The 5 ugliest states in the country

by Meg Nesterov on

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. San Francisco Examiner writer and occasional Gadling contributor Bob Ecker doesn’t behold much, at least for a few unlucky states. Ecker previously named the prettiest US states including coastal California, exotic Hawaii, diverse New York, historic Virginia, and verdant Washington. He’s now determined the unfortunate ugliest states, measured by landscape, not people:

  • Connecticut: the Constitution State is called a “suburban hell”
  • Delaware: small and boring
  • Kansas: land-locked and a “throwback,” in a bad way
  • Nevada: outside of Las Vegas, it’s a “desolate and forbidding wasteland” (what about Lake Tahoe, Bob?)
  • Oklahoma: another flat, hot, and boring state (don’t tell Lonely Planet’s Robert Reid, an OK native)

Obviously the article is tongue in cheek — there are beautiful corners in every great state in this country — but Ecker’s skewering provides a good starting point for thinking about vacation destinations. Do these places deserve to be called ugly? What do you think the ugliest states are?

Photo courtesy Flickr user Gage Skidmore

Marriott developing tallest hotel in NYC

by McLean Robbins on

Marriott’s newest planned hotel will be a new fixture in the New York City skyline for more reasons than one. According to a deal signed last week, the new hotel venture will combine the Courtyard and Residence Inn brands to form a single 752 foot tall hotel, the tallest of its kind (without office or residential space) in New York.

The hotel will also have retail and restaurant space with a main entrance and on 54th Street.

According to an article on Boston.com, the Courtyard hotel will have 378 rooms on floors six through 32, while the Residence Inn will occupy floors 36 through 64. The hotels will share a fitness facility on the 34th floor.

Don’t get too excited, however. The hotel isn’t opening until late 2013.

A visit to Wall Street the day after the crash [PHOTOS]

by Tom Johansmeyer on

On a normal day, the small sidewalk on Wall Street between Broadway and Broad Street is crammed with tourists. People in suits cram hurriedly between them to get to their desks. Of course, there’s the occasional television truck or nut holding a sign. When the market turns, however, the vibe in that part of town changes quickly. The tourists remain, but they’re pushed around by the increase in activity, as New York’s financial center seeks to cope with a massive loss of wealth.

There’s nothing quite like visiting this part of New York City the day after a dive.

For those of you not keeping score at home, a dismal stock market day on Friday was followed by a worse one yesterday. The major indexes fell close to 7 percent – which stings. It really does. This led to a profound change the population of Wall and Broad today. Yes, the tourists were out in force (as usual). But, they had to share the streets.

Here’s what it looked like:

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Photos courtesy of Inside Investor Relations

Excavating Central Park’s forgotten village

by Sean McLachlan on

Central Park is sometimes called the “lungs of New York City”. Locals and visitors alike come here to enjoy a bit of fresh air and greenery. The park was approved in 1853 in order to leave a green patch in the rapidly expanding metropolis. The city government took the land between 59th and 106th Streets, between Fifth and Eighth Avenues, by eminent domain. About 1,600 residents were paid for their property and forced to move by the summer of 1856.

While a beautiful park was born, its birth was the death of Seneca Village, a prosperous community of almost 300 people. Two-thirds of the population was black and it may have been the first community of middle-class black landowners is New York. The rest were white, many of them Irish immigrants. Of the village’s three churches, at least one was integrated.

Seneca Village was founded in 1825, two years before New York freed most of its slaves, and expanded quickly in the following few years. Living conditions downtown were unhealthy and property prices high (some things never change) so blacks with enough money were eager to move up to this area. The map, Columbia University, shows Seneca Village. Eighth Avenue is at the top of the picture. Seventh Avenue is at the bottom, with 82nd St. on the left and 86th St. is on the right.

Today archaeologists from the Seneca Village Project have finished the first-ever excavation of this historic community. After painstaking research through city records, they were able to locate the precise spots where many of the houses stood. They decided to excavate the property of two black residents: the yard of Nancy Moore, and the home of William G. Wilson. They found a wealth of nineteenth-century artifacts, including some porcelain imported from China, showing that some residents were quite well off. They even found a shoe that may have belonged to one of Mr. Wilson’s children.

If you’re heading to Central Park, check the project’s interactive map to see the history under your feet.

Photo of the day – Statue of Liberty

by Alex Robertson Textor on

The Statue of Liberty is beyond iconic. It’s the sort of place that most visitors to New York seek to visit, even if they’re not sure why, the sort of place with a symbolic and cultural reach that goes well beyond your average top tourist attraction. Today’s beautifully realist Photo of the Day, by Flickr user jwannie, depicts the Statue of Liberty as many visitors might encounter it, framed by a boat window.

Have an image that you’d like to see as a future Photo of the Day? Submit it to the Gadling Group pool on Flickr. If we like it we might just select it to be a future Photo of the Day.