Issue

AN OHIO UNDERTAKER’S LIFELONG obsession has left a mysterious outdoor gallery of American folk art.

They are 30 years gone from our main lines, but, all across the country, steam locomotives are pulling trainloads of passengers into the past. A lifelong student of the great age of American railroad reveals some of the most impressive.

People visit the Grand Canyon for scenery, not architecture. But an assortment of buildings there, infused with history and the sensibility of one strong woman, are worth a long look.

A BOLD NEW KIND OF COLLEGE COURSE BRINGS the student directly to the past, non-stop, overnight, in squalor and glory, for weeks on end.

THE VISITORS WHO COME HERE FOR THE OLYMPICS this summer won’t find Tara. What they will find is a city facing an unusual and sometimes painful past with clarity of vision and generosity of spirit.

At their zenith, the great transatlantic liners were lean runways for Schiaparelli dresses and Sulka dressing gowns, gorgeous stage sets for ship-to-shore gossip, bon mots, cocktail shakers, and dancing all night. It still can happen.