstery fabrics and carved woodwork selected for the various public rooms and cabins. Another compared accommodations across social classes, reflecting how everything from the dining room chairs to bathrooms reflected the social hierarchy of the Edwardians. What surprised me were the colors: the vibrant reds, golds, greens and blues that made the past startlingly alive. History often reaches us in black-and-white photography but here, Titanic was color. The shipbuilders had built a reflection of their world and their values as software companies and high tech do decades later.

The museum’s most riveting experience places you inside a computerized projection with moving images surrounding you on every side. One sequence takes you up through the staircases and first-class public rooms. Another drifts through the ship’s bowels where enormous boilers, pistons and machinery thrum. Standing amidst these graphic recreations I experienced a jolt of recognition. CyberFlix’s Titanic: Adventure Out of Time aimed for the same drama – giving people the sensation of inhabiting the ship rather than just reading about it. In 1996 that required rows of Apple workstations rendering scenes through the night with all the computing power we could muster. Titanic Belfast accomplishes this using processing power unavailable to us. Yet the goal remains unchanged. Each generation invents new tools to tell the old story. Titanic once embodied the future. Now it serves as a mirror into which every age gazes and reevaluates itself.

Thirty years ago, I owned a full head of hair and an unbridled confidence. The future would be a golden one, I thought, as “Adventure Out of Time” stacked up in stores like Tower Records and Electronics Boutique. The game industry was inventing itself. CyberFlix was on its cutting edge. Those I loved had not yet died. I felt immortal.

In Belfast the sky outside was pewter. Gulls pivoted against the wind. Cranes hovered, building something new on the Harland & Wolff dockyards—now an artifact from an age of steam and empires. CyberFlix had built a digital Titanic during another era of technological optimism. Well, my CD-ROM game was now an artifact. Tower Records is gone. Electronic Boutique extinct. Everything once considered fresh and new eventually becomes old, then becomes history. The World Wide Web felt revolutionary in 1996—the internet will unite us! In today’s divided present that idea feels as antique as the wireless set broadcasting increasingly desperate messages into the North Atlantic void.

This is Titanic. We are sinking.

Exiting the museum, past the gift shop and cafes, I was walking out into the city’s transformed waterfront, where the future once again seemed under construction. New building planned where cranes once dominated the skyline. Technology, you old charmer, is once again promising to remake the world. It’s another Belfast moment.

In 1912 it was an unsinkable ship. In 1996 it was the internet. In 2026 it’s Anthropic and ChatGPT, SpaceX and Waymo.

The Titanic and its story is immortal because humanity’s hubris is as well. The White Star liner reminds us that maybe innovation and humility should travel together. They never do. We keep building larger ships, faster networks, smarter machines, convinced that this time we have finally mastered uncertainty.

From Belfast the ghost of the Titanic asks the question: Are you sure?

More from the Emerald Isle:

• Why is this Anglo-Irish estate an American favorite?

• The Belfast landmark now a hotel

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NOTE: Since its creation Titanic: Adventure Out of Time sails onward with a Facebook fan page of 4000+ people and dedicated enthusiasts across the world who develop alternate plot lines, discuss the characters, print Tshirts and now using AI, fan Lachlan McKay has brought my characters to life. Astounding.

Field Notes:

Titanic Belfast. Most Titanic exhibits focus on the disaster. This one focuses on the ambition. The exhibits treat Belfast as importantly as they do the ship. It’s a three-hour immersive journey into the world that produced the ship. Hours: Open daily from about 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., with extended summer hours (check times)
Admission: Online tickets from £24.95 adult; (£26.95 walk-up). Children (5–15) £11 online. Note: Admission includes entry to the SS Nomadic, a 1911 passenger tender that serviced Titanic. It’s the last surviving White Star Line ship.

Hidden Ulster Tours. If you want to really understand Belfast, the importance of Titanic to the city and navigate any part of Ireland, I advise doing so with Lolly Spence, an experienced and professional tour guide. Lolly holds the Blue Badge, the UK’s highest guiding qualification. This former BBC reporter has a deep knowledge of her native land. Tele: +44 7900 988886 Email: lspence@hiddenulstertours.com

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This year Donald Trump ignited a minor aesthetics war by ordering a repainting of the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool liner in what he reportedly called “American Flag Blue.” Personally, I think the color looked less Old Glory and more like the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel pool David Hockney did up like a Caribbean grotto. But who cares what I think. Back in Official Washington the preservationists sued, architecture critics groaned and podcasters blathered. All of them debating if the White House’s actions will scar the face of residential Washington forever.

But the real DC doesn’t live anywhere near the reflecting pool.

The real Washington thrives beyond the sulfurous political aroma and the shadows cast by the towering buildings. Few visitors know much about it. You could even say these neighborhoods comprise a secret city—a place where DC stops talking in soundbites and starts speaking in a normal tone. Here L’Enfant’s grand avenues transition into residential ones graced by leafy canopies and row upon row of brick and stone townhouses—among the country’s finest collections of late 19th- and early 20th-century urban architecture. Corner bars replace war memorials. Ethiopian cafes replace museum food courts. Church suppers replace state dinners. Neighborhoods such as Logan Circle, Adams Morgan, Dupont Circle, and Petworth are all worth wandering.

But for my money, the most intriguing of the bunch is Shaw.

Shaw sits roughly between M Street and Florida Avenue, spilling west into the U Street Corridor and14th Street, then stretching east toward Howard University—a geography less precise than emotional. Washingtonians will argue constantly about where neighborhoods begin and end. That ambiguity suits Shaw, especially in this century.

Named for Robert Gould Shaw, the white Civil War colonel who commanded one of the Union Army’s first Black regiments, the neighborhood became one of the most important centers of African American life in the United States beginning in the 1860s following emancipation. Freed Blacks settled here during and after the Civil War, building businesses, churches, newspapers, schools, music halls, and entire civic networks in a segregated city that often tried to deny them permanence or a living. Shaw survived the 1968 riots following Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, decades of disinvestment, and an uneasy tidal wave of redevelopment that followed. Yet much of that history is still startlingly present.

There’s the statue of historian Carter G. Woodson, the “Father of Black History.” The Lincoln Theatre still glows along U Street. The Howard Theatre — restored and operating again after decades of decline — once hosted practically every major Black performer in America. Nearby, the old Whitelaw Hotel, among the nation’s first upscale hotels catering to Black travelers during segregation. Martin Luther King Jr. helped organize the 1963 March on Washington from the Lincoln Congregational Temple nearby. Shaw does not merely contain African American history; it helped create modern Black America.

And like many American cities there’s been gentrification. A lot of it. On 14th Street, the heralds of “luxury condo living”— Room & Board, Lululemon and Trader Joe’s — have all arrived. Yet Shaw never feels quite so polished. You can feel old Washington and new Washington arguing with each other block by block. Beer gardens like Dacha bloom beside century-old churches. Young professionals clutching matchas pass old men discussing the city “back in the day.” Some residents celebrate the investment. Others fear erasure’s creeping in one wine bar at a time. Both are probably right.

If you want a ring side seat to the ongoing debate book a patio table at Le Diplomat, or as locals call it “Le Dip,” a first-rate French bistro on 14th Street with a zinc bar, a good wine list and one of the city’s best hamburgers. The people watching is superb: You’ll find everyone from CIA desk jockeys, Hill staffers, Senegalese MBAs and political celebrities.

The physical fabric helps keep the neighborhood grounded. Shaw’s rows of slender brick townhouses remain remarkably intact, many fronted by stoops and pocket gardens where residents sit in folding chairs on warm evenings conducting the timeless urban ritual known as “eyeballing the street.” Its scale feels approachable and human compared with the monumental bombast downtown.

DC’s alley culture survives here in ways that surprise first-time visitors. Blagden Alley — once lined with carriage houses and workshops — has evolved into one of the city’s most atmospheric corridors, all brick paving, hidden cocktail bars, coffee shops, and restaurant patios tucked behind historic facades. It manages the difficult trick of feeling fashionable without entirely sanding off its rough edges.

Shaw’s liveliest stretch is U Street, named the “Black Broadway,” by singer Pearl Bailey who launched her career at local clubs. It was loud, entrepreneurial, glamorous, political, improvisational, defiant and alive inside a segregated capital

U Street served as the launching pad for a teenage Duke Ellington, who rehearsed at the True Reformer Building and staged early career performances there. Because segregation barred Black artists from downtown establishments, world-class venues opened along the corridor. The Howard Theatre and the Lincoln Theatre became stops for touring performers like Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, and Ella Fitzgerald. Shaw became a powerful center for self-reliance and social change. Organizers there led the New Negro Alliance's pioneering 1930s economic boycotts and anchored community organizing at Ben's Chili Bowl during the 1960s civil rights movement.

Weekends still hum with that energy, even if the beats have changed. Crowds spill from bars and restaurants onto sidewalks packed shoulder to shoulder. Rooftop lounges pulse above. Music drifts out open doors. Improbably, U Street remains itself.

That may be the most remarkable thing about the District right now. At a moment when its public image is increasingly dominated by its wretched political grandstanding, Washington’s other precincts carry on with the quieter, harder work of being an actual city.

You’ll still visit the Jefferson Memorial and the Washington Monument. They matter. They always will. But the most revealing thing about Washington has never been the view of it from icons like the Lincoln Memorial and its reflecting pool, whatever color blue it becomes. It’s found away from the marble and bronze, in neighborhoods like Shaw, where the District of Columbia becomes itself.

Other capital capital cities:

• Discover Riga, Latvia’s home to head-spinning architecture

• Budapest’s Parliament is back

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Field Notes

Metro Stop: Howard U-Street is on the Green and Yellow Lines

Links to Like:

Ben’s Chili Bowl. Washington’s legendary restaurant has fed everybody from Duke Ellington to Barack Obama. Come midnight on a Friday night when U Street spills through the doors it feels like a stubborn survivor from another time. Tele: (202) 667-0909; Hours: Sun–Thurs 11 AM–2 AM; Fri–Sat 11 AM–4 AM

Howard Theatre. The storied performance hall once hosted Ella Fitzgerald, Marvin Gaye, and practically every touring jazz musician worth the bus fare. After decades of abandonment, the restored theater again anchors U Street with concerts that keep the corridor alive after dark. Tele: (202) 803-2899; Hours: Event dependent

Blagden Alley. The old network of carriage alleys and service lanes somehow escaped demolition to become a nest of restaurants and bars. Try The Dabney and Tiger Fork for food. Death & Co. D.C. for drink.

Le Diplomate. The city’s reigning French brasserie serves senators, journalists, tourists, and neighborhood regulars. Loud, scene-y and crowded it is still one of the best places to catch DC in action. Tele: (202) 332-3333; Hours: 11:30 AM –11 PM

Lincoln Theatre. The glowing marquee remains one of U Street’s great visual anchors, a reminder of the corridor’s long life as Black Broadway. The restored 1922 theater still books music, comedy, talks, and touring acts. Tele: (202) 328-6000; Hours: Box office and event hours vary

Note: If you know Shaw and want to share something special about the neighborhood leave your recommendation in the comments

Those Cincinnati people have definite opinions (you should hear what they say about Indianapolis) but I submit Cleveland is very much worth a visit.

Cleveland’s alluring to me because nobody’s fully “fixed” it yet—my term for all the American cities made over in public/private partnerships and are now frictionless, predictable and safe for bachelorette parties, bro weekends and TikTok influencers.

I like my towns with a little dirt under their nails. I’m attracted to the ones that tried on gentrification like a Men’s Wearhouse jacket but then never got it tailored. They’re authentic, a much overused word. But in Cleveland “authentic” means an acid-green Gran-Torino stretch limo drive by a chauffeur with a mullet.

That Frankenstein-hued limo is exactly why you go. Cleveland’s contradictions are always in plain view—steel beams and cherry blossoms, kielbasa and mezzes, live theater and draft beer stitched through old industrial arteries. It’s a city that shows its seams.

And it’s along the seams travelers where should double-park, get out of the car and go exploring.

Cleveland’s Eastern European heritage is no branding exercise—it’s still muscle memory. You can hear it in Orthodox churches. You can taste it. Beckers in Fairview turn out pączki, deep-fried Polish donuts, with the seriousness of sacrament. By 1920, some 150,000 Poles, Slovenes, Czechs, Ukrainians, Romanians, and Hungarians had settled into ethnic neighborhoods, especially on the east side and in what became known as Slavic Village. Onion domes still rise between three-story walk-ups above modest blocks. Cultural centers like the Czech Bohemian National Hall (sign-up for their $20 communal Sunday dinners) celebrate national identities. And somewhere—likely sooner than later—you’ll run into a Polish waitress giving you kielbasa, probably from The West Side Market, a temple to meat, this great democratic food hall’s been feeding Cleveland since 1912 beneath a soaring yellow-brick clock tower and a glorious Guastavino-tiled ceiling. At the Ukrainian Museum-Archives near Tremont, you’ll find embroidered costumes and pysanky eggs—bright, messy, intricate, defiant things. Like Cleveland’s Slavic heritage.

The city’s downtown tells the story even more clearly. It resisted the single-narrative makeover. Nothing fully homogenized. The edges still show.

Instead, it’s a collection of working parts—some restored, some rusting, some unexpectedly new. The 1890 Arcade is a Victorian masterpiece of glass and iron known as America's first indoor shopping mall with a stunning atrium, boutique shops on the bottom and a Hyatt Regency atop it. The 52-story Terminal Tower is a terrific old-school skyscraper that Superman—created by Cleveland homeboys Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster—probably flew circles around back in the day. Built as a rail hub for a future Cleveland that never fully arrived, it still dominates the skyline with a kind of stubborn optimism.

You feel that in other small moments. How a neighborhood shifts block by block. The way a museum—like the Cleveland Museum of Art, one of the country’s quiet heavyweights—offers a world-class collection without the elbows-out crowding. The way a 1966 stainless steel Lincoln Continental gleams at the Cleveland History Center near a Botanical Gardens bursting with color near University Circle. Industry, steel tycoons and ornament, side by side.

That’s Cleveland’s rhythm: it doesn’t seduce, it reveals itself.

And then, improbably, comes Playhouse Square. Wandering downtown you find it almost by accident and suddenly you’re standing in the country’s largest performing arts district outside of Broadway. Not theoretically. Not aspirationally. Physically. Ten theaters, plus an outdoor stage, strung along Euclid Avenue like a diamond necklace. When it declined it was dismissed as Cubic Zicronium until a few dogged community members began to polish it up.

The theaters went up in a fever dream of optimism in 1921 after the Spanish Flu—a burst of civic ambition that believed entertainment could anchor a city’s future. For a while, it worked. Then the long fade. By the 1970s, the lobbies filled with pigeons, fossilized Jujyfruits and despair. It took a band of locals—no grand developer, no AI billionaire—just stubborn believers, to drag the place back from the edge.

Now? The lobbies glow again. Murals vibrate with color. Plasterwork whorls away anew. And overhead, at the intersection of Euclid and East 14th, a gigantic chandelier hangs in the open air—4,200 crystals catching the light. The world’s largest, it’s a touch Liberace, but the glitz is completely deserved.

Why? You can catch a touring Broadway show here for far less than its New York run. You can try out a comedy, a drama, something strange and unclassifiable, and not feel like you’ve made a financial decision you’ll regret in the morning.

This matters more than Manhattanites think.

But Cleveland doesn’t let you stay in one lane. It opens up.

There’s Rockefeller Park, where Cleveland’s idea of identity sprawls out in a series of Cultural Gardens—each one a small, stubborn declaration that this city belongs to many. Ukraine’s garden, ringed with cherry trees and watched over by bronze figures, doesn’t ask for attention. It earns it slowly.

Head south and the city dissolves into something softer: Cuyahoga Valley National Park, a patchwork of forests, farms, and fields that somehow dodged development like Ben Whittaker sidestepping punches. Ride the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath and you’re tracing the infrastructure that once powered a young nation—the year 1827 crunches under your tires, the river bending alongside like a secret history lesson come to life.

This national park’s not dramatic like Western ones are dramatic. There aren’t dizzying cliffs nor grizzly bears. It’s an intimate, quieter place yet worthy of a walk into it.

And then there’s the food, where Cleveland may be changing fastest of all. The old immigrant city still feeds the new one. At Lucky’s Café in Tremont, blue-collar appetites lives on plates of cheddar-scallion biscuits and sausage gravy or thick waffles topped with fruit compote. It’s less a destination restaurant than a neighborhood institution — the sort of place that explains the city better than Google ever could.

Nearby, Cordelia has become one of the standard-bearers for modern Midwestern cooking. Chef Vinnie Cimino, a repeated James Beard finalist, turns comfort food into something more thoughtful. His “Burger Box” riffs on the old slider-and-fries experience while dishes like corned lamb with fermented mustard demi feel both Rust Belt and refined. Cleveland’s food scene doesn’t ape New York or Chicago so much as absorb ideas selectively, translating them back through the city’s own immigrant and industrial DNA.

That’s why dinner at Zhug resonated with me. Chef Douglas Katz has built one of the region’s most acclaimed restaurants around Middle Eastern flavors that would have seemed unimaginable in old “Mistake on the Lake” stereotypes: harissa peanut hummus, smoked pastrami short rib, bright zhug sauces, charred vegetables, warm pita arriving at crowded tables buzzing with conversation.

Of course there’s pizza.

Citizen Pie is where Lithuanian-born owner Vytauras Sasnauskas channels old-world seriousness into wood-fired pizzas like the spicy Spanish Sassy with chorizo and olives or a cacio e pepe pie blackened at the edges.

All of it suggests a city that still remembers the immigrants that built Cleveland in the first place — but no longer preserves those traditions in amber.

Even the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, that angular I.M. Pei-ty by Lake Erie, is not only a must-do—and you should, it’s fun— but also a reminder: this city can reinvent itself. It’s just never been in a hurry to prove it.

And that’s the larger point. Cleveland asks you to rethink what a tourist town looks like.

If you want tidy, don’t come here. The place can feel contradictory, improvised, occasionally absurd. A glass chandelier the size of a parade float suspended above downtown gridlock. An oompah band playing a Slovak polka ten minutes away from a nationally ranked art museum. Cleveland refuses to become a slogan.

I admire that.

And which is exactly why it works. It still feels like a place where regular life outranks the social analytics. Where neighborhoods retain accents. Where history hasn’t been pressure-washed into content.

This town’s not trying to impress you. It wore that off-the-rack jacket to the interview, but never returned it for alterations.

Cleveland’s worth visiting. Not in spite of the tailoring, but because of it.

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Other cities I admire:

1. Napa won my respect.

2. Spokane won my heart

3. Palm Springs loves Marilyn Monroe, but why?

Field Notes:

The West Side Market. Filled with sausage makers, pierogi counters, produce vendors, old Eastern European Cleveland linger in the air beside newer immigrant flavors.
Closed Tuesdays and Thursdays. Tele: (216) 664-3387

Playhouse Square. A slightly delirious cluster of marquees, chandeliers, velvet, and restored 1920s movie-palace grandeur. Even if you don’t see a show, the district captures the era when downtown Cleveland could feel glamorous. Tele: (216) 241-6000

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Inside are handwritten lyrics, stage costumes, guitars, and enough musical mythology to remind you rock and roll was once dangerous before it became history. Tele: (216) 781-7625

Cleveland History Center. Cleveland’s story through mansions, automobiles, industrial ambition, and the strange social chemistry that made the city one of America’s great boomtowns. Highlights include the restored Hay-McKinney Mansion and one of the country’s best collections of vintage luxury cars. Tele: (216) 721-5722

Cleveland Museum of Art. One of the finest free art museums in America, the CMA combines encyclopedic holdings with old school wealth that expected culture to belong to the public. You can move from ancient Egypt to Alex Katz in serene marble halls that somehow never feel overcrowded. Tele: (216) 421-7350

Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Wedged improbably between Cleveland and Akron, this national park preserves waterfalls, forests, canal history, and rolling river valleys inside what was once heavily industrial country. It’s less Yosemite than recovering Rust Belt pastoral — a landscape of towpaths, old rail corridors, beaver marshes, and quiet woods reclaiming themselves. Tele: (440) 717-3890

Bohemian National Hall The Sokol organization is dedicated to promoting Czech culture with a museum and events plus the $20 Sunday dinners ($2 extra on duck night). Call first. Times vary. Tele: (216) 883-0675

Restaurants:

Lucky’s Cafe: Scratch-made, farm-to-table comfort fare known for its hearty portions and seasonal ingredients sourced from local growers. Open: Breakfast & Lunch (Closed Tuesday) Tele: (216) 622-7773

Cordelia: The East 4th Street standout celebrates Midwest Nice food with a vibrant style that elevates regional nostalgia into fine dining. A centerpiece for Cleveland’s culinary revival. Open: Dinner & Sunday Brunch (Closed Monday) Tele: (216) 230-2355

Citizen Pie: This wood-fired pizzeria features authentic Neapolitan-style crusts and widely considered one of the city’s most consistent and creative pizza destinations. Open: Lunch & Dinner (Closed Monday) Address: 2144 W 25th St; Tele: (216) 860-1388

Zhug: A Mediterranean bistro serving vibrant, high-energy spice-forward mezze in a sleek space that has become a staple for foodies in Cleveland Heights. Open: Dinner (Closed Sunday); Tele: (216) 862-2508

Places to Stay:

The Glidden House near Case-Western feels like an academic secret, part boutique hotel, part faculty lounge that never quite stopped believing in tenure. Housed in a 1910 mansion once owned by paint tycoons. Rates from $170 Tele: (216) 231-8900

Hyatt Regency Cleveland at The Arcade. Sleeping downtown at the 1890 Arcade feels a little like checking into a Gilded Age conservatory. The hotel overlooks the five-story iron-and-glass atrium. Rates from $170–$250; Tele: (216) 575-1234

Hotel Cleveland. Sitting beside Terminal Tower the property projects the scale and swagger of an era when cities announced their importance with 491 rooms, marble lobbies, chandeliers, and an army of bellhops. Restored in 2024 with $90 million it’s now part of Marriott Bonvoy’s Autograph Collection. Rates from about $180; Tele: (216) 696-5600.

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It’s April. And everyone’s in love with Paris—again. The Opéra, the chestnut trees, the sly little Marais wall murals, and of course all the Art Nouveau. But if you want to put some real Fin in your Siecle, forget the City of Light. Visit Riga, Latvia instead. This Baltic town’s 20th Century started with an architectural bang so loud it’s now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In fact. Riga’s art nouveau facades are as plentiful as its pickled herring and far more captivating than the boozy Brits here for stag weekends.

That late-19th-century style rebellion of curves and tendrils fueled by absinthe and optimism, found fertile ground across Europe. But nowhere did it proliferate quite like Riga. The numbers tell the story. Today, more than a third of the city center’s buildings—over 800 structures—make it the largest concentration of Art Nouveau anywhere.

Why here? The reason is less romance than timing. Around 1900, Riga was booming—an industrial port city on the rise, pulling in rural Latvians with jobs and ambition. Zoning loosened, money flowed, and a newly confident middle class built outward from Riga’s medieval core (see below). Architects, many locally trained, went to work with a kind of competitive fan boy exuberance for the style: façades bloomed with mythic faces, floral swirls, sunbursts, and allegorical figures that stare down on you as if judging your footwear.

Start at the Riga Art Nouveau Centre, set in a 1903 apartment building on Alberta Street just across the canal from the Old Town. This is where Riga’s turn-of-the-century strivers built their showpiece homes, and the museum gives you a curated but convincing sense of how they lived. Don’t rush up the staircase. Instead, savor the vertigo of painted ornament and carved details, the kind of entrance designed to impress. Inside, visit the reconstructed period apartment, furnished in full Art Nouveau style, with elaborate ceiling work—symbolic plaster and painted motifs that turn the place into a Disney stage set.

From there, step back outside onto Alberta Street and head to nearby Strēlnieku Street, where the architects let their imagination run riot—facades in cobalt blue and cream, stacked with theatrical masks, mythic faces, and peacocks that all seem to compete for attention. Then go explore Vīlandes, Elizabeth, and Brīvības Streets. The Art Nouveau loosens its collar a bit—it’s less spectacle, more lived-in elegance.

What makes Riga’s Nouveau neighborhoods different is that this isn’t a museum. People still live here. Laundry hangs behind those carved façades. Someone’s making a Zoom call beneath plaster nymphs frolicking on their ceiling. Riga never froze itself for tourists, and that’s to its advantage.

But they know what they have. In the 2020s, the restoration has accelerated, backed by EU cultural funding and stricter municipal preservation rules. Alberta Street, long the crown jewel, now feels less like an exhibit and more like a living street again—residential, polished, and quietly proud. Green retrofits—energy-efficent insulation, window restoration, heating upgrades—are being threaded into historic buildings with unusual care, a balancing act between sustainability and ornament. It’s preservation without embalming. And that makes all the difference.

So let Paris keep April. Riga’s waiting for May.

Links to Like:

UNESCO on Riga

The Riga Art Nouveau Centre

Where to stay:

Neiburgs Hotel An Art Nouveau base camp with 55 rooms and some with kitchenettes. Rates from $126.

A bit more:

Riga’s Old Town

A medieval stage set, the Old Town remains Riga’s better known and bigger draw, a cluster of steeples, guild houses, and cobblestones polished, unfortunately, by centuries of jack boots. Shot all to hell during World War II and neglected under the Soviets, the Old Town has been carefully restored and reconstructed. Three sites not to miss:

• St. Peter’s Church
  A Gothic showstopper, take the elevator (skip the stairs) up the tower for a fabulous view over the red roofs and the slow curve of Riga’s Daugava River.

• House of the Blackheads
  Mercifully, it’s not named for acne. It’s a guild hall and a flamboyant confection of red brick, white trim, and gilded detail on Town Hall Square. Built for 14th century merchants, it was destroyed in 1941 and rebuilt in the late 1990s.

• Riga Cathedral
  Founded in 1211, it’s a mash-up of Romanesque, Gothic, and Baroque layers, like the neighborhood itself. Inside: cool stone, worn pews, and one of Europe’s largest pipe organs—19th century, and thunderous when played.

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Completed in 1904 for the millennial celebrations of the Hungarian state, the be-spired pile rivals Westminster in grandeur—and at roughly 194,000 square feet, surpasses it in scale. (Big Ben eat your heart out)

Better still, it’s open to the public.

Visitors file in daily for brisk, 45-minute tours (admission prices range from $11 to $30 or more depending on nationality) through a limestone fantasia of gilded staircases, stained glass, and carved statuary - look for the old-school photographer in a pillar. The climax comes beneath the 314-foot dome, where Hungary’s most sacred relic—the Crown of St. Stephen, more than a thousand years old—rests under guard.

The building itself borders on excess: 691 rooms, 29 staircases, 10 courtyards. A relic of a long-vanished empire, it was designed for a Hungary far larger than today’s borders, when the Austro-Hungarian state stretched deep into Central Europe, as far as Ukraine.

Politics may shift like the Danube’s currents, but this place holds its ground—less a seat of power than a monument to how seriously a nation has taken the promise of democracy.

More European reccos:

• Riga’s swoon-worthy architecture

• A new Belfast boutique hotel

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