The Bronx Revisited

I traveled to the South Bronx last evening to participate in a tech ecosystem-building event. I got off at the 3rd Ave stop on the 6 train and walked over to Per Scholas, about 1 mile. Most of the people I saw were Latino. Here are some photos:

Down Under the Manhattan Bridge

Yesterday afternoon, I traveled to the Brooklyn neighborhood called DUMBO. It was very cold, and the day's light was fading. A good time to shoot moody photographs of bricks, steel, river and glass.

Down the Danube on a Zille

In October of 2014 I took a one-week trip down the Danube River in Germany and Austria on a glorified rowboat with three friends, all of whom I have known for more than 40 years: Gerd Berger, translator and tour guide, Regensburg, Germany; Ed Bartlett, bassoonist, Salzburg, Austria; Tim Chegwidden, wine entrepreneur, Woodbridge, Connecticut; me, writer and videographer, Pelham, New York. (Snapshots are via iPhone)

Regensburg, Germany, at sunset

The boat was Gerd's 22-foot zille, powered by an outboard motor and kept off the rocks and docks by a stechruder (part paddle, part grappling spear). The zille is the traditional work boat of the Danube, in use there for centuries--with a flat bottom and a lot of carrying capacity. For fishing, transporting goods and basic transportation. I nominated myself to be First Mate, which meant I did some piloting, pointed out potentially dangerous situations to the Captain (Gerd), oversaw stowing of gear, and ghost wrote the captain's log. Ed was Grill Meister. Tim was Castoff Man.

The Opera House in Belém

I took a tour of the opera house in Belém with one of my colleagues. It was built in 1878, during the rubber boom, when Belém was one of the capitals of Latin America. I imagine this is what Werner Herzog's "Fitzcarraldo" had in mind when he dreamed of bringing opera to the remote regions of the Amazon. Lots of interesting detail.

Magnificent ruin in Belém, Brazil

Here's a ruin I walk past every day on my way The Nature Conservancy's office in old Belém:

The Sicilian Connection

One branch of Lisa's family comes from a small town in Sicily, San Fratello. It's an amazing place that distills many of the elements of Sicilian culture and history. Because of its location in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily was invaded repeatedly, by the Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Punics, the Romans, the Vandals, the Arabs, the Normans, the Spanish and the Italians. (I'm leaving out a few) San Fratello experienced many of these waves of conquest, and, though it's not one of the official historic sites in Sicily, history is clearly recorded in the buildings that exist today and the stones that remain of the civilizations of the past.

We visited San Fratello in April of 2013, in search not of the city's history but of Lisa's roots. Amazingly, we found what we were looking for.

San Fratello

Family Archaeology Project: John Kee MacGowan

John Kee MacGowan, one of my great-grandfathers, was almost famous. No biography has been written of him. And there are only a few mentions of him in books and in the archives of the New York Times. But his is a remarkable American story, which, I feel a compulsion to tell.
John was the son of Scottish immigrants in Philadelphia, a poor boy whose father died when he was 4 years old, a clerk and then a railroad agent who, somehow, became one of the first non-family partners in Guggenheim Bros., which was at the time the largest mining empire in the world. After about 30 years with the Guggenheims, traveling the world as their chief purchaser, he resigned and became a corporate turn-around artist for the last years of his life. He died in New York City and is buried in a family plot in Bala Cynwyd, PA.

So, if you're inclined, please join me in an archaeology project, to discover and tell the story of John Kee MacGowan. (I address this appeal most directly to my father, siblings and cousins, but extend it to others who may have knowledge or expertise that might be useful.)  Please send me via comments and email any pictures, facts, stories, etc. No scrap of evidence is too small. I will keep updating this post as new bits trickle in.

Out of this, hopefully, will come a new sort of 21st century biographical expression. So, let's go.