Cities of the United States
The Northeast
Bridgeport: Introduction
A smokestack city known for its defense-related manufacturing activities and port facilities, Bridgeport, the largest city in Connecticut, was devastated in the early 1990s by the loss of its manufacturing base as a result of the end of the Cold War between the United States and the former Soviet Union, and actually declared itself bankrupt. Further degradation was handed to residents at the hands of their once-successful mayor, Joseph P.
Bridgeport: Geography and Climate
Bridgeport, in the southwest portion of Connecticut, sprawls for two and one-half miles along Long Island Sound at the mouth of the Pequonnock River. Located in Fairfield County, the city is situated on low-lying land that comprises two harbors, the main Bridgeport Harbor and the Black Rock Harbor two miles away.
Bridgeport: History
Pequonnock River Mouth Site of Village Bridgeport, situated on a commodious harbor and river estuary, was the site of at least five Native American villages and in 1659 became the site of Connecticut's first Indian reservation. The trading port of Black Rock was settled by the English in 1644, and farming communities at Stratfield and Pembroke by 1660.
Bridgeport: Municipal Government
Bridgeport, in Fairfield County, operates under a mayor-council form of government. The mayor and 20 council members are elected to two-year terms of office.
Bridgeport: Economy
Manufacturing and trade, long mainstays in the Bridgeport economy, are being increasingly supplemented by the service-producing industries, particularly personal, business, and health services, as Bridgeport seeks to diversify. The defense industry, for many years a vital part of the city's economy, was hard hit by layoffs in the early 1990s.
Bridgeport: Education and Research
Although in the late 1990s, the city announced investments of $250 million for modern buildings, classes for universal preschool, smaller classroom sizes, and broader access to computers and the Internet; by 2005 these initiatives had yet to materialize. The school district has suffered as a result with six buildings that are over a century old and 14 others at more than 50 years old.
Bridgeport: Health Care
With two major hospitals and a mental health center within the city limits, Bridgeport is the health care center of Fairfield County. Bridgeport Hospital is a full-service community hospital and teaching institution serving the greater Bridgeport area and Fairfield County.
Bridgeport: Recreation
Visitors can experience Bridgeport's colonial past on a narrated boat tour of historic Black Rock Harbor and Long Island Sound. Captain's Cove Seaport, an amusement and maritime center along the harbor, is home to the HMS Rose, a replica of a Revolutionary War era 24-gun frigate.
Bridgeport: Convention Facilities
Within the greater Bridgeport area about 1,000 hotel rooms are available for a variety of functions. Small conventions can be handled by the new Arena at Harbor Yard with capacity seating of 10,000 guests and 6,000 theater-style along with room for 150 standard-size trade show booths.
Bridgeport: Transportation
Bridgeport's city-owned Sikorsky Memorial Airport is 10 minutes from downtown (in Stratford). The airport serves the corporate and general aviation communities.
Bridgeport: Communications
Bridgeport's daily, The Connecticut Post, is published every morning. Other newspapers in the city include the monthly Fairfield County Catholic, published by the Diocese of Bridgeport, and the Bridgeport News, which publishes weekly.
Danbury: Introduction
Danbury, formerly known as the Hat Capital of the World and official supplier of silk top hats to presidents, is perhaps best known today as the headquarters of Union Carbide and other industries that have moved out of metropolitan areas. Danbury is located near the beautiful rural area of Connecticut known as Litchfield Hills, an affluent region where per capita income is among the highest in the country.
Danbury: Geography and Climate
Danbury is located in southwestern Connecticut in Fairfield County, 25 miles northwest of Bridgeport, in the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains. The city is situated on low-lying land just south of Lake Candlewood, the largest manmade lake in the state, and east of the Housatonic River.
Danbury: History
English settlers moving north from Norwalk took root in Danbury in 1685 and called it Swampfield though this was short-lived. Renamed Danbury in 1687 after a town in England, it was nicknamed Beantown for the beans and other vegetables that grew prolifically there, which were carted over a primitive road to be traded in Norwalk.
Danbury: Municipal Government
Danbury operates under the mayor-council form of government. The mayor and council members are elected to two-year terms.
Danbury: Economy
Danbury's local economy is diverse, with services, manufacturing, retail, and trade as the leading components. Major non-manufacturing sectors are services; wholesale and retail trade; and finance, insurance, and real estate.
Danbury: Education and Research
The Danbury Board of Education, comprised of 11 elected representatives serving unpaid two- or four-year terms, is the district's policy-making body. The school system supports an Alternative Center for Education, before and after school programs, the "Summit" programs for gifted and talented students, the Elementary Technology Program, and special education classes.
Danbury: Health Care
The health care needs of residents in the Greater Danbury area are attended to at Danbury Hospital, a 371-bed nonprofit teaching hospital and regional health resource. In 2004 Solucient LLC, a national organization that examines health care quality statistics, included Danbury Hospital in its "Top 100 Hospitals: National Benchmarks for Success" report.
Danbury: Recreation
Danbury's most famous sight is the Danbury Museum and Historical Society which includes two historic buildings, 1785 Rider House and 1790 John Dodd Hat Shop. Rider House, former home of a carpenter and cabinetmaker, displays tools and period furnishings.
Danbury: Convention Facilities
Danbury offers meeting space for small groups in a number of modern hotels, including the Holiday Inn Danbury with space for 10 to 300 people in 7 different rooms and the Ethan Allen Hotel with 15,000 square feet of meeting space with accommodations for groups up to 500 guests. The surrounding area is famous for its country inns located in renovated Victorian mansions, colonial homes, and other historic structures.
Danbury: Transportation
The Danbury Municipal Airport, the second busiest in the state, offers general aviation services on its two runways and includes charter services, plane rentals, and hangar space. The closest major commercial airports are John F.
Danbury: Communications
Danbury's daily newspaper, the News-Times, is published in the morning. Scholastic Library Publishing, parent of imprints Grolier, Children's Press, Franklin Watts, and Grolier Online, publishes The Encyclopedia Americana, (Grolier) and maintains its international headquarters in Danbury.
Hartford: Introduction
Hartford, Connecticut's state capital and second largest city, is known as "the insurance capital of the world." Hartford's early citizens drafted the nation's first state constitution, and later inhabitants added to the city's manufacturing prestige with many innovative products and processes. Currently, Hartford is enjoying an influx of development projects and has been recognized nationally as an attractive site for businesses.
Hartford: Geography and Climate
Hartford, located in Hartford County in the center of Connecticut, is midway between New York City to the south and Boston, Massachusetts, to the north. The entire city is contained within the fertile Connecticut River Valley.
Hartford: History
Before settlers of European descent sailed to North America, the tribes of the Algonquin Federation had exploited the Connecticut River Valley's rich black soil to grow food crops. They called the area "Suckiaug," or black earth.
Hartford: Municipal Government
Hartford operates with a council-manager form of government. The nine council members and mayor are elected every two years in partisan elections.
Hartford: Economy
Metropolitan Hartford's strong economy is based on a diverse business and industrial community. The area ranks number one in the world in gross domestic product per capita and number two in the world in labor productivity.
Hartford: Education and Research
The Hartford Public School District is the second largest district in New England behind Boston, and the largest in Connecticut. A recent partnership of local business, the community, and the schools has brought about curriculum changes that include the addition of apprenticeship programs, a magnet school, advanced courses in science and math technology and a strong emphasis on creative problem solving to encourage career readiness.
Hartford: Health Care
A major health care provider for the Hartford region is Hartford Hospital, which has satellite health centers in addition to its main Hartford campus. The Hartford campus has 867 beds and 972 active staff physicians.
Hartford: Recreation
Downtown Hartford combines Yankee colonialism with a modern business atmosphere. Historic Hartford attractions include the State Capitol atop Capital Hill.
Hartford: Convention Facilities
The Connecticut Expo Center is located six-tenths of a mile from downtown Hartford. Its 138,000 square feet of exhibition space allows for multiple events with on-premise show management offices, and offers more than 425 10-foot by 10-foot booths.
Hartford: Transportation
Bradley International Airport, a medium-sized hub and regional facility, is located 12 miles north of downtown Hartford in Windsor Locks. The airport is the second busiest in New England and served over six million passengers in 2004.
Hartford: Communications
Hartford's daily newspaper, The Hartford Courant, established in 1764, is one of the nation's oldest continuously operating newspapers. Three other daily newspapers are printed in the region: The New Britain Herald, The Journal Inquirer, which covers the eastern suburbs, and The Valley Press, which covers the western suburbs.
New Haven: Introduction
Known variously as the home of Yale University, the city of elms, and the gateway to New England, New Haven has contributed to American life items ranging from frisbees to hamburgers to the Winchester repeating rifle to vulcanized rubber. In New Haven originated the clinical use of penicillin and mass production of manufactured goods.
New Haven: Geography and Climate
New Haven, located in south-central Connecticut, is situated at the head of New Haven Bay, on Long Island Sound, and at the mouth of the Quinnipiac, Mill, and West rivers. A major port city, New Haven is bounded by the New Haven Harbor on its southeast side and by the Merritt Parkway (Connecticut Route 15) on its northwest side.
New Haven: History
New Haven, its name declaring a new haven from religious oppression, was settled by a company of English Puritans in 1638. The group, led by the charismatic Reverend John Davenport, had originally called their settlement Quinnipiac, after the local Native American tribe of that name, but changed the town's name to New Haven in 1640.
New Haven: Municipal Government
New Haven operates under a mayor-board of aldermen form of government. The mayor is elected to a two-year term as are the thirty members who make up the Board of Aldermen.
New Haven: Economy
In the 1950's, New Haven's economy was based on the manufacturing industry. Today, while manufacturing continues to be an important component of the regional economy, the base of that economy has shifted to health, business, and financial services, as well as retail trade.
New Haven: Education and Research
New Haven's school system, rated among the nation's best, offers a program for talented and gifted students beginning in kindergarten, as well as special education classes and an adult education program. The district's 27 magnet schools are very popular and require a lottery system to determine placement.
New Haven: Health Care
Health care in New Haven revolves around the Yale-New Haven Hospital (YNHH), one of the nation's top 10 medical centers and a world-renowned teaching facility. The hospital is a 944-bed tertiary care facility that includes the 201-bed Yale-New Haven Children's Hospital and the 76-bed Yale-New Haven Psychiatric Hospital.
New Haven: Recreation
Yale University, whose scholarly ranks include patriot Nathan Hale; presidents Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and George W.
New Haven: Convention Facilities
Large conventions and trade shows generally are held at New Haven Coliseum, but in 2005 Mayor John DeStefano Jr. announced plans to raze the aging facility to make way for a new development that would include a new Gateway Community College campus and a hotel and convention facility.
New Haven: Transportation
Tweed-New Haven Airport is the fastest growing satellite airport in the Northeast, and in 2005 was named Regional Airport of the Year by the Regional Airline Association. Located less than 10 minutes from downtown New Haven, it offers service to Philadelphia through Delta Connect and Cincinnati through U.S.
New Haven: Communications
The New Haven Register is the weekday morning paper. It is also served by the student-run Yale Daily News and the weekly Yale Herald.
Stamford: Introduction
In the twentieth century, Stamford, the fifth largest city in Connecticut, progressed from a factory hub to its current position as a research center. By the end of the twentieth century, it had also become the nation's third largest corporate headquarters community.
Stamford: Geography and Climate
Located in southwestern Connecticut, Stamford lies at the mouth of the Rippowam River on Long Island Sound. The city itself is built around a wide bay crossed by two tidal inlets.
Stamford: History
In pre-colonial days, the Siwanoys, a subnation of the Wappinger tribe, lived on the land—which they called "Rippowam"—that now constitutes the site of modern Stamford. In 1640 the Siwanoys sold the land to Nathaniel Turner, an agent for the New Haven Colony, who was looking for arable land.
Stamford: Municipal Government
Stamford, located in Fairfield County, operates with a mayor and 40-member board of representatives system; each member is to serve a term of four years. The 40 representatives include two from each of twenty districts within the city.
Stamford: Economy
Traditionally, Stamford has been known for its corporate headquarters, manufacturing, retail and research activities. In the 1980s and 1990s, however, southwestern Connecticut blossomed, its real estate growing ever more attractive as the cost of doing business in New York City skyrocketed.
Stamford: Education and Research
Stamford's public school system offers several special programs, including bilingual and special education. Considered one of the finest systems in Connecticut, Stamford's enjoys one of the state's lowest student/teacher ratios.
Stamford: Health Care
The Stamford Hospital is a not-for-profit, community teaching hospital serving Stamford and surrounding communities. It has 305 inpatient beds in medicine, surgery, obstetrics/gynecology, psychiatry, and medical and surgical intensive care units.
Stamford: Recreation
Among Stamford's perennial premier attractions is the Bartlett Arboretum, a 63-acre nature area maintained by the University of Connecticut. Its highlights include a swamp walk, natural woodlands, cultivated gardens, ecology trails, a horticultural library, and display greenhouse.
Stamford: Convention Facilities
Four downtown hotels with 1,700 rooms form the core of Stamford's meeting facilities. Meeting and banquet rooms can accommodate up to 1,100 guests.
Stamford: Transportation
For the purpose of air travel, Stamford is considered part of the New York City hub. Kennedy International Airport in Queens and LaGuardia in New York are an hour's drive from Stamford and offer full international, domestic, commuter, and freight service.
Stamford: Communications
No radio or television stations broadcast directly from Stamford, though many broadcasts from nearby cities are accessible to residents. Connecticut Radio Information Service, headquartered in Wethersfield, broadcasts readings from daily newspapers and magazines for the benefit of state residents who are blind or cannot hold or turn pages.
Waterbury: Introduction
Waterbury overcame a poor geographical setting by using Yankee ingenuity to make the city the "Brass Capital of the World." From the early 1800s until the mid-1960s, Waterbury buttons, buckles, and clocks were found in most American homes. With the decline of the brass industry after World War II, Waterbury aggressively diversified its industrial base, drawing new manufacturing and service industries to the city.
Waterbury: Geography and Climate
Located in west-central Connecticut, Waterbury lies in a hilly woodland portion of New Haven County. Built on a rocky plain in the Naugatuck River Valley, the city is bounded by granite hills to the east and west.
Waterbury: History
The tract of land on which the Watertown/Waterbury area stands was officially purchased from the Tunxis tribe in 1677 for 38 dollars. This Native American tribe called the area "Matetcoke" or "land without trees," a name shortened to Mattatuck.
Waterbury: Municipal Government
Waterbury operates under a mayor-council form of government. The mayor is elected to two-year terms, as are the 15 aldermen.
Waterbury: Economy
Although manufacturing remains the mainstay of the Waterbury economy, the city is working toward diversifying its industrial base. New areas include chemical research and services such as banking.
Waterbury: Education and Research
The Waterbury Public School District offers a number of programs for target groups such as gifted and talented students, special education students, and adult education students. The Warren F.
Waterbury: Health Care
Health care in Waterbury is provided by the Waterbury Hospital Health Center, with 357 beds, and St. Mary's Hospital, with 347 beds.
Waterbury: Recreation
While other New England towns were razing their city centers in urban renewal efforts, Waterbury was preserving the architectural relics of the past. The city's 60-acre Hillside Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, includes 310 structures, many of them the carefully preserved Victorian homes of Waterbury's captains of industry.
Waterbury: Convention Facilities
Waterbury, a growing convention and conference site, has one of the largest concentrations of rooms in the state. There are more than 900 sleeping and meeting rooms available in the area.
Waterbury: Transportation
Daily bus service is provided from Waterbury to and from Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks and the New York City airports. Several interstate bus lines and passenger trains travel into Waterbury.
Waterbury: Communications
One independent television station exists in Waterbury, which also picks up New Haven and Hartford programs. A cable television franchise also operates in Waterbury.
Augusta: Introduction
Augusta, the capital of Maine, is the business and education center of a tourist-vacation area. The city lies in the Kennebec River Valley on both sides of the river's banks in a region noted for its fertile farmlands, rich timberlands, lakes, and scenic rolling hills.
Augusta: Geography and Climate
Augusta rises in a series of terraces and sharp inclines east and west of the bisecting Kennebec River. Summers are pleasant; though winters have a reputation for harshness, they are not actually as severe as those experienced in places of corresponding latitude.
Augusta: History
Thousands of years before the first English settlers arrived in the Kennebec River Valley, the region was inhabited by a tribe known as the Red Paint People, so called because their discovered graves contained a brilliant red ocher (iron oxide). Considered a highly developed people, they created implements that indicate woodworking skills, and they are known to have built small boats to explore the Kennebec Valley and beyond.
Augusta: Municipal Government
Augusta operates under a mayor-council form of government. The mayor and eight council members are elected for three-year terms.
Augusta: Economy
As the capitol of Maine and seat of state government, Augusta is Maine's largest location for government employment; state government employs several thousand Augustans. Governmental activities are supported by financial institutions, law firms, and economic and governmental liaison consultants.
Augusta: Education and Research
In addition to a traditional academic program, the Augusta Public School system offers a special education program, a gifted and talented program, guidance, library media, English as a Second Language, alternative programs, and a regional vocational program. In 2003, one of the city's two middle schools—Lou Buker School—was closed and the city's seventh and eighth grades were consolidated at Hodgkins Middle School.
Augusta: Health Care
MaineGeneral Medical Center, with campuses in Augusta and nearby Waterville, is the third-largest medical center in Maine and has 317 acute care beds. Both campuses provide emergency care, medical/surgical care, maternal and child health, and inpatient and outpatient diagnostic services.
Augusta: Recreation
Augusta straddles both sides of the Kennebec River. On the west side are grouped many buildings of architectural and historical interest.
Augusta: Convention Facilities
The Augusta Civic Center, described as central Maine's premier meeting place for business and entertainment, is located adjacent to Interstate 95, within minutes of Augusta State Airport and nearly 1,000 nearby hotel rooms. A prominent feature of the 32,000 square-foot center is the Paul G.
Augusta: Transportation
Augusta State Airport, located one mile from the city center, is served by US Airways Express, operated by Colgan Air. Most major state roads and highways converge in Augusta.
Augusta: Communications
WCBB, a public broadcasting television station, broadcasts from Augusta. Six AM and FM radio serve Augusta listeners and offer a variety of music, including oldies, adult contemporary, pop, and contemporary country.
Bangor: Introduction
Located in the Acadia region of Maine, one of the most popular and scenic destinations in the country for summer visitors, Bangor is the third largest city in the state. Known as the Queen City of Maine, Bangor is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of the eastern and northern regions of the state.
Bangor: Geography and Climate
Bangor sprawls upon hills along the west bank of the Penobscot River, at the head of tidewater, thirty-five miles southeast of the geographic center of the state. It is located in the Acadia National Park region of Maine, which extends on the east coast from Penobscot Bay to Schoodic Point, and encompasses mountains, lakes, streams, and rocky peninsulas.
Bangor: History
The first settlers in the area where Bangor is now located were Abenaki Indians, residing in a peaceful village they called Kadesquit in a beautiful valley called Penobscot, "place of rocks." Their first famous visitor was the French explorer Samuel de Champlain who, in 1604, sailed up the Penobscot River. The legend was that he was searching for Norumbega, the city of gold of the poet Milton's Paradise Lost.
Bangor: Municipal Government
The city of Bangor operates under the council-manager form of government. Nine non-partisan members of the city council are elected at large to three-year terms, with three positions on the council up for election each year in November.
Bangor: Economy
Bangor is the center for commercial activity in the northeastern and central regions of Maine. As such, the metropolitan area features a diversified economy.
Bangor: Education and Research
Public school education is highly prized and well supported in the Bangor metropolitan area. The Bangor school system is unique in that it is organized into schools serving four separate age levels (K-3; 4-5; 6-8; 9-12).
Bangor: Health Care
A number of hospitals cater to the physical and mental health care needs of Bangor area residents. The largest facility, Eastern Maine Medical Center, established in 1892, is a modern 411-bed regional hospital providing intensive care services; it is also one of three designated centers in the Maine Trauma System.
Bangor: Recreation
Bangor's heritage has been preserved in the painstakingly restored mansions of the lumber barons in the Broadway Historic District, one of several local districts. A popular way to explore the city is by way of a historic walking tour, which takes the visitor through a number of Bangor's finest buildings representing a variety of architectural styles ranging from Colonial, Federal, Greek Revival, and Second Empire Italian.
Bangor: Convention Facilities
The Bangor Auditorium offers 16,000 square feet of exhibit space with a seating capacity of 6,000. The Civic Center, with 22,000 square feet of usable space, is capable of hosting 9 concurrent meetings; it has banquet seating for up to 800 people, and a 12,000-square-foot catering center.
Bangor: Transportation
Bangor International Airport offers more than 50 flights per day to and from national and regional hubs as well as Florida and the Caribbean. It is served by major airlines, including Delta, American, US Airways, Continental, and Northwest, with non-stop destinations like Boston, New York, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati.
Bangor: Communications
In operation for more than 110 years, the Bangor Daily News is published mornings Monday through Saturday. The paper is one of the few family-owned newspapers in the country, and has a circulation of approximately 70,000.
Lewiston: Introduction
Lewiston and Auburn, known as the Twin Cities of the Androscoggin, together form the industrial and commercial heart of Maine. Although separated by the Androscoggin River, they share nearly every city amenity and service except government.
Lewiston: Geography and Climate
Lewiston is located approximately 30 miles from the mouth of the Androscoggin River in the western lakes and mountains region of Maine. The city is situated on low rolling hills sloping toward the Androscoggin River.
Lewiston: History
Permission to settle the tract of land along the Androscoggin River where Lewiston and Auburn now stand was granted by the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1768 to agents of a group referred to as the proprietors. Under the terms of the grant, fifty families in as many houses were to settle in the area, which was to be called Lewiston, by 1774.
Lewiston: Municipal Government
Lewiston operates under a city administrator form of government, with a mayor and seven councilors elected to two-year terms. Auburn is the shire town of Androscoggin County.
Lewiston: Economy
Once known mainly for the manufacture of shoes and textiles, Lewiston and Auburn today possess a diversified economic base in both the manufacturing and non-manufacturing sectors. Androscoggin County has transformed itself to a progressive tourism and high-precision manufacturing powerhouse.
Lewiston: Education and Research
Lewiston takes great pride in its education system, which has gained national attention for its innovative programs that have incorporated arts into the classroom, fostered business partnerships, and started after-school programs. Lewiston students regularly score at or above national and state averages on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills and the Maine Educational Assessment.
Lewiston: Health Care
Lewiston and Auburn residents' health care needs are taken care of by two of Maine's finest hospitals—Central Maine Medical Center and St. Mary's Regional Medical Center.
Lewiston: Recreation
A stroll through the 109-acre campus of Bates College offers the sightseer a view of lawns, gardens, and ivy-covered buildings; one path leads to the summit of Mt. David, providing an aerial view of the Twin Cities and sometimes a glimpse of the White Mountains 50 miles to the west.
Lewiston: Convention Facilities
Lewiston's Colisee has a number of options for convention planners. Its main conference area seats up to 4,800 people.
Lewiston: Transportation
Androscoggin County is served by Auburn-Lewiston Municipal Airport, which offers charter air service to the U.S. and Canada.
Lewiston: Communications
Readers in the Lewiston area are served daily by the Lewiston Sun-Journal. The Maine Sunday Telegram is also available to local readers.
Portland: Introduction
Portland is the largest city in Maine and an important cultural, commercial, and shipping center. Called "the beautiful town that is seated by the sea" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who was born there, Portland, three times destroyed by fire and rebuilt, has revived again.
Portland: Geography and Climate
Portland lies on the southeast coast of Maine about 106 miles northeast of Boston. The city surrounds a large harbor on the southern rim of Casco Bay.
Portland: History
The first settlement on the site of Portland was built by Christopher Levett in 1623. The next year Levett returned to England, apparently to attempt to arouse interest in forming a city on the site, to be called York.
Portland: Municipal Government
Portland, the seat of Cumberland County, operates under a council-manager form of government. The city manager is the chief executive officer, appointed by the council for an unspecified term.
Portland: Economy
The Portland MSA is the strongest economic region in the state. Maine companies have a higher survival rate than the national average, as well as above-average rates of sales growth.
Portland: Education and Research
The Portland Public School System (PPS) enjoys a reputation for excellence and has been ranked among the top 10 education systems in the nation. Maine's largest and most diverse school district, PPS offers a challenging academic curriculum with a wide array of educational choices, including expeditionary learning and vocational training.
Portland: Health Care
Portland's Maine Medical Center, a major clinical and teaching affiliate of the University of Vermont College of Medicine, is the largest hospital in the state and a major referral center for northern New England. A 606-bed facility, it is an active research center as well as a teaching hospital.
Portland: Recreation
Portland is a rejuvenated city that combines modern and historic buildings and districts with a thoughtful sense of what makes the city unique and lends it character. Walking tour brochures, available at the convention and visitors bureau, guide the visitor to Portland landmarks, the historic sites and buildings in downtown Portland, and the Old Port Exchange, reconstructed after the fire in 1866 and given a facelift in the early 1990s.
Portland: Convention Facilities
Conventioneers make use of the Cumberland County Civic Center. With 34,500 square feet of exhibition space, the Civic Center is one of Maine's largest convention facilities.
Portland: Transportation
Portland International Jetport, which accommodates more than 1.2 million passengers annually, is 10 minutes from the downtown area. The Jetport is served by six major carriers.
Portland: Communications
Portland Newspapers supplies newspaper readers in Portland with the Portland Press Herald every morning except Sunday, and the Maine Sunday Telegram on Sunday. Portland, a magazine devoted to lifestyles, business, and real estate news, and performing arts and fiction reviews, is also published in Portland, as is the quarterly PortCity Life.
Boston: Introduction
The Atlantic Ocean has played an important role throughout Boston's history. Situated on one of the world's finest natural harbors, Boston was once the maritime capital of the colonial United States.
Boston: Geography and Climate
Massachusetts's Shawmut Peninsula, upon which Boston is located, lies at the mouths of the Charles and Mystic rivers. The rivers flow into Boston's inner harbor and then into Boston Harbor itself.
Boston: History
The point of land that juts into a natural harbor connecting with the Atlantic Ocean and forms the site of present-day Boston was once occupied by Native American tribes. They named the peninsula "Shawmut," which meant variously "land accessible by water" in reference to the harbor or "land with living fountains," a comment on the area's abundant fresh water springs.
Boston: Municipal Government
Boston operates under a mayor-council form of government; the mayor is elected to four-year terms and the council members to two-year terms. In addition to governing the city of Boston, the mayor and council act as commissioners for the county of Suffolk.
Boston: Economy
Since the 1988–1992 downturn, Boston experienced an ongoing economic recovery, with increased employment rates, improvement in the office market, strong sales, and tremendous gains in residential real estate. As in many places across the country, Boston's economy was affected by the events on September 11, 2001.
Boston: Education and Research
Boston's school district is one of the nation's 60 largest. Boston spends nearly 30 percent of its annual budget on school matters, and its system excels in special education classes.
Boston: Health Care
Few places in the country have more doctors than Boston—more than 500 per 100,000 people—and health care is among the best. More than 20 inpatient hospitals are located within the city, including Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Beth Israel Hospital, Children's Hospital, New England Deaconess Hospital, the New England Medical Center and Boston Medical Center.
Boston: Recreation
Boston's great appeal to visitors and residents alike is its compactness; it is a very walkable city and many of its attractions are planned around that fact. Maps are available at the National Park Service Visitor Center on State Street.
Boston: Convention Facilities
Boston is a popular meeting site for groups of all kinds and sizes. Completed in 2004, the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center has 516,000 square feet of contiguous exhibit space, 82 meeting rooms, and a 40,000 square foot ballroom.
Boston: Transportation
Visitors arriving in Boston by air arrive at Logan International Airport, located in East Boston just two miles from downtown Boston. Its location in Massachusetts Bay puts Boston's airport 200 miles closer to Europe than New York City.
Boston: Communications
Boston's two major daily newspapers, The Boston Globe and the Boston Herald, are both published in the morning.
Lowell: Introduction
Lowell, once the textile capital of the world, grew in the shadow of the huge mills lining the Merrimack River. Its ancient canals earned the city the nickname "Venice of America." With the southward movement of the textile industry in the 1920s, Lowell sought to diversify its economy to include a variety of manufactured products.
Lowell: Geography and Climate
The city of Lowell, located in Middlesex County at the confluence of the Merrimack and Concord rivers, is 25 miles northwest of Boston. The city stands on a plateau in the Merrimack Valley, surrounded by hills of 100- to 200-foot elevations.
Lowell: History
For many years the site of present-day Lowell was an annual meeting ground for the tribes of the Pennacook Confederacy, who fished for salmon and shad in the waters of the Merrimack River. In 1686 the Confederacy sold the land to English farmers migrating from Boston.
Lowell: Municipal Government
Lowell operates with a council-manager form of government. The elected nine-person council serves a two-year term of office.
Lowell: Economy
Lowell is a diversified industrial city. Service is a major sector of the local economy with more than a quarter of total employment.
Lowell: Education and Research
The Lowell Public School system, administered by the Lowell School Committee, offers a strong commitment to literacy, technology, and multiculturalism. Its 23 elementary and middle schools stream into Lowell High, a progressive facility organized around the concept of "small learning communities." Lowell High's eight "academies" range in focus from fine arts to engineering; qualifying students may also enroll in the prestigious Latin Lyceum which offers a four-year classical college entrance program.
Lowell: Health Care
Two major acute care hospitals are located in the city. Saints Memorial Medical Center is the largest health care provider in the region; areas of specialty include comprehensive cancer care, dialysis, rehabilitative medicine, and pediatrics.
Lowell: Recreation
Lowell's unique status as the country's first planned industrial community has been recognized with the designation of the Lowell National Historical Park. Covering 141 acres of downtown land, the park's textile mills, canals, museum exhibits, and nineteenth century buildings are connected by trolley service.
Lowell: Convention Facilities
The Lowell Memorial Auditorium seats up to 3,000 and can accommodate medium-sized trade shows with up to 90 exhibit booths. The auditorium also offers a variety of meeting rooms and lounges for media conferences and receptions.
Lowell: Transportation
Boston's Logan International Airport, a 40-minute drive to the southeast, offers complete domestic, international, and freight air service. Manchester Airport in New Hampshire is slightly closer and offers domestic service.
Lowell: Communications
The Sun is the city's daily newspaper, published on weekday evenings on weekdays and weekend mornings. Special-interest publications originating in Lowell include Outlet,an independent performance magazine, and Le Journal de Lowell, a French-language newspaper.
Springfield: Introduction
The home of the Springfield Armory and a number of private firearms manufacturers, Springfield early attracted scores of talented artisans to its manufacturing concerns. Today Springfield, one of the oldest settlements in America and the third largest city in Massachusetts, is best known for its growing service industry, which is anchored by a major insurance firm.
Springfield: Geography and Climate
The city of Springfield, in Hampden County in western Massachusetts, is 80 miles west of Boston. Located on the east bank of the Connecticut River, the city lies in the Pioneer Valley, a plateau formed between the Holyoke Range of mountains (a part of the White Mountain chain) to the east and the Green Mountains to the west.
Springfield: History
In 1636 fur trader William Pynchon led a group of settlers westward from Boston to a site on the west bank of the Connecticut River in western Massachusetts. The fledgling community, named Agawam, soon retreated to the river's east bank to escape raids by the native Sokoki tribe, who resented the damage done to their corn by the settlers' livestock.
Springfield: Municipal Government
The city of Springfield is governed by a strong-mayor/council form of government. The mayor is elected to two-year terms while the nine-member at-large city council serves two-year concurrent terms with the mayor.
Springfield: Economy
Historically, the Springfield Armory drew skilled metal workers to the city. This manufacturing expertise has broadened to include a number of diverse concerns.
Springfield: Education and Research
The Springfield Public School System includes pioneering programs in race relations, vocational and technical education, business education, toddler preschool, schools for gifted and talented children, and magnet schools. The Community Service Learning Program involves every child from kindergarten through high school in volunteer community work.
Springfield: Health Care
The health care needs of Springfield residents are met by three major medical facilities in the city and more than a dozen acute care facilities in western Massachusetts. The Baystate Medical Center, one of the state's largest hospitals, is a teaching hospital affiliated with Tufts University and UMass Medical School.
Springfield: Recreation
Springfield, the birthplace of basketball, is the home of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, an international shrine honoring the creator of the game, its players, and its coaches. The Hall of Fame features a cinema that places the visitor in the midst of an exciting game, a chance to shoot hoops from a moving walkway, and a locker-room filled with memorabilia of the stars.
Springfield: Convention Facilities
The Springfield Civic Center, currently the city's largest event facility, comprises an arena seating 10,000 people, an exhibition hall with 38,500 square feet, a banquet hall, and meeting rooms. The center is undergoing a $71 million expansion and renovation that will transform it into the MassMutual Center, scheduled to open in late 2005.
Springfield: Transportation
Springfield is 18 miles north of Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, Connecticut. Fifteen airlines at Bradley offer 232 daily flights to 75 destinations in the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean.
Springfield: Communications
Springfield's daily newspaper is the The Republican. Special interest publications include The Catholic Observer and BusinessWest, a biweekly business journal serving western Massachusetts.
Worcester: Introduction
Historically and culturally rich Worcester is emerging as a center for research and the production of a number of high-technology products. Its central location and network of roads and railways ensure that Worcester will continue to be a major New England retail and distribution center.
Worcester: Geography and Climate
Located in the geographic center of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Worcester is about 40 miles west of Boston. It is the only major industrial city in the United States not located on a lake, river, or sea coast.
Worcester: History
The first Englishmen to visit the area surrounding present-day Worcester arranged in 1673 to purchase eight square miles of land near Lake Quinsigamond. They made the bargain with the resident Nipmucks, giving them twelve pounds sterling.
Worcester: Municipal Government
Worcester operates with a council-city manager form of government, with eleven council members elected to two-year terms. Six council members are elected at large and five are elected by district.
Worcester: Economy
Worcester, the second largest city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and located at its geographic center, is a major manufacturing, distribution, service, retail, and trading center for New England. Worcester's economy is diverse, with more than 5,000 firms of all types in the metropolitan area.
Worcester: Education and Research
The Worcester Public School System is administered by the Worcester School Committee, which consists of seven voting members. Students have the option of attending one of seventeen magnet schools devoted to various disciplines.
Worcester: Health Care
Ten general hospitals in the Worcester area (five within the city) minister to local health care needs, including rehabilitation, long-term and chronic care. The keystone of Worcester's health care system is the University of Massachusetts Memorial Health Care.
Worcester: Recreation
Worcester's colonial past and high-technology present fuse: historic homesteads coexist with science centers and modern sculpture. The American Antiquarian Society, dating to 1812, is the third oldest historical society in the country.
Worcester: Convention Facilities
Worcester's entertainment and convention center, formerly known as the Centrum Centre, was renamed the DCU Center in 2004. Equally capable of hosting sporting events, shows, and concerts, the venue is well-known as a premier entertainment facility.
Worcester: Transportation
Interstate-190 links Route 2, the Mohawk Trail, with the city of Worcester. Interstate 290 connects I-495 with the city and eventually links with the Massachusetts Turnpike, where I-290 becomes I-395, the main route south through Connecticut.
Worcester: Communications
Local residents can pick up the major networks from Boston and one cable television company operates in Worcester. Eight AM and FM radio stations broadcast programming, and several others are received in Worcester; formats range from jazz, eclectic, classic rock, news, and talk.
Concord: Introduction
The third largest city in New Hampshire, Concord is the state capital and a major manufacturing, distribution, and transportation center in the south-central section of the state. The home of the Concord stagecoach, U.S.
Concord: Geography and Climate
Concord, situated on the west bank of the Merrimack River, is located in south-central New Hampshire. Part of Merrimack County, Concord is 70 miles north of Boston and 18 miles north of Manchester, New Hampshire's largest city.
Concord: History
The site of present-day Concord was occupied as early as 1660 when a trading post operated on the west bank of the Merrimack River. The Pennacook tribe called the area "penna cook," which meant "crooked place" or "bend in the river." The Pennacooks and the area's European settlers coexisted for many years, sharing the bounty of the Merrimack River Valley.
Concord: Municipal Government
Concord operates with a council-manager form of government. The mayor is elected to a two year term.
Concord: Economy
Concord, the capital of New Hampshire, is a major distribution, industrial, and transportation hub. As the state capital and county seat for Merrimack County, Concord is headquarters to numerous state, county, local and federal agencies.
Concord: Education and Research
Notable among the offerings of the Concord School District are the Artist-in-the-Schools Program, which brings professionals into the classroom to teach their crafts, and the Environmental Education Program, which is supplemented by a centrally located Science Center and the thirty-acre White Farms classroom. The Concord Regional Vocational Center is located on the premises of Concord High School.
Concord: Health Care
Concord is a leading health center for central New Hampshire, providing extensive medical and mental health facilities. Concord Hospital, a regional general hospital, is licensed for 205 beds and is a Level II Regional Trauma Center.
Concord: Recreation
Capitol Square contains most of Concord's public buildings, including the State Capitol, a state office building, the state library, the Concord Public Library, the New Hampshire Historical Society, City Hall, the post office, and several churches. The State Capitol, the nation's oldest, features New Hampshire granite and Vermont marble.
Concord: Convention Facilities
The new Grappone Conference Center, adjacent to the Marriott Courtyard, has more than 9,400 square feet of meeting space, including seven meeting rooms and the Granite Ballroom. Other convention and meeting facilities are available at various hotels and restaurants throughout the area.
Concord: Transportation
Local air carriers use facilities at the Concord Municipal Airport, located approximately two miles east of downtown. Flight training is offered at the airport, which also serves as a Federal Aviation Administration Weather Service Station.
Concord: Communications
The Concord Monitor is published daily. New content is also posted daily on the paper's website, which also includes a database of archived articles and Internet-only features.
Manchester: Introduction
Manchester, once the quintessential company town, has emerged from the shadow of the gigantic Amoskeag Manufacturing Company to become New England's largest city north of Boston. With a diversified economy and a growing population, Manchester is considered one of the best places to do business in the United States.
Manchester: Geography and Climate
The largest city in the three northern-most New England states, Manchester straddles the Merrimack River 20 miles north of the New Hampshire-Massachusetts border and 60 miles north of Boston. Manchester is located in a valley surrounded by woods, lakes, the Amoskeag Falls, and the Presidential Chain of the White Mountains.
Manchester: History
The abundant river fish and forest game in the Merrimack River Valley attracted the attention of the Native American Pennacooks long before the European traders and trappers arrived in the valley in the early 1700s. The Pennacooks called the river falls area "Namoskeag," meaning "place of much fish." A permanent white settlement was established in 1722 by Scots-Irish Presbyterians who saw the manufacturing potential of the falls, which came to be called the Amoskeag Falls.
Manchester: Municipal Government
The City of Manchester is governed by a Board of Mayor and Aldermen. Each alder represents one ward, with two at-large.
Manchester: Economy
Once a single-industry town dependent on the textile industry, Manchester has diversified its economy to include manufacturing (more than 200 manufacturing firms are located there), wholesale and retail trade, information processing, and the service industry. More than 85 percent of the work-force is involved in sales, finance, and service companies.
Manchester: Education and Research
The Manchester School District is the state of New Hampshire's oldest and largest public school system. The district's special services include a comprehensive special education program for students from pre-school through high school, as well as programs for the gifted, handicapped, and adults.
Manchester: Health Care
Catholic Medical Center and Elliot Health System are the main health care providers serving the Manchester area. The 330-bed Catholic Medical Center offers a full range of medical and surgical care in 25 subspecialties, a 24-hour emergency department, inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation services, psychiatric services, and diagnostic imaging.
Manchester: Recreation
The remnants of the Amoskeag Millyards along the Merrimack River still attract visitors. Many of the 139 red brick buildings, which once lined the river banks for more than a mile, have been remodeled into office, retail, and manufacturing space, as well as residential townhouses.
Manchester: Convention Facilities
Manchester's largest convention facility is suitable for mid-sized meetings: The Center of New Hampshire Radisson features more than 65,000 square feet of function and exhibit space. Its meeting and banquet facilities accommodate up to 2,000 people.
Manchester: Transportation
Competitive airfares and expanded flight schedules have positioned Manchester Airport as a viable alternative to Boston's Logan Airport. In 2004 a 74,000 square foot addition to the airport was completed.
Manchester: Communications
The Union Leader Corporation publishes the New Hampshire Union Leader each morning, Monday through Saturday, and the New Hampshire Sunday News. The newspaper's Internet website publishes new content daily and maintains a searchable archive of past articles.
Nashua: Introduction
Nashua, consistently ranked near the top among the nation's best places to live by Money magazine, is New Hampshire's second largest city. Having become prominent as a cotton mill town during the Industrial Revolution, Nashua has since diversified its economic base to include service, retail, and financial firms.
Nashua: Geography and Climate
Located in southernmost New Hampshire, just four miles north of the Massachusetts border, Nashua perches on the east bank of the Merrimack River. Manchester lies 15 miles to the north.
Nashua: History
Long before European settlers ventured into the Merrimack River Valley, the 14 tribes of the Algonquin Federation lived there. They fished in the rivers and streams, hunted in the heavily wooded forests, and harvested pumpkin, squash, and corn from the sandy soil of the plain.
Nashua: Municipal Government
Nashua operates with a mayor-aldermanic form of government. While the mayor is the city's chief executive officer, the city's 15 aldermen serve as the its legislative body.
Nashua: Economy
Nashua is home to a number of industries, including computers, health care, and high technology. Since the 1950s, Nashua has become a virtual incubator for high technology, and a wide variety of electronic components and computer products are produced locally.
Nashua: Education and Research
Among the Nashua School District's special offerings are nursery school and kindergarten, special education, English as a Second Language, an enrichment program, classes for the learning disabled and handicapped, and adult education. The district's "Credit Recovery" program offers learning additional opportunities to high school students at risk of dropping out.
Nashua: Health Care
St. Joseph Hospital in Nashua, with 208 beds, includes a Level 2 Trauma Center—the federally designated regional trauma center for the Greater Nashua area.
Nashua: Recreation
The Nashua Historical Society's collection of local history details the city's beginning as part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and its evolution as a mill town in the 1800s. The Society also maintains a collection of Native American artifacts and a library.
Nashua: Convention Facilities
More than 2,000 guest rooms and suites are available in the Gateways Region, whose principal convention site is Nashua. The largest facility in Nashua is the Sheraton Nashua Hotel, with 336 guest rooms and more than 25,000 square feet of meeting rooms.
Nashua: Transportation
Boston's Logan International Airport, an hour's drive to the southeast, provides full commercial and freight air service.
Nashua: Communications
The Nashua Telegraph is published daily. The newspaper's Internet edition also publishes new content daily.
Portsmouth: Introduction
Portsmouth has the distinction of being New Hampshire's first settlement, its second oldest city, its first capital, and its only seaport. For many years, Portsmouth's livelihood depended upon the sea; since the Revolutionary War, city life has centered around the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.
Portsmouth: Geography and Climate
Portsmouth, located in southeastern New Hampshire in Rockingham County, is equidistant from Portland, Maine, to the north and Boston, Massachusetts, to the south. About three miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean, Portsmouth is at the mouth of a broad tidal basin for six inland rivers.
Portsmouth: History
When English settlers migrating north from Massachusetts Bay Colony reached the site of modern Portsmouth, they encountered the Piscataquas, Native Americans who were part of the Algonquin Federation. The settlers adopted the name Piscataqua for their new town but soon changed the name to Strawbery Banke, a comment on the lush fruit carpeting the area.
Portsmouth: Municipal Government
Portsmouth operates under a manager-council form of government. Nine council members are elected to two-year terms.
Portsmouth: Economy
Portsmouth is a part of the northeast market area that serves about a third of the nation's population in addition to eastern Canada. Major economic sectors in Portsmouth include tourism, the retail and service industries, and fishing and agriculture.
Portsmouth: Education and Research
Portsmouth public schools' curricula include both college, preparatory, and vocational programs, as well as programs for the physically and mentally impaired. Comprised of instructors, school officials, students, and parents, the 19-member Greater Portsmouth Education Partnership Council (GPEPC) works with the community to improve the school system and annually awards district educators and civic partners.
Portsmouth: Health Care
Portsmouth area residents are served by the Portsmouth Regional Hospital, a full service, 179 bed medical center with staff of about 130 physicians. The hospital provides an in-patient and outpatient behavioral health center along with a 24-hour emergency department, rehabilitation services, women's care services including maternity care, and the latest medical equipment.
Portsmouth: Recreation
Portsmouth, a charming New England seaport, retains its colonial heritage through careful preservation of its buildings, some of which date from the 1600s. Many of these historic structures can be viewed on a walking tour along the Portsmouth Trail, which is a collection of six buildings, including the Governor John Langdon House.
Portsmouth: Convention Facilities
Facilities within the city can accommodate small- to medium-sized meetings and include more than 1,300 guest rooms and around 100 restaurants. The largest hotel is the Sheraton Harborside Hotel Portsmouth, featuring 15 meeting rooms highlighted by a ballroom that accommodates 150 to 200 guests.
Portsmouth: Transportation
Since 1993 regional airline service has operated at the Pease International Tradeport. Pan American Airways operates to and from Sanford, Florida and Gary, Indiana.
Portsmouth: Communications
The Portsmouth Herald, is published each weekday evening and in the mornings on weekends. Magazines published in Portsmouth include Red Owl, a literary magazine, and Coastline, a publication of the Chamber of Commerce.
Atlantic City: Introduction
A Victorian-era resort and the inspiration for the board game Monopoly, Atlantic City is now one of the nation's top tourist destinations. The city's attractions are legendary: a 5-mile-long boardwalk with entertainment piers stretching out over the Atlantic Ocean, 12 gambling casinos, luxury hotels and restaurants, luscious saltwater taffy and fudge, and sandy beaches.
Atlantic City: Geography and Climate
Atlantic City, in southeast New Jersey, lies on narrow, sandy Absecon Island several miles off the mainland. The island, separated from the mainland by a series of low-lying meadows and a narrow strait, is 60 miles southeast of Philadelphia and 100 miles south of New York City.
Atlantic City: History
The first to enjoy the beaches and fishing off Absecon Island were members of the Lenni-Lenape tribe. They named their sandy summer home Absecon, meaning "place of swans." These Native Americans were followed in 1783 by New Jersey settlers who established a permanent site for a fishing village at the north end of the island.
Atlantic City: Municipal Government
Atlantic City has a mayor-council form of government. The mayor and nine council members are elected to four-year terms; three council members are elected at large and six are elected by ward (district).
Atlantic City: Economy
The convention and tourism industry rebuilt Atlantic City's economy in the late 1980s and through the 1990s. Now one of the nation's top tourist attractions, the city boasts 13 gambling casino/hotels, which attracted 33 million visitors in 2004.
Atlantic City: Education and Research
Among its many special programs, the Atlantic City public schools offer a gifted and talented program, a preschool program, English as a Second Language, a K & 1 Write to Read program, and a special truancy program. The school system has instituted a computerized managed instruction program that provides most students access to the schools' computer labs.
Atlantic City: Health Care
Founded in 1898, the AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center on Pacific Avenue is licensed for 540 beds. The center is a teaching hospital affiliated with Hanneman University in Philadelphia and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.
Atlantic City: Recreation
Opened in 1999, the $4 million Atlantic City Visitor Welcome Center, located on the expressway just outside the city, provides guests with up-to-date information on hotels, restaurants, attractions, shopping, festivals, events, and regional cultural and historical sites. The Boardwalk Information Center, in the center of town, provides walk-in visitors with regional guides and information on various attractions and amenities.
Atlantic City: Convention Facilities
Atlantic City is home to one of the largest municipal convention complexes in the nation. Located on the boardwalk between Georgia and Mississippi avenues, the Atlantic City Convention Center occupies 7 acres.
Atlantic City: Transportation
Atlantic City International Airport in Pomona is nine miles west of Atlantic City. A three-phase multimillion-dollar expansion and modernization project has doubled and modernized terminal space and plans call for further expansion.
Atlantic City: Communications
Atlantic City's daily newspaper, The Press of Atlantic City, appears each morning. Atlantic City Magazine, with its listings of events, is published monthly.
Jersey City: Introduction
Jersey City, once touted as "the city with everything for industry," still fulfills that promise. Its waterfront on the Hudson River, dubbed the Gold Coast, has been the focus in recent years of billions of dollars of development projects that are luring financial giants and others from Manhattan and the world.
Jersey City: Geography and Climate
Jersey City lies on a peninsula between the Hudson and Hackensack rivers in northeastern New Jersey. Seven miles to the west is Newark, and across the Hudson River to the east is New York City's lower Manhattan skyline.
Jersey City: History
Before the coming of Europeans, the indigenous Algonquian tribe who called themselves Lenape, "the People," lived in the Hudson County region. A peaceful people, they were respected by other tribes and often called to settle disputes between rivals, hence they became known as the "Grandfather tribe." White settlers renamed the Lenape Delawares, for the Delaware River they had designated for Lord de la Warr, then governor of the Jamestown Colony.
Jersey City: Municipal Government
Since a charter revision in 1960, Jersey City has operated with a mayor-council form of government. There are nine council members, six elected by wards and three at large; they and the mayor all serve four-year terms.
Jersey City: Economy
Jersey City, which is located in the heart of the New Jersey/New York City metropolitan area, experienced an economic renaissance in the 1990s, and the growth trend continues into the 21st century. Traditionally dependent on sectors such as transportation and distribution, the city is now focusing on what they've targeted as FIRE (Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate) businesses.
Jersey City: Education and Research
The Jersey City public school system, the state's second largest, was taken over by the state of New Jersey in 1989, when low test scores and high drop-out rates led officials to believe that poorer students were being disenfranchised. Now such programs as a Gifted and Talented Program in music and art, an Accelerated Enrichment Program for the academically gifted, and the Projects and Career Exploration (PACE) summer program, have turned these figures around.
Jersey City: Health Care
Health care needs are met by five hospitals in Jersey City. Liberty Health System's Jersey City Medical Center is the largest, with a 15-acre campus overlooking New York Harbor and the Statue of Liberty.
Jersey City: Recreation
Jersey City is a city of neighborhoods, many of which contain national historic landmarks. Among its most famous communities are Paulus Hook, Van Vorst Park, Hamilton Park, Harsimus Cove, Bergen Hill, and Washington Village.
Jersey City: Convention Facilities
Jersey City is part of the meeting destination area known as Metro New Jersey Meadowlands, one of the state's busiest destinations; its popularity is due in part to its proximity to the attractions of Manhattan (Newark is also part of the Meadowlands destination area). Convention planners choosing Jersey City as their destination may select the Quality Inn, with 7,000 square feet of meeting space, or facilities at Jersey City State University.
Jersey City: Transportation
Newark International Airport, a 15 minute drive from Jersey City, offers comprehensive international and domestic travel service. Buses, trains, helicopters, and limousines all carry commuters between the airport and Jersey City.
Jersey City: Communications
WFMU-FM radio station and WGKR-AM broadcast from Jersey City. While no other radio or television stations originate in Jersey City, area residents enjoy a full range of news and entertainment via New York City channels.
Newark: Introduction
Under the leadership of a long-serving mayor and civil rights movement veteran, Newark has recently been designated as a "Most Livable City" and an "All-America City"; Newark has also won the Environmental Protection Administrator's Award. A major east coast port of entry and the largest city in the most densely populated state in the nation, Newark is a transportation, manufacturing, and education center.
Newark: Geography and Climate
Newark is located in northeastern New Jersey along the west bank of the Passaic River and Newark Bay. The city lies 8 miles west of lower Manhattan Island and is a thirty-minute drive from New York City.
Newark: History
During the last Ice Age about 13,000 years ago, the retreating glaciers pulled back to reveal newly fertile soil along the coast of what would become New Jersey. The nexus of rolling hills, roving rivers and endless ocean attracted the first settlers of the United States, hunter-gatherers who had followed game and fur resources to the area.
Newark: Municipal Government
Newark operates with a mayor-council form of government. The mayor, who is not a voting member, serves a four-year term and executes the legislation enacted by the council.
Newark: Economy
Newark lies at the heart of the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area industrial economy. Newark is increasingly coming to rely on its strategic location at the center of air, sea, road, and rail transportation networks for economic growth.
Newark: Education and Research
The Newark Public School System, which dates back to 1676, is the largest and one of the oldest in New Jersey. In 1995, after years of deficient management and suspected corruption on the part of school administrators, the New Jersey State Department of Education assumed operating control of the district.
Newark: Health Care
Newark Beth Israel Medical Center is licensed for 671 beds and functions as a teaching hospital as it provides trauma and specialized care for the northern New Jersey region. The Children's Hospital of New Jersey is an affiliate of Beth Israel, which also staffs the Heart Hospital of New Jersey.
Newark: Recreation
Newark, the third oldest city in the nation, exudes history, and its architecture serves as a chronological yardstick. Many buildings of interest are clustered along Broad Street, including the Blume House, which was built in 1710 and serves as a rectory for the House of Prayer Episcopal Church.
Newark: Convention Facilities
Newark is part of the area known as Metro New Jersey Meadowlands, one of the state's busiest meeting and convention destinations; its popularity is due in part to its proximity to the attractions of Manhattan.
Newark: Transportation
Newark Liberty International Airport (NLIA), one of the world's busiest airports, annually serves more than 29 million passengers carried on more than 450,000 flights. About 60 scheduled airlines operate out of Newark.
Newark: Communications
Newark's major daily newspaper is the Star-Ledger, published each morning. Newspapers serving the city's ethnic communities include The Brazilian Voice, which is published in Portuguese; The Italian Tribune; and Luso Americano, a weekly.
New Brunswick: Introduction
New Brunswick is a diversified commercial and retail city located on the Raritan River in the mid-eastern portion of New Jersey. Headquarters to Johnson & Johnson, New Brunswick is also notable for being the home of Rutgers University, the eighth oldest institution of higher education in the United States.
New Brunswick: Geography and Climate
New Brunswick is situated in mid-New Jersey on the south bank of the Raritan River at the head of navigation, about 40 miles southwest of New York City. It lies in a line of moraines formed by glaciers in a level coastal plain.
New Brunswick: History
Lenni-Lenapes of the Delaware tribe crossed the Raritan River near modern New Brunswick in summertime expeditions to the Jersey Shore for fish and clamshells, long before Dutch messengers traveling between Holland's American settlements forded at the same spot, possibly as early as 1640. English settlers had been living there for about fifteen years when John Inian, an Englishman from Long Island, arrived in 1681 and established a ferry crossing linking the east and west banks of the Raritan River.
New Brunswick: Municipal Government
New Brunswick operates under the mayor-council form of government. The mayor and five council members are elected to four-year terms.
New Brunswick: Economy
Research, business, and industry are the economic pillars of Middlesex County, where well over 20,000 firms are located. At the heart of research activity is Rutgers University, which maintains more than 60 research facilities.
New Brunswick: Education and Research
New Brunswick Public Schools, founded in 1851, are governed by a Board of Education, whose seven members are appointed by the mayor to staggered three-year terms. Instruction in computer literacy is given to all students.
New Brunswick: Health Care
New Brunswick has a long tradition of attention to health care, having established the country's first medical society in 1766. Five hospitals, two of them teaching hospitals affiliated with the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (Saint Peter's Medical Center and Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital), are located in New Brunswick.
New Brunswick: Recreation
New Brunswick preserves many historic buildings, including nineteenth-century rubber factories, churches with pre-Revolutionary cemeteries, Buccleuch Mansion (now operated as a museum), and Henry S. Guest House, a stone structure built about 1760, renovated and exhibiting shawls, old lace, and Japanese items.
New Brunswick: Convention Facilities
New Brunswick is part of the meeting destination area known as Metro New Jersey Meadowlands (of which Newark is also a part). Its popularity is due in part to its proximity to the attractions of Manhattan.
New Brunswick: Transportation
Major highways crossing Middlesex County include the New Jersey Turnpike, Garden State Parkway, Interstate 287; U.S. Routes 1,9, and 130; and State Routes 18, 27, 28, 34, 35, and 440.
New Brunswick: Communications
New Brunswick's daily newspaper, the Home News Tribune, is published every morning. Black Voice/Carta Latina, a newspaper aimed at African American and Hispanic audiences, appears weekly.
Paterson: Introduction
Paterson was defined by the waterfall near which it was located, just as the river and previous glaciers had defined and refined the land of northern New Jersey. As the first planned industrial city in America, Paterson was once known as the "Silk City" due to the thriving textile manufacturing businesses powered by the falls.
Paterson: Geography and Climate
Paterson is located in what is called the Piedmont region of the United States, lying between the coastal plains and the Appalachian Mountains. The Piedmont area is characterized by rolling, low hills that are the remains of an ancient mountain range worn away by glacial action and river erosion.
Paterson: History
It all started with the falls—at the end of the last Ice Age about 13,000 years ago, the retreating glaciers left a moraine in the path of the Passaic River. After initially being dammed into a glacial lake, the river managed to escape and began to carve a new route, deepening its canyon through the basalt and ultimately creating the 77-foot Great Falls.
Paterson: Municipal Government
Paterson operates under the mayor-council form of government. The municipal council consists of nine members, six of whom are elected by and represent the six wards of the city.
Paterson: Economy
Paterson has continued its population surge into the 21st century, adapting from its historic focus on fabric production to related industries such as dyeing and polymers. Tourism, too, has become a growth industry in the Great Falls area in specific and in New Jersey in general.
Paterson: Education and Research
In 1998, a New Jersey Supreme Court decision required that the Paterson Public School District offer students an education at the level guaranteed by the constitution, spurring whole school reform efforts throughout the district. The emphasis in all Paterson schools was on individualized learning in a civil environment; in response, a number of specialized academies and charter schools have been created.
Paterson: Health Care
Over the past 97 years, Barnert Hospital has grown to include 256 licensed beds serving the Bergen and Passaic county communities. Specialties run the gamut from adolescent sexual behavior issues to oncology and geriatrics.
Paterson: Recreation
Perhaps the most spectacular sights in Paterson are Lambert Castle, perched on a mountain top, and the dramatic Great Falls. Lambert Castle, located on the Garrett Mountain Reservation, is a turn-of-the-century stone castle that once belonged to Catholina Lambert, a wealthy silk manufacturer.
Paterson: Convention Facilities
Within the Gateway Region of northern New Jersey there are two dedicated convention centers—the New Jersey Convention and Expo Center at the Raritan Center is located in Edison and offers 150,000 square feet of exhibit space, making it New Jersey's largest venue. The facility is equipped to handle anything from banquets to trade shows and is wired for all audio-visual devices.
Paterson: Transportation
Paterson is located northeast of Newark on Highway 80; Newark Liberty International Airport (NLIA), located just a few more miles to the south, is one of the busiest airfields in the country. International flight service is offered by at least 20 of NLIA's resident airlines, while domestic service is handled by about 15 more providers and several air charters.
Paterson: Communications
The northern New Jersey area receives news from The Herald News or The Record, two daily papers that cover local, state, national, and international happenings. Both papers are part of the North Jersey Media Group, but each maintains its own personality and newsroom.
Trenton: Introduction
Rich in colonial and industrial history, Trenton, the second oldest capital in the United States, lies on the east bank of the Delaware River north of Philadelphia. The business of Trenton is government; it is New Jersey's state capital and the Mercer County seat.
Trenton: Geography and Climate
Trenton, located in west-central New Jersey, lies on the east bank of the Delaware River, about 30 miles northeast of Philadelphia and 60 miles southwest of New York City. Trenton is situated on a plateau at the Delaware's navigable head.
Trenton: History
The site of modern-day Trenton was once occupied by the Sanhican, a branch of the Delaware tribe who called the area Assunpink. The name meant "stone in the water" and referred to the rocky falls in the nearby portion of the Delaware River.
Trenton: Municipal Government
Trenton operates under a mayor-council form of government. The seven council members serve four-year terms; three are elected at large, four elected by ward.
Trenton: Economy
Government (state, county, and municipal) forms the single largest sector in Trenton. Other significant economic areas include manufacturing, trade, and services.
Trenton: Education and Research
Trenton's school district is the largest in Mercer County. A nine-member Board of Education is appointed for three-year terms by the mayor.
Trenton: Health Care
The city of Trenton benefits from health care services provided by several facilities. The St.
Trenton: Recreation
Much of Trenton's sightseeing centers around colonial and Revolutionary War sites. The State Historic District features homes built from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries; the Mill Hill neighborhood includes the city's first grist mill.
Trenton: Convention Facilities
Mercer County typically pools its resources when appealing to conference-givers. Facilities in adjacent communities include the East Windsor Hilton Inn and National Conference Center, the Hyatt Regency-Princeton, and the Henry Chauncy Conference Center in Princeton.
Trenton: Transportation
Visitors traveling by air can use facilities at the Philadelphia International Airport or Newark International Airport, each about an hour's drive from Trenton. Both airports offer complete domestic and international service.
Trenton: Communications
Trenton receives the major commercial affiliates from Philadelphia and New York City television stations. Trenton itself has a local cable television franchise and receives public television and radio stations out of Philadelphia.
Albany: Introduction
Albany is the capital and a major port and trading center for New York State. State government buildings dominate the city's skyline and governmental activities dominate the economy.
Albany: Geography and Climate
Albany is located on a steep hill at the confluence of the Mohawk and Hudson rivers in the east-central region of New York State. At the riverfront, the city is only a few feet above sea level.
Albany: History
In 1609, when explorer Henry Hudson reached the end of the river that bears his name, he found a thriving community of Mohican Indians on the site of present-day Albany. In 1624 Dutch settlers established a permanent trading community there to replace one that had burned ten years earlier, and they named it Fort Orange.
Albany: Municipal Government
Albany is governed by a mayor and a sixteen-member council elected for four-year terms. The city is divided into 15 wards, with each ward represented on the council by an alderman.
Albany: Economy
State and local governments employ nearly a quarter of the Albany area workforce, a phenomenon that has brought long-term stability to the economy. A network of service industries, especially restaurants and food stores, law firms, and related businesses, has grown up in Albany to serve the needs of government.
Albany: Education and Research
The administration of policy for the Albany public schools is vested in an elected Board of Education, which is independent of city government and appoints officers and employees of the school district. The seven, non-paid board members each serve a four-year term.
Albany: Health Care
Albany's health care needs are served by two medical centers and 12 hospitals. The largest facility, the 651-bed Albany Medical Center, specializes in open-heart and coronary bypass surgery as well as vascular microsurgeries; it maintains trauma and burn units in addition to a children's hospital, and is affiliated with Albany Medical College.
Albany: Recreation
Walking tours of renovated downtown historic sites are a popular way to see Albany. The Albany Heritage Area Visitors Center provides information about these and other programs; it also houses a hands-on exhibit detailing the city's past and present.
Albany: Convention Facilities
Albany is a popular site for conventions, as it combines urban attractions with proximity to recreational opportunities and scenic splendor. The 17,500-seat Pepsi Arena offers more than 55,000 square feet of exhibit space.
Albany: Transportation
Albany was one of the first cities in the nation to have its own airport. In 1928 Charles Lindbergh landed his craft at Albany International Airport in Colonie, located about seven miles west of downtown Albany.
Albany: Communications
Albany readers are served by The Times Union, which is published every morning. Albany's Business Review is a weekly business publication serving the Capital Region of New York.
Buffalo: Introduction
Buffalo is the second largest city in New York State and its largest inland port. Nicknamed by Millard Fillmore as "The Queen City of the Lakes," the city derives vitality from its waterways.
Buffalo: Geography and Climate
Buffalo is situated on level or gently rolling terrain at the eastern end of Lake Erie at the head of the Niagara River and at the terminus of the Erie Canal.
Buffalo: History
Lake Erie was the first Great Lake to form during the retreat of the Wisconsin glacier at the close of the last ice age approximately 15,000 years ago. As the ice gradually melted, it formed lakes within its boundaries and eventually left rock moraines that acted as natural dams in the creation of the Great Lakes system.
Buffalo: Municipal Government
Buffalo, the seat of Erie County, operates under the mayor-council form of government. All nine members of the common council are elected by the individual Buffalo districts that they represent, and the mayor is elected by the general citizenry to serve a four-year term in office.
Buffalo: Economy
Buffalo has suffered from a decline in population that started after the second World War, and in 2003 a state oversight authority was established to nurse Buffalo back to fiscal health. Buffalo has worked hard to capitalize on its strengths—location and natural resources—to build a diversified economy based on financial services (three major banks are headquartered there), life science research and services, and high-technology and computer equipment manufacturing.
Buffalo: Education and Research
Buffalo operates one of the premier public school systems in New York State; it is noted for its successful model magnet school system developed in 1976 to attract students with special interests, which include science, bilingual studies, and Native American studies. Specialized facilities include the Buffalo Elementary School of Technology; the Dr.
Buffalo: Health Care
Nationally known as a center for medical care, research, and preventive medicine programs, metro Buffalo is home to nearly a dozen hospitals. Buffalo General Hospital, one of eight teaching hospitals affiliated with the University of Buffalo, is licensed for 511 beds and, in addition to its acute care function, has been established as a major multi-organ transplant center.
Buffalo: Recreation
Buffalo is a city noted for its architecture, and the works of such notable figures as Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Sullivan are well represented. A great place to get the overview of Buffalo is from the Buffalo City Hall's Observation Tower, which affords an aerial view of the city and surrounding waterways.
Buffalo: Convention Facilities
Buffalo's principal meeting facility is the Buffalo Convention Center, located downtown within easy reach of the Theatre District, shopping, restaurants, and lodging. The center features an Exhibit Hall with 64,410 square feet of space that can accommodate up to 366 booths, or which can be set up to seat 7,000 people.
Buffalo: Transportation
The Buffalo Niagara International Airport, 10 minutes northeast of the downtown area, runs more than 100 flights daily. The airport has service from major airlines such as Continental, Delta, United, Jet Blue, and Southwest.
Buffalo: Communications
The Buffalo News is the city's major daily newspaper, published "all day" Monday through Friday and on weekends in the morning. The Buffalo Criterion, an African American community newspaper, along with several papers featuring business, lifestyle, community, religious, or ethnically-oriented topics, are published weekly.
Ithaca: Introduction
Ithaca is a small and ethnically diverse town blessed with a beautiful glacier-carved natural setting. A progressive educational center that is home to three colleges, it enjoys a rich heritage and a thriving and sophisticated cultural life.
Ithaca: Geography and Climate
Ithaca is located at the southern end of Cayuga Lake, halfway between Toronto, Canada and New York City, in south-central New York's Finger Lakes region. It is 55 miles southwest of Syracuse and 28 miles northeast of Elmira.
Ithaca: History
For centuries, Ithaca was a Cayuga Indian settlement. In 1779 General John Sullivan's Revolutionary War troops drove the local Indians away and burned down their orchards and cornfields.
Ithaca: Municipal Government
Ithaca is governed by a mayor and common council, made up of twelve members who serve two-year terms. The mayor serves a four-year term.
Ithaca: Economy
Ithaca, with its ready access to the New York State Barge Canal, is an important inland shipping port. Other industries include agriculture, dairy farming, and business machine manufacturing.
Ithaca: Education and Research
Ithaca's public school system is large and highly diverse, with students of 80 nationalities and an enrollment that is 26 percent students of color. The system covers more than 155 square miles and serves more than 5400 students from rural, suburban, and urban communities.
Ithaca: Health Care
Ithaca has excellent medical facilities for a community of its size. The Cayuga Medical Center, a 204-bed acute care facility that provides inpatient and outpatient care, has the only emergency medical care facility in the area.
Ithaca: Recreation
Ithaca's Sciencenter offers more than 100 exhibits, including a walk-in camera, water raceway, and a moving two-story ball sculpture, as well as live demonstrations on topics such as homing pigeons and how computers work. The Sagan Planet Walk honors the late astronomer Carl Sagan with a three-quarter mile path linking downtown Ithaca and the Sciencenter.
Ithaca: Convention Facilities
Meeting planners have a variety of choices for places to hold conferences in Ithaca. The Clarion University Hotel and Conference Center has 10,000 square feet of meeting space and is close to both Cornell University and Ithaca College.
Ithaca: Transportation
Ithaca is not located on an interstate highway, but is connected to I-90 and I-81 by a number of New York State roads. New York State (NYS) Route 79 runs east and west, and Route 96B runs from the south to the center of town.
Ithaca: Communications
Ithaca is home to a cable access provider; no television stations broadcast directly from Ithaca but many stations are available from nearby communities. Six FM and two AM stations broadcast from the city.
New York: Introduction
The "Big Apple," the "City That Never Sleeps"—New York is a city of superlatives: America's biggest; its most exciting; its business and cultural capitals; the nation's trendsetter. The city seems to pull in the best and the brightest from every corner of the country.
New York: Geography and Climate
New York, located on the Atlantic Coastal Plain at the mouth of the Hudson River, is a city made up mostly of islands. Of the city's five boroughs, only the Bronx is contiguous to upstate New York.
New York: History
Imagine a New York City lacquered in ice, specifically the last ice age that covered a good part of the continent more than 15,000 years ago. As the ice began to retreat, it simultaneously scraped minerals out of the earth and deposited rocks and soil in its path.
New York: Municipal Government
New York City operates under the mayor-council form of government. The mayor is elected in a citywide election, and 51 council members are elected from as many state senate districts within the municipality; a council speaker is elected by the council membership.
New York: Economy
Despite the loss of the World Trade Center buildings, New York has remained at the core of national and international financial dealings and has continued as the global center of corporate headquarters in finance and services, media, entertainment and telecommunications, manufacturing, and trade. Profits on Wall Street, however, are not expected to equal the heights achieved in 2003, and financial services jobs are on the decline at present.
New York: Education and Research
New York City's public school system is the largest in the nation, serving more than one million children. Until recently, school district activities were dictated by the New York City Board of Education, which gained a reputation for poorly serving its student population.
New York: Health Care
New York City offers the opportunity for world-class medical care and has one of the highest concentrations of hospitals on the planet, with 111 facilities that span the spectrum from smaller neighborhood hospitals to major medical centers. The city is served by more than 30 teaching hospitals, a number of medical schools, more than 10 cardiac rehabilitation centers, and 6 cancer treatment centers.
New York: Recreation
An energetic visitor could keep busy for weeks in Manhattan alone. A good place to start is where the Dutch explorers first settled—in Battery Park on the southernmost tip of Manhattan, which offers spectacular views of the harbor and the Statue of Liberty, itself accessible by boats leaving from the park.
New York: Convention Facilities
New York has been named one of the world's "Best Cities" by Travel + Leisure magazine, and in 2002 Conde Nast Traveler designated it a "Hot City." The combination of 71,000 hotel rooms, cultural attractions, world-class professional sports teams, and proximity to the world's financial powers makes New York City an extremely attractive choice for conventions and tradeshows. Venues range from traditional convention halls to unique accommodations in museums, ships, racetracks, and universities.
New York: Transportation
The two major New York City airports saw a combined total of 54,215,216 passengers pass through their gates in 2003. Thousands of flights depart each day from New York to more than 500 destination cities around the world.
New York: Communications
More than 200 newspapers have offices in New York, including the city's major daily newspapers: The New York Times, one of the world's most influential newspapers, Newsday, and the The New York Daily News. Many other English- and foreign-language dailies and weeklies and more than 100 scholarly journals serve specialized reader-ships, including the Wall Street Journal and the Amsterdam News, which focuses on African American issues.
Rochester: Introduction
Rochester, the third largest city in New York State, is the economic and cultural center of the Genesee River-Finger Lakes region and gateway to the fertile Lake Ontario Fruit Belt. Known as the Flower City because of its nurseries, parks, and gardens, Rochester is also renowned for its museums, schools, and many cultural amenities.
Rochester: Geography and Climate
Rochester is located at the mouth of the Genesee River, which bisects the city, at the approximate mid-point of the south shore of Lake Ontario. Lake Ontario, which remains unfrozen in winter, plays a major role in the city's weather.
Rochester: History
The Five Nations of the Iroquois hunted, fished, and foraged for minerals in the Genesee River region until 1779, when, weakened by the destruction of their villages by Revolutionary War General John Sullivan, they were induced to sell to speculators a large tract of land known as the Phelps and Gorham Purchase. Part of this tract was the site of a flour mill acquired by Nathaniel Rochester of Maryland in 1803.
Rochester: Municipal Government
Rochester, the seat of Monroe County, operates under a mayor-council form of government. The mayor and five council members are elected by the citizens at large, and four council members are elected by district.
Rochester: Economy
Rochester is one of the leading manufacturing centers in the United States, dominated by Eastman Kodak, Bausch & Lomb, Inc., Delphi Automotive Systems and Xerox Corporation. The area is home to more than 1,500 small and mediumsized manufacturing companies, most of which are involved in high technology sectors such as computer and electronic products, machinery and chemicals.
Rochester: Education and Research
Rochester City School District has begun reorganizing its elementary, middle and high schools into a two-tiered system comprised of elementary (grades pre-K to 6) and secondary (grades 7-12) facilities. The redesign is expected to provide a more stable learning environment for students, alleviate overcrowding, and help develop a strong base for increased academic achievement.
Rochester: Health Care
Rochester's health system remains a model for success, with an uninsured population well below state and national rates and better-than-average access to medical and dental care. Cooperation between large employers and health care providers kept costs low through the 1990s; although this structure is less evident today, statistics indicate Rochester citizens have a higher satisfaction level with their health system than most of the nation.
Rochester: Recreation
The city of Rochester is especially noteworthy for its architecture—both new and historic—and for its scenic parks. Rochester's City Hall, a national landmark, is a Romanesque structure featuring an elaborate three-story atrium where concerts and other entertainments are often staged.
Rochester: Convention Facilities
Riverside Convention Center is an award-winning facility featuring 100,000 square feet of flexible meeting and exhibit space for up to 5,000 people. Located downtown, it is connected by an enclosed skywalk to the Four Points by Sheraton Hotel (466 rooms and 20,000 square feet of meeting space), the Hyatt Regency Rochester (336 rooms and 13,500 square feet of meeting space), enclosed parking and a local retail area.
Rochester: Transportation
The Greater Rochester International Airport, located ten minutes from downtown, is served by several major carriers and feeder lines. High-speed ferry travel to Toronto is available daily for passengers and cars.
Rochester: Communications
Gannett Rochester Newspapers publishes the city's daily newspaper, the morning Democrat and Chronicle. City Newspaper is a weekly alternative journal.
Syracuse: Introduction
Syracuse, once the capital of the powerful Iroquois Confederacy under Chief Hiawatha, is located in the heart of New York State. The city's strategic central location and well developed transportation network have earned it the nickname "Crossroads of New York State." An important industrial and commercial hub, Syracuse also boasts an excellent education network and cultural and recreational opportunities to rival any major city.
Syracuse: Geography and Climate
Syracuse is located in the center of New York State on the south shore of Lake Ontario in a region of rolling hills, flat plains, lakes, and streams. The salt springs discovered there when Native Americans first settled the area have since disappeared.
Syracuse: History
In 1570, attracted in part by the naturally occurring brine springs on Lake Onondaga, Chief Hiawatha chose the village of the Onondaga Nation as the capital of the Iroquois Confederacy. In 1658 the French built Fort Sainte Marie de Gannentaha on the lake shore but abandoned it two years later because of Native American hostility.
Syracuse: Municipal Government
Syracuse, the county seat of Onondaga County, is governed by a mayor elected for a four-year term, and an independent policy-making nine-member council, headed by a president. District councilors and councilors-at-large are elected for two-year and four-year terms respectively.
Syracuse: Economy
Syracuse is a major commercial, industrial, and transportation center for the Northeast. The economy is highly diversified; this enabled the city to weather a recession in 2001.
Syracuse: Education and Research
The City of Syracuse School District is administered by a superintendent appointed by a seven-member policy-making Board of Education. In 2004, the school board and the municipal government announced a $665 million district-wide renovation project, which will modernize all Syracuse schools within the next 10 years.
Syracuse: Health Care
Syracuse has one of the lowest hospitalization rates in the nation, thanks to an efficient local health care system. Almost 1,500 physicians and 6,000 registered nurses serve the population of Syracuse and Onondaga County.
Syracuse: Recreation
Those interested in architecture are advised to take a stroll through downtown Syracuse for an opportunity to see the imposing Hotel Syracuse as well as fine old churches and other structures. Columbus Circle contains a statue of the explorer.
Syracuse: Convention Facilities
Syracuse boasts a range of convention and meeting facilities. Over the last five years the city has hosted an annual average of 125,000 delegates from a variety of groups, from the American Baptist Churches to the National Roller Skating Association.
Syracuse: Transportation
Syracuse Hancock International Airport, located minutes from the downtown area, serves more than 200 passenger flights daily on 8 major airlines and 4 commuter lines.
Syracuse: Communications
Syracuse television viewers are served by four national networks and one public station. Cable service is available through Time Warner.
Allentown: Introduction
Allentown, Bethlehem, and Easton comprise Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley, the state's third largest metropolitan area. The Lehigh Valley is a thriving community characterized by bustling metropolitan areas surrounded by scenic countryside.
Allentown: Geography and Climate
Allentown is located in the east central section of Pennsylvania in the Lehigh River Valley between Blue Mountain to the north and South Mountain. The terrain is rolling with many small streams.
Allentown: History
Eight thousand years before European settlers crossed the Atlantic, ancestors of the Delaware tribe were thriving in the Lehigh Valley. The city now known as Allentown stands on a tract of land purchased in 1735 by William Allen from a friend of the family of William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania.
Allentown: Municipal Government
The city of Allentown operates under the strong-mayor form of government. Voters at large elect the mayor and a seven-member council to four-year terms.
Allentown: Economy
Manufacturing, at one time the dominant activity in the Allentown metropolitan area, continues to decline to just 15 percent of total employment in the area. The service sector now dominates employment in the area, concentrated in the area of health services.
Allentown: Education and Research
The Allentown School District (A.S.D.) is the fourth largest in the state. The district is said to have pioneered the neighborhood school concept and has offered a program for gifted students since 1924.
Allentown: Health Care
Allentown's health care needs are served by four acute-care hospitals offering a full range of services and one psychiatric hospital. Lehigh Valley Hospital is a regional trauma center with a MedEvac helicopter.
Allentown: Recreation
One of the most popular sights in Allentown is the Liberty Bell Shrine Museum in the Zion Reformed Church, which contains a replica of the bell. Trout Hall, built in 1770 by the son of the founder of Allentown, is the city's oldest building; Lehigh County Historical Society sponsors tours of it.
Allentown: Convention Facilities
The Pennsylvania Expo Center at Lehigh Valley is the region's newest and largest exhibition facility. This state-ofthe-art facility, which offers more than 95,000 square feet of contiguous ground-level exhibition space, is quickly becoming home to many of the region's largest trade and consumer shows.
Allentown: Transportation
Air travelers to the Lehigh Valley are served by the Lehigh Valley International Airport, a modern, full-service facility located minutes from downtown Allentown and providing coast-to-coast service by major airlines.
Allentown: Communications
Two daily newspapers are published in the Lehigh Valley: Allentown's The Morning Call is published Monday–Sunday, and Easton's The Times-Express, published Monday–Sunday. Also published in Allentown are the Eastern Pennsylvania Business Journal, a weekly publication, East Penn Press, a weekly local newspaper, and Allentown Times, which is also a weekly publication.
Erie: Introduction
Erie, the third largest city in Pennsylvania, is a major manufacturing and shipping center. Located on the southeast shore of Lake Erie, the city is the only lake port in the state.
Erie: Geography and Climate
Erie, the northernmost city in Pennsylvania, is located on the southeast shore of Lake Erie. Presque Isle, a 7-mile-long peninsula, curves around the city's harbor.
Erie: History
Erie was named after the Eriez tribe, which was destroyed by a combination of pestilence and the Seneca nation under Chief Cornplanter in the mid-seventeenth century. The first European settlers in the area were the French, who built Fort Presque Isle on the city's site in 1753.
Erie: Municipal Government
Erie operates under a mayor-council form of government, with the mayor and seven council members elected for four-year terms.
Erie: Economy
Erie has a diverse economy, which helps buffet it against national downturns. Manufacturing jobs make up more than one-quarter of the Erie area workforce.
Erie: Education and Research
Community support for quality education is strong in Erie County, where several new schools have recently been built or renovated. Erie's East High and Millcreek's Belle Valley Elementary and Walnut Creek Middle School have won various awards.
Erie: Health Care
Saint Vincent Health Center is the Erie area's largest health care provider. More than 400 staff physicians offer a full range of health care services.
Erie: Recreation
Erie's most popular historical site is Commodore Perry's ship, the USS Niagara, a brig reconstructed for the centennial of the battle that took place in 1813 which was restored in 1990. In 1998, the Niagara's berth moved a few hundred yards to the new Erie Maritime Museum, where it is on display when in port.
Erie: Convention Facilities
Erie's Civic Center Complex is a three-building, $20-million complex. The complex includes the Louis J.
Erie: Transportation
Erie International Airport, Tom Ridge Field, is located 6 miles from downtown and serves 170,000 passengers annually. For those approaching the city by car, access is made easy by a network of superhighways and access roads.
Erie: Communications
Television viewers in Erie are entertained by four television networks. Cable service is also available.
Harrisburg: Introduction
Harrisburg is the capital of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and a major distribution center for the northeastern United States. Located on the Susquehanna River near the beautiful Blue Mountains, it offers the amenities of a big city with the ambiance of a small town.
Harrisburg: Geography and Climate
Harrisburg is located on the eastern bank of the Susquehanna River, 100 miles west of Philadelphia, at a gap in the Blue Mountains between the Cumberland and Lebanon valleys created by the river. The terrain is rolling, with a band of flat land in the southern part of Dauphin County ranging up to a mile wide along the Susquehanna River.
Harrisburg: History
Native Americans occupied what is now Harrisburg as early as 5,000 years ago. The first European contact with Native Americans in Pennsylvania was made by the Englishman, Captain John Smith, who journeyed from Virginia up the Susquehanna River in 1608 and visited with the Susquehanna tribe.
Harrisburg: Municipal Government
Harrisburg's is a strong mayor form of government, with separate executive and legislative branches. The mayor and seven council members are elected to four-year terms.
Harrisburg: Economy
Harrisburg is the metropolitan center for some 400 communities. Its economy and more than 6,900 businesses are diversified with a large representation of service-related industries (especially health) and growing technological industry to accompany the dominant government field inherent to being the state's capital.
Harrisburg: Education and Research
The Harrisburg Public Schools offer special programs in remedial and special education and for the gifted and handicapped along with courses toward English as a second language. A collaborative high school with the Harrisburg University of Science and Technology focuses on math and science studies; there is one vocational-technical school.
Harrisburg: Health Care
PinnacleHealth is a community-based system offering comprehensive services and programs for people of all ages and backgrounds in Central Pennsylvania, from prenatal and maternity services to gerontology. Care is provided through four hospitals in Harrisburg: Community General Osteopathic, Harrisburg, Polyclinic, and Seidle, as well as the Fredricksen Outpatient Center, a network of family practice and urgent care centers, managed care entities, home health-care, hospice, and an array of other healthcare services.
Harrisburg: Recreation
Harrisburg can be conveniently divided into five districts for sightseeing purposes: Center City, the Shipoke Historic District, the Capitol district and complex, Old Uptown Historic District, and Allison Hill.
Harrisburg: Convention Facilities
Harrisburg's largest convention facility is the 341-room Hilton Hotel & Towers. Located at Market Square and linked by an overhead walkway to Strawberry Square, the Hilton offers the 9,472-square-foot Harrisburg Ballroom with a reception capacity of about 1,200 guests; overall, the facility provides 17,000 square feet of meeting space.
Harrisburg: Transportation
Harrisburg International Airport (HIA), eight miles south of Center City, offers 7 major airlines to 13 domestic stops along with one international destination as well as short-hop commuter service. Services at HIA, operating under the Susquehanna Area Regional Airport Authority (SARAA), continue to expand to accommodate increasing traffic (about 750,000 enplanements per year).
Harrisburg: Communications
Harrisburg's daily newspaper, The Patriot-News, has a daily morning edition; Patriot-News Company also publishes the Sunday Patriot-News and a weekly tabloid examining area business, arts, and entertainment. Another daily, the Press and Journal, is published in Middletown.
Lancaster: Introduction
Lancaster, an important industrial and business center in southeastern Pennsylvania, is located in the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country. It is the county seat of Lancaster County, where the "Plain" people—Amish, Mennonite, and Brethren—living without benefit of automobiles, electricity, or television, practice a lifestyle that vanished from most areas of this country generations ago.
Lancaster: Geography and Climate
Lancaster is part of the middle Susquehanna River Basin in the southeastern section of Pennsylvania. It is located near the center of Lancaster County in one of the most fertile agricultural lowland areas in the United States.
Lancaster: History
The Susquehanna, Shawnee, and Iroquois tribes inhabited the area around Lancaster when William Penn and his Quaker followers took up residence in nearby Philadelphia in 1682. The second influx of immigrants to Philadelphia was comprised of Germans, some of them Mennonites (German-speaking religious refugees).
Lancaster: Municipal Government
Lancaster, the county seat of Lancaster County, operates under the mayor-council form of government.
Lancaster: Economy
Lancaster County has a widely diversified economy; industries range from manufacturing to agriculture, tourism to health care, and retail trade to wholesale distribution. Many firms in the county have existed there for at least 50 and some for more than 100 years, including the oldest tobacco store in the country.
Lancaster: Education and Research
The School District of Lancaster, established in 1836, is the second oldest school district in the state, and enrolls approximately 1,400 staff members. The district services a diverse student population which is approximately 50 percent Hispanic, 23 percent African American, and 22 percent Caucasian.
Lancaster: Health Care
Three main hospitals cater to the health care needs of Lancastrians. City health care facilities include Lancaster General Hospital, with more than 550 beds and 470 physicians; the hospital's emergency room treats more than 68,000 patients each year, and the hospital's Lancaster General Heart Center performs more than 600 open heart surgeries annually.
Lancaster: Recreation
Lancaster and its environs maintain many buildings of historic interest. Among them are the 1852 Fulton Opera House, which has been restored and houses a wooden statue of Robert Fulton; the 1889 Central Market, which is the oldest publicly-owned continually operating farmers market in the country; Rock Ford Plantation, a Georgian mansion built in 1792 for General Edward Hand; Wheatland, the 1828 country estate of President James Buchanan; and 1719 Hans Herr House, the oldest house built by European settlers in the county and the Western Hemisphere's oldest Mennonite meeting house.
Lancaster: Convention Facilities
Meetings are a tradition among the Amish, and convention personnel in Lancaster County/City promise a traditional commitment to hospitality for the millions of visitors the area receives annually. Within the city of Lancaster, the Hotel Brunswick, located downtown, offers excellent facilities within close proximity to historic sites, specialty shops, and the oldest continuously operating farmer's market in the United States; its facilities cover 28,000 square feet of meeting space and 20 different meeting rooms.
Lancaster: Transportation
Airline service into Lancaster Airport is provided by USAir Express, from Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, and from surrounding airports in Harrisburg, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia. Limousine and taxi service, as well as free long and short term parking are available.
Lancaster: Communications
Lancaster Newspapers, Inc., provides citizens with the Intelligencer Journal in the mornings Sunday through Friday, the Lancaster New Era in the afternoons Monday through Saturday, and the Sunday News. Although all three newspapers are owned by the same corporation, they have completely separate staffs and the publications actively compete with each other.
Philadelphia: Introduction
Rich in history and culture, Philadelphia has been in the forefront of the nation's intellectual, economic, and humanitarian development for more than three hundred years. Today its efforts are being directed to restoration with an emphasis on preserving the best of the past while allowing for the development of a vigorous new city.
Philadelphia: Geography and Climate
Philadelphia is located at the confluence of the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers on the eastern border of Pennsylvania. The Appalachian Mountains to the west and the Atlantic Ocean to the east moderate the climate, eliminating extremes of hot and cold weather.
Philadelphia: History
At the time the first settlers of European descent arrived in the area now known as Philadelphia, it was inhabited chiefly by Native Americans who called themselves Lenni-Lenape; settlers called them Delawares. Intertribal warfare had weakened the native tribes, and the advance of colonial settlement pushed them farther west, causing great hostility.
Philadelphia: Municipal Government
Philadelphia city and county are the same entity. The city passed what is widely considered to be the nation's first modern big-city charter in 1951; under this charter the city council was removed from its administrative role and the staff and powers of the mayor were increased.
Philadelphia: Economy
Manufacturing and the related distribution sector were traditionally the backbone of the Philadelphia economy. Since the end of World War II this industrial base has declined, as it has in many of the established industrial cities of the Northeast and upper Midwest, as many firms moved to new locations in the suburbs or migrated to other regions of the country.
Philadelphia: Education and Research
Authority for Philadelphia's school system, the seventh largest in the nation by enrollment, is vested in a nine-member board of education appointed by the mayor. The city was one of the first in the nation to recognize the needs of gifted children, and it supports a range of special admission schools providing programs for students ranging from academically gifted to talented in the creative and performing arts.
Philadelphia: Health Care
There are 373 physicians per 100,000 residents in the Greater Philadelphia reagion. Within a 100-mile radius of Philadelphia is the nation's largest concentration of health care resources.
Philadelphia: Recreation
Philadelphia ranks third in the nation among cities with the greatest number of historic sites. Notable among them are Independence National Historical Park, dubbed "the most historic square mile in America," where the many landmarks either remain intact as they existed 200 years ago or have been restored.
Philadelphia: Convention Facilities
The Pennsylvania Convention Center covers six city blocks in the heart of the city and offers 440,120 square feet of exhibit space, including a 32,000-square-foot ballroom and more than 50 meeting rooms. It encompasses historic Reading Terminal Market.
Philadelphia: Transportation
Northeast Philadelphia Airport and Philadelphia International Airport operate within Philadelphia's city limits; the latter, located about seven miles from Philadelphia, offers service to more than 100 foreign and domestic cities and is connected with the city by the high-speed SEPTA Airport Rail Line. Fourteen other airports are located within commuting distance of Philadelphia.
Philadelphia: Communications
Philadelphia's major daily newspaper, the Philadelphia Inquirer, circulates as a morning edition. The Philadelphia Daily News is distributed every evening except Sunday.
Pittsburgh: Introduction
Pittsburgh, once referred to as "the smoky city" and "hell with the lid off" because of its sooty factories, is a modern success story. Air quality controls, stream purification laws, and the razing and redesign of congested areas since World War II have resulted in a city that surprises first-time visitors.
Pittsburgh: Geography and Climate
Pittsburgh is located in the southwestern corner of Pennsylvania, at the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains, where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers join to form the Ohio. The city's humid climate is modified slightly by its relative proximity to the Atlantic Seaboard and the Great Lakes.
Pittsburgh: History
The first humans to live in what is now southwestern Pennsylvania were descendants of Asians who had crossed the Bering Straight and spread down through North America, hunting, gathering, and migrating, around 12 to 18 thousand years ago. About six thousand years ago, these Native Americans developed canoes and better tools for hunting and fishing; three thousand years ago, they learned to cultivate maize (corn), an agricultural revolution which led from a nomadic life to permanent villages.
Pittsburgh: Municipal Government
The City of Pittsburgh operates under a mayor-council form of government, with the mayor elected by popular vote every four years and nine council members elected by district, also for four year terms. Because the city has recently been in financial trouble while Allegheny County has remained solvent, there has been a movement to consolidate the 130 municipalities and 43 school districts under one central county government, or at least to increase cooperation among them.
Pittsburgh: Economy
The southwestern Pennsylvania region, especially the city of Pittsburgh, showed great resiliency and resourcefulness in shifting from an industrial economy to one based on health care, research, hospitality and tourism through the 1990s. Nevertheless, the local economy mirrored the national recession for various reasons following the events of September 11, 2001.
Pittsburgh: Education and Research
Pittsburgh Public School System's nine-member Board of Public Education underwent recent upheaval, seeking a new superintendent in 2005. Despite the temporary disruption of the change in leadership, Pittsburgh Public Schools remains dedicated to enabling its veteran, well-trained staff to give each individual child whatever is needed to help him or her grow into not only a successful student, but a socially adjusted adult who will contribute to society.
Pittsburgh: Health Care
More than 50 hospitals in the Pittsburgh region, including 20 in the city, offer a full range of traditional health services. The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) is the premier health care system in the region and its largest employer.
Pittsburgh: Recreation
A logical starting place for a tour of Pittsburgh is downtown at Point State Park, where a 150-foot fountain symbolizes the confluence of the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio Rivers. Located within the park is the Fort Pitt Blockhouse, the only remaining structure of Fort Pitt.
Pittsburgh: Convention Facilities
Conventioneers are allured by the Pittsburgh's accessability, its relatively low costs, low crime rate, and variety of attractions. The new David L.
Pittsburgh: Transportation
The 3-million-square-foot Pittsburgh International Airport opened in 1992. This state-of-the-art facility moves more than 14 million travelers in nearly 400,000 aircraft each year; it has 100 gates served by 20 passenger and 9 freight airlines.
Pittsburgh: Communications
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the city's daily paper, appears Monday through Sunday mornings. Pittsburgh Magazine is published monthly.
Scranton: Introduction
Scranton, formerly known as the Anthracite Capital of the World, is one of the largest cities in Pennsylvania and site of the Steamtown National Historic Site. In the early 1990s the city found itself in the peculiar position of simultaneously emerging from a 40-year decline while having to file what amounted to a bankruptcy petition with the state.
Scranton: Geography and Climate
Scranton stands in a valley bordered by the ridges of the Allegheny Mountains; the Pocono Mountains are to the southeast. The mountains protect the city from high winds; they also influence the temperature and precipitation throughout the year.
Scranton: History
The first European settlers in Scranton were the Abbott brothers, who founded a gristmill there in 1786. In 1800 the Slocum brothers took the mill over, named the area Slocumville, and began a charcoal furnace for iron manufacturing.
Scranton: Municipal Government
Scranton is the county seat of Lackawanna County. The mayor and five council members are elected to four-year terms.
Scranton: Economy
Once a one-industry town, Scranton is still dominated by manufacturing enterprises, primarily in the nondurable goods sector for companies such as Proctor & Gamble and Techneglas. However, between 1995 and 2000, major financial and professional services corporations such as AT&T, Fleet Financial Group, Cigna Health Care, and Alliance Fund Services opened large offices locally.
Scranton: Education and Research
Elementary and secondary public education in Scranton is monitored by the Northeast Educational Intermediate Unit, one of many such agencies in Pennsylvania. The Scranton metropolitan educational system is considered to be among the best in the country.
Scranton: Health Care
Five hospitals in Greater Scranton offer advanced treatment in rehabilitation therapy, oncology, and heart, kidney, and neonatal care. Moses Taylor Hospital founded in 1892, has 176 beds in addition to a fourteen-bed inpatient rehabilitation unit.
Scranton: Recreation
The historic Scranton Iron Furnaces, located in the heart of the city, are a potent reminder of the city's industrial past. The four interconnected stone blast furnaces, once operated by the Lackawanna Iron & Steel Company, closed in 1902; they were rededicated in the 1980s and have been completely rehabilitated.
Scranton: Convention Facilities
The new Hilton Scranton & Conference Center, located in downtown Scranton, features 19 meeting rooms—the largest of which is more than 7,000 square feet. Facilities also include a 75-seat amphitheater and a grand ballroom that accommodates up to 500 guests.
Scranton: Transportation
The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport, located nine miles south of Scranton, is served by United, Delta, Northwest, Continental, and U.S. Airways, and offers non-stop service to selected cities with connections nationally.
Scranton: Communications
The Scranton Times-Tribune is the city's daily newspaper. The Sunday Times appears weekly.
Newport: Introduction
Historic Newport is best known as a summer resort colony. Three distinct communities comprise its population: the settled, predominantly Catholic community, the summer colony, and the United States Navy.
Newport: Geography and Climate
Newport is located at the southern end of Aquidneck Island in Narragansett Bay and is bounded on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, on the north by Massachusetts, on the south by the Rhode Island Sound, and on the west by mainland Rhode Island. The bay moderates the climate, making this area of the state somewhat warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer.
Newport: History
Ironically, Newport and the rest of Rhode Island started out as part of the western coast of Africa—more than 500 million years ago. Tectonic forces gradually moved what is now Rhode Island toward the North American continent, where it collided and stuck, creating the Appalachian Mountains in the process.
Newport: Municipal Government
Newport is governed by a council and a city manager under a home rule charter. The council consists of seven members, one elected from and representing each of three city wards and four that are elected at-large.
Newport: Economy
Since the days of the Civil War, Newport has been an important naval base, and the United States Navy is still a major employer in spite of the closing of several installations in the 1970s. Today, the Naval War College, the Naval Education and Training Center, and the Naval Underwater Systems research center continue to stimulate the economy in Newport, particularly in the area of technological research and application related to national defense.
Newport: Education and Research
Newport Public School District bills itself as a "student-centered learning community" that provides an academically rigorous experience for students from kindergarten through grade 12. The district has one of the highest amounts of total spending per pupil in the nation, with a well-developed visual and performing arts program, advanced technology in preparation for careers or college, and a community literacy program utilizing volunteer tutors.
Newport: Health Care
Most health care needs in Newport are attended to at Newport Hospital, a general hospital containing 217 beds. The facility features the Drexel Birthing Center, a renovated surgical floor (Turner 2), emergency services, cardiac rehabilitation, and cancer care.
Newport: Recreation
Newport is best known for its splendid mansions, located mainly along Bellevue Avenue, Ocean Drive, and Harrison Avenue; the area is known as Historic Hill, a living museum of history and architecture. Kingscote, one of the more modest structures, was built in 1839 in the Gothic Revival style.
Newport: Convention Facilities
Conference facilities in Newport offer a combined total of 80,000 square feet of exhibition space. A principal meeting facility in Newport is the Newport Marriott, overlooking the harbor.
Newport: Transportation
Theodore Francis Green Airport in Warwick is located approximately 40 minutes from Newport and is served by a number of major airlines such as American and Continental, in addition to several charters. Newport State Airport in Middletown provides private and charter service with feeder flights to Warwick, Boston, and New York.
Newport: Communications
The Newport Daily News is published Monday through Friday evenings and Saturday morning. The Newport Mercury, a community newspaper, is published weekly and provides subscribers with a summary of local events, news and sports, as does Newport This Week.
Providence: Introduction
Providence is the state capital, the largest city in Rhode Island, and one of the first cities established in America. Once a seafaring and trading town, the city has survived the economic decline that began after World War II to become one of New England's major commercial, financial, and industrial centers as well as one of the largest jewelry manufacturers in the country.
Providence: Geography and Climate
Providence is located at the head of Narragansett Bay on the Providence River near the Atlantic coast. The city is intersected by two rivers and is built on three hills.
Providence: History
Providence was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, who had been exiled from Massachusetts for his radical espousal of the doctrine of separation of church and state powers. He called his new settlement Providence Plantations, believing that God had guided him there.
Providence: Municipal Government
Providence is the county seat of Providence County, the largest in the state. The mayor and fifteen council members are elected to four-year terms.
Providence: Economy
Providence is a major industrial, commercial, medical, and financial center for New England with an economy based on manufacturing and service enterprises. The city is a major supplier of jewelry and silverware to the United States and Europe.
Providence: Education and Research
The overall responsibility for public education in Rhode Island is delegated to the Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education, consisting of nine members appointed by the mayor. School committees govern local schools, meeting uniform standards set by the board.
Providence: Health Care
Rhode Island's largest health care system is Lifespan, which serves as an umbrella for several hospitals and related services. Providence hospitals within Lifespan are Rhode Island Hospital, the Miriam Hospital, Hasbro Children's Hospital, and Bradley Hospital.
Providence: Recreation
The Providence River partially separates the commercial district on the west side from the historic district on the eastern bank. A good place to begin a tour of the historic district is at the State Capitol, which stands on Smith Hill overlooking the downtown area.
Providence: Convention Facilities
The Rhode Island Convention Center offers a total of 365,000 square feet, with 100,000 square feet of exhibit space, a 20,000-square-foot ballroom, and an additional 17,000 square feet of meeting space. The Center is within walking distance of 1,500 hotel rooms.
Providence: Transportation
Theodore Francis Green State Airport, 10 miles south of Providence, handles all of Rhode Island's commercial air traffic. The airport, rebuilt in 1996, is serviced by 12 carriers with more than 200 incoming and outgoing flights daily.
Providence: Communications
The city's principal daily newspaper is The Providence Journal, which is published mornings. Providence Business News, a weekly tabloid, covers business, politics, and the arts in southeastern New England.
Warwick: Introduction
Warwick may at first glance seem "connected at the hip" to nearby Providence, but the small city has a long, proud history as a colonial outpost, a roost for revolutionary rabble-rousers, and a mecca for manufacturing. Like the rest of Rhode Island, Warwick was founded by independent and free-thinking people seeking a refuge from religious intolerance.
Warwick: Geography and Climate
Warwick is located in central Rhode Island on the northwest end of the Narragansett Bay, a natural harbor to the north of the Rhode Island Sound. Thirty-nine miles of coastline distinguish the city, including the shore along the Providence River that borders the northern and eastern edges of Warwick.
Warwick: History
Warwick and the rest of Rhode Island started out as part of the western coast of Africa more than 500 million years ago.
Warwick: Municipal Government
The city of Warwick functions under the mayor-council form of government, with nine council members elected by and representing the nine city wards. Elections for both the mayor and council members are held every November in even-numbered years, making terms in office two years in duration.
Warwick: Economy
Warwick is one of Rhode Island's major manufacturing zones, home to textile factories, metal fabrication centers, and electronic plants. However, Rhode Island's retail trade industry has increasingly centered in Warwick and the city has become more of a bedroom community for Providence workers.
Warwick: Education and Research
Warwick Public Schools (WPS) expresses in its mission statement its desire to create individualized learning experiences for its diverse students while preparing them for the higher-tech workplace of today. The school district has cultivated relationships with institutions of higher learning in an effort to facilitate the transition from high school to college, and the district has additionally created the Warwick Area Career and Technical Center as a resource for both preparing students in grades 10 through 12 for college coursework as well as providing students with skills that will serve them well immediately in employment.
Warwick: Health Care
Kent Hospital in Warwick has been serving the Kent County area since 1951 as an acute care nonprofit medical facility. Expansions over the years have brought the number of licensed beds at the hospital to 359 at present, and a major renovation of the emergency department in 2004 has increased the patient care bays to 46.
Warwick: Recreation
Each of Warwick's 30 distinctive villages has something to offer the sightseer—historic Pawtuxet Village is the oldest in New England and was home to the rabble-rousers who burned the British customs ship, The Gaspee, at the start of the American Revolutionary War. Pawtuxet also served as a stop on the Underground Railroad for escaped slaves prior to and during the Civil War.
Warwick: Convention Facilities
The place for exhibitions and tradeshows is the Rhode Island Convention Center in Providence; four halls offer a combined 100,000 square feet of space in which up to 500 booths can be erected. The space can be modified to accommodate small meetings or massive tradeshows as required, and the facility is equipped to handle all related audio-visual needs.
Warwick: Transportation
T.F. Green State Airport handles more than a million passengers yearly, making it the busiest airfield in Rhode Island.
Warwick: Communications
The daily paper serving Warwick and the greater Kent County area is The Kent County Daily Times, which is published Monday through Saturday in West Warwick and provides local, state, national, and international news coverage. Folks in Warwick get their community news from The Warwick Beacon, which is published two times every week and concentrates on local news, sports, entertainment, and events.
Burlington: Introduction
Burlington is the largest city in Vermont and is the state's business, industrial, educational, financial, and cultural center. Situated on the eastern shore of beautiful Lake Champlain near the Green Mountains, Burlington is a port city offering spectacular scenery and year-round recreational opportunities.
Burlington: Geography and Climate
Burlington is built on three terraced slopes on the shores of Lake Champlain in northern Vermont. The lake moderates temperatures, relative to the rest of the state, by creating little variance during the four seasons; summers are cool while winter temperatures remain fixed below the freezing mark.
Burlington: History
Samuel de Champlain, adventurer and captain in the French Navy, was one of the first Europeans to explore the Burlington area. In the spring of 1609 Champlain was led on an expedition by a young Algonquian chief to the great lake of the Iroquois that now bears the name Lake Champlain.
Burlington: Municipal Government
Burlington operates under a weak-mayoral form of government. The mayor is elected to a 3-year term while the 14 members of the city council receive 2-year terms.
Burlington: Economy
Greater Burlington is the industrial, tourist, and financial center of the state. Manufacturing is the largest industry in Burlington, led by the electronics industries that had fueled an industrial boom during the 1990s.
Burlington: Education and Research
Burlington's is the largest and most diverse school district in Vermont. The system is overseen by the Board of School Commissioners whose 14 members are elected to two-year terms.
Burlington: Health Care
SELF magazine selected Burlington as the healthiest city in the country in November 2003. In 1995 Fletcher Allen Health Care formed via the integration of former entities Fanny Allen Hospital, Medical Center Hospital of Vermont, and University Health Center.
Burlington: Recreation
The Greater Burlington area offers many architectural landmarks. Examples of distinctive nineteenth-century styles can be seen in the Pearl Street Historic District and the Head of Church Street Historic District.
Burlington: Convention Facilities
Meeting and convention business is one of the largest segments of Vermont's economy. The Burlington area offers more than 3,000 guest rooms in 34 hotels and motels along with a variety of meeting facilities encompassing about 385,000 square feet to accommodate large and small groups.
Burlington: Transportation
Burlington is the air hub of Vermont. Burlington International Airport (BTV), three miles east of the city, is served by seven major airlines traveling to major destinations in New England and the Midwest; about one-half million passengers are served yearly.
Burlington: Communications
Burlington's daily newspaper, The Burlington Free Press, is published every morning, and the Vermont Times, VOX (an arts newspaper), and Seven Days (politics and culture) appear weekly while The Vermont Catholic Tribune is produced biweekly. Magazines published monthly in Burlington include National Gardening, Vermont Business Magazine, Vermont Outdoors Magazine, and Kids VT, published 10 times per year.
Montpelier: Introduction
Montpelier is the capital of Vermont and the center of the state's insurance industry. The smallest and possibly most livable of United States capital cities, Montpelier is a cosmopolitan and dignified oasis in a rural and scenic setting.
Montpelier: Geography and Climate
Montpelier is located in a valley on the Winooski and North Branch rivers, which trisect the city, in central Vermont. The city enjoys a four-seasons climate.
Montpelier: History
Montpelier was settled relatively late in comparison to other Vermont towns. The first permanent settler was Colonel Jacob Davis in 1789.
Montpelier: Municipal Government
Montpelier operates under a city-manager form of government. The mayor and six aldermen are elected to two-year terms and appoint the city manager for an unspecified term.
Montpelier: Economy
Montpelier's economy is dominated by state governmental activities. Approximately 2,300 state employees work in Montpelier—truly remarkable in a city of its size.
Montpelier: Education and Research
The management of the Montpelier public schools is vested in a Board of School Commissioners, which appoints a superintendent. According to the superintendent, test scores of public school students in Montpelier are above state and national norms, and 80 percent of high school graduates go on to college.
Montpelier: Health Care
The health care needs of Montpelier residents are attended to at the Central Vermont Medical Center, which is comprised of the 122-bed Central Vermont Hospital in nearby Berlin, Vermont (a 24-hour acute care facility), the 10-member Central Vermont Physician Practice Corporation, and the Woodbridge Nursing Home. The hospital is staffed by more than 150 physicians and nearly 1,000 full- and part-time nurses, technicians, and other support personnel.
Montpelier: Recreation
The Montpelier skyline is dominated by the gold dome of the State House, standing out in elegant relief against the surrounding green hills. Dedicated in 1859, the State House is constructed in the Grecian style of granite quarried in Barre; a statue of Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture, surmounts the dome; a marble statue of Ethan Allen, a Revolutionary War hero from Vermont, stands at the front entrance.
Montpelier: Convention Facilities
A principal meeting facility in Montpelier is the Capitol Plaza, which offers a total of 190 rooms and 14,000 square feet of conference space, plus accommodations for groups from 20 to 300 people. There is an Econo Lodge in Montpelier, and a number of bed and breakfast facilities have opened their doors for small groups.
Montpelier: Transportation
Montpelier is located 30 miles from Burlington International Airport and is within minutes of E. F.
Montpelier: Communications
Newspaper readers in Montpelier are served by the Times-Argus, published weekdays in the evening and in the morning on weekends. Seven Days Newspaper is a weekly covering Vermont news, views, and culture.
Rutland: Introduction
Rutland is the second largest city in Vermont and the center of one of the world's largest marble quarrying districts. Located near the famed ski areas of Killington and Pico, and the popular tourist destination of Woodstock, Rutland is a trading center for the surrounding towns and farms.
Rutland: Geography and Climate
Rutland is located in the fertile Otter Creek Valley in south central Vermont, approximately 30 miles north of Massachusetts and 20 miles east of New York. It is bounded by the Taconic and Green mountains.
Rutland: History
Various Native American tribes knew the Otter Creek Valley where Rutland now stands primarily as a place to fish and hunt beaver. The first description of the creek's falls was recorded in the journal of James Cross, a fur trader, in 1730.
Rutland: Municipal Government
Rutland voters elect an eleven-member board of aldermen and a mayor to two-year terms.
Rutland: Economy
The thriving economy of the Rutland region is based on a balance of agriculture, tourist-related services, and small manufacturing businesses producing nontraditional durable goods. The region initially thrived on the basis of its high quality marble quarrying operations, and marble is still a key component to the local economy.
Rutland: Education and Research
The Rutland City Public School district is comprised of 3,000 students in six schools and three special programs, supported by a staff of about 500. In 2002 Rutland voters passed a $4.3 million school bond issue which, after an additional $2.3 million in state contributions, provided $6.6 million for improvements to school buildings, fields, and a community track facility.
Rutland: Health Care
Rutland is served by the Rutland Regional Medical Center, which has been qualified as a Medicare-designated Rural Referral Center and is Vermont's second largest medical facility. The Medical Center, with 188 licensed beds, has a staff of more than 120 physicians in 35 specialty areas.
Rutland: Recreation
Newly opened in 2004 and designed with site-sensitive structures by world renowned architect Peter Bohlin, the Vermont Institute of Natural Science's Nature Center in nearby Quechee won a 2005 Yankee Magazine Editor's Choice award in its annual Travel Guide to New England. Located next to one of New England's natural wonders, the Quechee Gorge, the Nature Center includes a state-of-the art Raptor Exhibit, displaying one of North America's finest collections of birds of prey, where visitors can come face to face with Snowy Owls, Peregrine Falcons, Red-tailed Hawks, Bald Eagles, and other birds of prey.
Rutland: Convention Facilities
A principal meeting place in Rutland is the Holiday Inn Centre of Vermont complex, offering 8,000 square feet of meeting space accommodating groups up to 500 people. Located five miles from Rutland State Airport, this facility provides 151 renovated guest rooms.
Rutland: Transportation
The Rutland State Airport's new terminal building and expanded parking have made the facility both modern and convenient. Continental Connection, operated by Commutair, offers two daily flights Monday through Friday to Boston's Logan Airport.
Rutland: Communications
The Rutland Herald, the oldest newspaper in the state and frequent winner of journalism awards, is published every morning. Rutland Business Journal, a monthly, publishes a special section on new businesses, a calendar of events, and local business news.