Saturday, October 29, 2016

Black Swan Books


Date of Visit: October 29, 2016

For the past few years I've been seeking out 1940s books at used bookstores when traveling. Mik enjoys browsing bookstores, but often he quickly gets bored because they aren't very accessible and he can't explore that much of the stores. While he didn't end up finding anything he wanted at Black Swan Books, he was actually the one we had to wait for to be done browsing because he could easily roll around the whole store.

Destination Info:
Black Swan Books
2601 W. Main Street
Richmond, VA 23220

Maggie L. Walker National Historic Site


 Date of Visit: October 29, 2016

We started our visit of the Maggie L. Walker National Historic Site by watching the movie at the visitor center. The movie is very well done and definitely a must see. However, Mik was then ready to go and found the house tour not that interesting because he thought it was just then repetitive information. Thus, he thinks in hindsight it would have been better to see the house and then watch the movie (or really he probably thinks the movie is all you need to do here AND it is worth visiting just for it).

Mom and I both really did enjoy the house tour, but agree that the movie is the best part of an everyday visit here. The best part for our visit, though, was that one of Maggie Walker's relatives was filming an interview at the house and we got to talk to her and learn about how Maggie Walker's legacy continues to carry on today.


Not sure if the tour always begins from the back, but there is a ramp to the enter through the back, so that's how the tour began for us. The tour does also include the second floor, but it is not accessible nowadays, so we broke off and left the way we came in when they got to that part of the tour. Interestingly, Maggie Walker was in a wheelchair towards the end of her life due to diabetes and they had an elevator that used pulleys for her to get between the floors.


Overall accessibility was surprisingly good here, especially considering it is an old home and a smaller National Park unit. We did find the handicap stall in the bathroom almost too small, though. Also, it is just neighborhood street parking and some of the sidewalks are quite a mess from tree trunks pushing them up, but growing up in a historic neighborhood ourselves the fact it even has sidewalks the whole block is something.


Destination Info:
Maggie L. Walker NHS
600 N. 2nd St.
Richmond, VA 23219