College towns

When real estate developer (and former Starwood Hotels & Resorts executive) Paul McGowan was touring colleges with his daughter, he couldn’t find decent accommodations near the schools they visited. So he launched Study Hotels in 2008, with the Study at Yale. A modernist tower in Philadelphia followed, and the Study at University of Chicago is due in 2021. He’d found a void in the market: Plenty of college towns offer little more than a weathered chain hotel, with a floral comforter and a microwave, if you’re lucky. With Study Hotels, McGowan took aim at college-town visitors who long for something chicer. Others took notice. Graduate Hotels debuted in 2014 in a renovated foundry near the University of Georgia’s campus in Athens; now there are 19 Graduates, including Minneapolis, each waving a collegiate pennant in its design. Each offers a kind of cool kitsch. While big brands such as Hilton, Marriott and Nobu are starting to notice the vibrant culture of … [Read more...] about 5 hotels in college towns that really make the grade

“Like the frog in slowly boiling water, few people in the community noticed anything different at first,” the researchers wrote. The announcement in Biddeford that Saturday would be the paper’s final day was met with heartbreak from some readers. But others greeted the news with a mixture of resignation and nostalgia about what the paper had been, decades earlier. “I remember the paper always being central to our lives in terms of information,” said Mayor Alan Casavant, a lifelong resident of Biddeford. Casavant’s parents subscribed; he read the comics as a child and worked his way up to the political stories by high school. When he was elected to the City Council straight out of college, there were typically three local reporters, from multiple papers, at every council meeting, he said. Afterward, they would crowd around to ask follow-up questions. But these days, Casavant gets his news elsewhere. “I had a subscription to the Journal … [Read more...] about In one Maine town, ‘home paper’ is gone after 135 years

Oxford, home to Oxford University, is located about an hour and a half Northwest of London but is a world away from the hustle and bustle of the capital city. Oxford definitely deserves a visit on your next trip to the UK. Whether it is for a day or a week, here are 5 reasons why you should visit Oxford! 1) The Architecture Because Oxford is home to Oxford University, which is the oldest university in the English-speaking world, the town is full of buildings dating as far back as Medieval times.  And this makes for some amazing architecture. Everywhere you look there are building that look straight out of Harry Potter and in some cases that’s because they are! There are dozens of Harry Potter filming locations located in Oxford. And if you are interested there are many tours you can take that will bring you to all the locations and tell you about the filming process in detail. But no matter where you look there is something beautiful to enjoy. 2) The Food Oxford is filled … [Read more...] about 5 Reasons To Visit Oxford

The San Diego Rescue Mission no longer has clients in its program.Starting this month, it has students in its academy, and everyone living in the facility will be either enrolled in — or will have graduated from — its courses designed to create sober, stable self-sufficient lives.“The key to the homeless issue is rehabilitation,” said Donnie Dee, president and CEO of the San Diego Rescue Mission in downtown San Diego.Dee said the new approach is intended to better address the needs of homeless people. Shortly after arriving as new head of the nonprofit in August 2017, Dee rewrote what he thought was a too-wordy mission statement to one that now reads: “To lovingly address the needs of men, women and children experiencing homelessness by sharing the good news of salvation and providing a holistic approach to rehabilitation and recovery.” He also made staffing changes, moving Jeremy Dawsey-Richardson from director of the mission’s recuperative … [Read more...] about Rescue Mission reserves housing for graduates of ‘academy’

Twenty women and men were executed following the trials — 19 were hanged, one was crushed to death — and another five died in jail. “The place of the executions is a great connector to the past,” said Marilynne Roach, a Watertown author and scholar who was part of the Gallows Hill Project. “Remembering is a painful process.” “The legacy of what transpired here crosses into the imaginations and consciousness of our community, our Commonwealth, and even our country,” said Salem Mayor Kimberley Driscoll. “It’s a legacy that speaks to the need for the rule of law and the impartiality of the judiciary.’’ The human legacy of the witch trials is equally important. Genealogy and finding ancestry through DNA are popular, and many people are surprised when they find a family connection to the trials. “I have lived in Salem all my life,” said John Keenan, Salem State’s president. “Growing up, … [Read more...] about The descendants of Salem’s ‘witches’ are all around us