Urban Explorer at Explorer's Club

by Erik Olsen on

Neil gave us a nice little dose of Urban Adventure in this
post he did a while back, but I have to say I want to know more. I am fascinated by the concept, the idea of
experiencing a place everyone thinks they know well in a completely different way.

I more or less consider
myself a bit of an urban adventurer. When I was a kid growing up in California, at
a very young age I’d head out alone into my small town to find its hidden places, the nooks and shadowy corners and
empty buildings where I suspected not many people had been. That was a huge thrill to me to find an old warehouse or
tunnel where no one had been for a while.

And now that I live in a major metropolitan area, I still find
myself poking about here and there, especially if I’m alone and coming home after a few drinks, in search of a hidden
tunnel or secret passageway.

And I’m also a major fan of The Explorers Club. Located on the Upper East Side in a beautiful stone building, I’ve been up
there for a whole series of events including the Doc Fest and the famous dinner. I’ve also interviewed the Club’s President
and have spent a lot of time roaming around the halls. The connection here is that in the spirit of adventure, the
Explorer’s Club hosted a series on Urban Exploration with urban explorer Steve Duncan. Duncan has spent the past
decade scaling bridges, crawling through tunnels and playing Indian Jones beneath the city’s sidewalks.

Amy
over at Newyorkology did a fine post about the event, which you should read.

Red Corner: Rebirth of Dresden Church

by Neil Woodburn on

The beauty of what was once Dresden died two horrible deaths during the 20th century. The first came at the hands of British and American bombers who obliterated the city in the closing days of World War II. The second came from the East German Communists who nobly rebuilt sections of the city, but desecrated other parts with horrible socialist architecture.

The Communists decided to leave one particular building in ruins as a reminder of the horrors of war. The problem was that this building, the baroque masterpiece Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady), had been the glorious centerpiece of a city once bursting with so much exquisite architecture it was often compared to Florence.

Shortly after German reunification, a strong push was made to rebuild this masterpiece and return it to its former glory as the icon of Dresden. It took over 15 years, but a few months ago work was finally completed and the Frauenkirche rose majestically from the ashes of World War II.

Now if we could only bomb all that socialist architecture…

Outside Names New Editor

by Erik Olsen on

Most folks out there in the world don’t care
much about a changing of the guard at one of our premier outdoors magazines, but I live in New York, where any kind of
leadership shift in the world of publishing becomes gossip. Not much for me to report here on the gossip front, but
I’ll give you the straight news as I know it.

Fans of Outside
Magazine (and I suspect there are many among Gadling readers) might be interested to learn that Hal Espen, who has
been at the helm of Outside for seven years…

(a quick note: why do we always use helm when
discussing top editorial changes in publishing? And why is the page listing their names the "masthead" is
there some old maritime connection between publishing and sailing that I am unaware of?)…

uh, where
was I? Oh yeah, Hal Espen is leaving and being
replaced with Christopher Keyes, whose coming in from Texas Monthly
(another fine magazine, by the way, even if you’re not a Texan). Now, again, no major gossip here. It just seems
like Espen wants to bail and get into freelance, probably write a book or something, perhaps about the challenges of
running a major magazine from New Mexico. Who knows?

Josh Berman: Intv. with Joe Cummings

by Erik Olsen on

We have not checked in lately with our
man Josh Berman, who is constantly on the move and always doing interesting
things, so I figured I’d post an
interview Josh recently did for Transitions Abroad Magazine with travel guru and guidebook author, Joe Cummings.
Josh tracked Cummings down in Thailand where he had been, among other things, attending the Bangkok
Film Festival and penning his newest Lonely Planet tome. Cummings is prolific. He himself seems to have lost
count of the number of guidebooks and other publications he’s written, but leaves it up to someone who interviewed him a
while back to suggest that the number is up to 37 guidebooks and phrasebooks, as well as 13 coffee table books.

So take a minute and learn about the travel writing life from two sources for the topic, as both Josh and Joe qualify
as experts.< /p>

Daily Candy's Indian Spring

by Adrienne Wilson on

Daily Candy seems to be
real sweet on the idea of visiting India in
Spring and with just the beginning of their tour they serve some pretty tasty suggestions in helping to make New
Delhi your first stop. For starters, New Delhi is the capital is this enormous country and is packed with colorful
market places like Chandni Chowk, where
bargaining for goodies of all sorts can take a day in itself. Keeping in mind not all the world and her travelers are
ready for food from India’s roadside vendors (dhaba) they recommend restaurant Threesixty to get your
Italian-Indian-Japanese food fix. In addition to places to stay, eat and play they’ve also done a fine job highlighting
some of India’s greatest sites which happen to be UNESCO World Heritage landmarks. You’ll have to head north to Agra to
see Akbar’s tomb, Agra Fort, Fatehpur Sikri and of course the Taj Mahal.