The lost continent: travels in small-town America by Bill Bryson

The lost continent: travels in small-town America by Bill Bryson

Author:Bill Bryson
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Autobiography, Sociology, Social Science, Journeys, Cities and towns, Travel, Bill, Essays & Travelogues, 1971, General, United States, Customs & Traditions, Urban, 1971-, Biography & Autobiography, Bryson, United States - General, Social life and customs, Biography, Description and travel
ISBN: 9780060161583
Publisher: VNR AG
Published: 1989-08-14T23:00:00+00:00


In the morning I drove into Newport, America's premier yachting community, home of the America's Cup races. The old part of town had been fixed up in recent years, by the look of it. Shops with hanging wooden signs out front lined the streets. They all had jauntily nautical names like the Flying Ship and Shore Thing. The harbor was almost too picturesque, with its crowds of white yachts and bare masts undulating beneath a sky in which gulls danced and reeled. But all around the fringe of the downtown there were unsightly parking lots, and a busy four-lane road, more freeway than city street, divided the waterfront from the town. Spindly trees stood along it like scrawny afterthoughts. The city had also built a little park, Perrott Park, but it was unkempt and full of graffiti. I had not encountered this kind of neglect before. Most American towns are spotless, and this really surprised me, especially considering the importance of tourism to Newport. I walked up Thames Street, where some fine old sea captains' homes were fighting a losing battle with litter and dog shit and the encroachment of gas stations and car transmission places. It was all very sad. This was a place where the people didn't seem to care, or perhaps just didn't notice, how shabby they had let things grow. It reminded me of London.



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