Off the Path

By Davis DunavinSociety & Culture Places & Travel

Off the Path episodes

September 30, 2021 Off the Path — Garden State: The Institute Of 'Useless Knowledge'
The Institute for Advanced Study doesn’t have any students or classes. There’s no regular daily agenda full of meetings and conferences. The scholars here don’t even have to research any specific topic.
12 min
September 15, 2021 Off The Path - Garden State: The House Where Sinatra Still Sings
It’s not unusual to hear music on a boardwalk in New Jersey on a nice summer day. But there’s one house where the music has played all day, every summer, for 20 years.
6 min
August 26, 2021 Off The Path — Garden State: The Secret Behind the Monopoly Board
How did Atlantic City end up as the inspiration for all those place names in Monopoly — Marvin Gardens, Park Place, the Boardwalk? It’s a tale of race and social conflict you’d never suspect when you sit down to play one of America’s most famous board games.
10 min
August 13, 2021 Off the Path Revisited: The Love Shack is For Sale
Interested in a kitschy, kooky and cool Catskills motel? How about one previously owned by B-52s singer Kate Pierson? Kate listed her motel for sale this summer. Revisit Davis's 2018 trip to "Kate's Lazy Meadow" and decide if you'd like to visit a real-life Love Shack — or maybe own it outright.
8 min
July 30, 2021 Off the Path Revisited: America's Favorite Viewing Machine
If you're on the road this summer, you may find yourself looking at a scenic vista through one of those coin-operated viewing machines. You know the ones — binoculars on poles, encased in a metal shell. And if you do, there's a good chance you're looking through a machine assembled in a small factory in Norwalk, Connecticut.
6 min
July 16, 2021 Off The Path Revisited: ‘The Little Prince’ On Long Island
‘Off the Path’ is taking a summer break, but we’re revisiting a few of our favorite episodes. In 2019, Davis visited Long Island to learn the story of a French classic — ‘The Little Prince’ — written not in France, but on Long Island’s North Shore.
7 min
June 14, 2021 Off the Path: Revisited — Manhattan's Wild Corner
There’s a place in Manhattan that makes you feel like you just took a trip on the Wayback Machine — to the 1600s, when European settlers first arrived. And you can find it all the way up on the northern tip of Manhattan Island in Inwood Hill Park.
8 min
April 29, 2021 Off The Path: Breaking The Tiffany Glass Ceiling
Tiffany lampshades — made of leaded glass — are icons of American art. Louis Comfort Tiffany showed them to the public for the first time in the 1890s. It was always assumed Tiffany designed all his lamps. But it took a century to recognize the contributions of the women who designed many of them — thanks to some long-lost letters.
9 min
April 15, 2021 Off The Path: What's In America's First Cookbook?
The tradition of American cooking can trace its origin to a single cookbook — published less than a decade after the U.S. Constitution. It was the first to present recipes of the new world, instead of just copying English and French dishes. And it’s called — simply — American Cookery.
8 min
March 25, 2021 Off The Path: Mr. Vanderbilt's Wild Ride
A dashing young heir to one of America’s most famous families had a dream. He loved to race expensive cars, and he wanted a road tailor-made to do it. He built his speedway on Long Island in 1908. It was the first road in the country designed just for cars. He called it the Long Island Motor Parkway — also known as the Vanderbilt Parkway. For more information on the Vanderbilt Cup races and the Long Island Motor Parkway — and to read Vanderbilt's wild speech in its entirety — visit vanderbiltcupraces.com.
9 min

About Off the Path

From the publisher's feed

For Davis Dunavin, being a journalist is a little bit like being a cross between a wandering storyteller and a detective. For nearly eight years, he's set sail to learn about pirate history, hiked the…