Vermont's city entertains and charms

BURLINGTON, Vt. -- "Downtown Vermont" may sound like a contradiction in terms, but that's just what Burlington is.

Vermont is known for mountains, white-steepled churches, and cows; for rural beauty and right-spirited residents. So, it's no surprise that the state's only real city (population 39,127) overlooks mountains, has more steeples than high-rises, and plenty of greenspace.

Add easy access to America's (almost) sixth Great Lake; more about the cows later.

Burlington actually pushes the possibilities of the sophisticated, urban, good life -- the ecological, healthy, responsible, good life that is.

Superbly sited on a slope overlooking Lake Champlain and the Adirondack Mountains, Burlington is a lively place to visit any time of year. Downtown shops, restaurants, and clubs are priced for students at five local colleges (the University of Vermont alone enrolls 9,000). Theater and music are constants.

But Burlington is best when winter winds soften to summer breezes. The city celebrates summer with an exuberance peculiar to places that know the meaning of real winter, an exuberance literally trumpeted from the rooftops in its opening salvo to summer: The Discover Jazz Festival.

This week marks Burlington's 15th annual Discover Jazz Festival and includes some 200 performances from Tuesday through next Sunday, staged in no fewer than 50 locations. Look for jazz on Church Street rooftops, jazz on downtown buses and trolleys, jazz cruises on Lake Champlain and jazz in dozens of restaurants and parks as well as at the Flynn Theatre for Performing Arts, the city's premier stage. All but a dozen events are free.

Bold, brassy sounds will predominate this week, a way of celebrating the festival's 15th anniversary, perhaps also a way of celebrating changes in its prime venues during that time. The waterfront, the Church Street Marketplace, and the Flynn Theatre have all been transformed in the last 15 years.

The waterfront in the late 1800s reflected Burlington's status as the third-largest lumber port in North America, but by the 1950s and '60s, docks and waterside railyards had become privately-owned wastelands, littered with rusting debris. The few public beaches were closed due to pollution, and the solution was seen as "urban renewal. In the '70s, some 200 homes and 40 small businesses were demolished,and a large luxury condo/retail development was planned.

Then in 1981, Burlington elected as mayor Democratic Socialist Bernard Sanders, who had campaigned on the slogan ``The Waterfront Is Not for Sale.''

``Over the past 15 years the city has been turning back around to face the waterfront,'' said current Mayor Peter Clavelle, political heir to Sanders (who currently serves as Vermont's sole congressman).

Mayor Clavelle notes that the present waterfront includes several new parks, like Oakledge (formerly a General Electric preserve) just south of downtown and Leddy Park (a former rendering plant) in the North End, and that waterside greenspace is linked by a nine-mile recreational path, also that many bicyclists and roller bladers now carry towels in their backpacks, stopping to swim at Leddy or Oakledge, at North Beach Park, Red Rocks Park, or Bayside Beach. The path skirts several condo developments, but these are scaled low and set respectfully back from the lake itself.

Few lakes, moreover, offer as inviting an entree as Burlington's neo-Victorian Boathouse. Opened in 1988, it's a place to rent a sail or motor boat, or to simply sit, sipping a morning coffee or sunset aperitif.

The Boathouse is now flanked by a waterfront park and by the Lake Champlain Basin Science Center (a former Naval Reserve facility), both '90s creations. A trolley now shuttles back and forth all day, up and down steeply sloping College Street, from the medical and university complexes on top of the hill to the waterfront. Its big midway pickup point is the Church Street Marketplace.

The city's shopping and dining hub since its 1981 opening, the Church Street Marketplace extends four, traffic-free blocks, from the graceful Unitarian Church designed in 1815 by Peter Banner, to City Hall at the corner of Main Street. A fanciful fountain plays at its head, and the bricked promenade is spotted with benches and with boulders from different parts of the state.

The marketplace buildings themselves, a mix of 19th-century and Art Deco styles, house more than 100 shops and an ever-increasing number of cafes and restaurants. Step through one storefront and you are in the Burlington Square Mall, a multilevel (stepped into the hillside), 60-shop complex resembling many in downtown Montreal but few in New England. Porteous department store is the current anchor, and a Filene's is planned.

Unlike Boston's Quincy Market, Church Street is a public thoroughfare, geared as much to residents as to tourists. As Burlington's burbs continue to spread over recent farmland (the metro population now is around 140,000) and suburban malls beckon, the quasi public/private Marketplace management struggles to keep downtown competitive.

In recent years,the number of ``everyplace'' shops like Yankee Candle, The Nature Company, and Eddie Bauer have increased. Chassman & Bem, a widely respected local bookstore, has just closed,and a Borders Books is just opening. On the other hand, several longtime stores like Adams Boots & Shoes, Boutilier's Art Center, and Abraham's Camera survive, and several chains like Pompanoosuc Mills furniture, Bruegger's Bagel Bakery (corporate headquarters are upstairs in a building it has restored), and Ben & Jerry's are actually Burlington-born.

Henry's Diner seems untainted by the prevailing chic, and Halvorson's Upstreet Cafe has simply expanded its menu and added Thursday night jazz on its terrrace. Lois Bodoky, the matriarch of the mall, still sells her hot dogs for $1, with kraut.

``People really live downtown,'' Marketplace director Molly Lambert claims, noting not just the apartments above Church Street shops but the dogs and strollers parked beside many cafe patrons.

Church Street actually represents the best dining and cafe scene between Montreal and Boston. The big newcomer is NECI Commons, an informal, two-tiered restaurant staffed by chefs and students of the New England Culinary Institute (a two-year program enrolling 600 in the Burlington and Montpelier areas). Other new dining options include Smoke Jacks, whose Culinary Institute of America-trained owners feature ``bold American food,'' Zabby's Stone Soup (imaginative vegetarian) and Red Square, an attractive bar/grille known for its Sunday gospel brunch.

Burlington's big stage for music and live performance is Main Street's The Flynn Theatre for the Performing Arts, a 1,451-seat, 1930s Art Deco theater that has been substantially restored over the last two decades. This Tuesday, The Flynn will host the grand opening concert of Discover Jazz: the Roy Hargrove Sextet. On Saturday night, famed trumpeter Clark Terry and vocalist Dianne Reeves will perform, and the celebrated Cuban big band, Jesus Alemany's Cubanisimo, will be here next Sunday.

If you miss Discover Jazz, your chances of hearing music in Burlington this summer are far from over. According to Red Square's Jack O'Brien, more than a half-dozen places in town offer live music every night of the week.

Doreen Kraft, director of Burlington City Arts, said Burlington is home to no fewer than 70 arts organizations; performances and art exhibits are frequent. Stop by The Firehouse Gallery (135 Church St.) and pick up a ``First Friday Art Trolley'' map. While the trolley only runs on the first Friday of every month (5 p.m.-8 p.m.), the map is a handy way to find the Doll-Anstadt Gallery, a great space hung with striking paintings, also good for decorative art, and The Exquisite Corpse Artsite down on the corner of Maple and Battery streets.

Burlington's appeal as a walk-around, car-free destination has been greatly enhanced in the last couple years with the dramatic increase in lodging choices within walking distance of the Vermont Transit stop. Choices now range from the Radisson (the city's only high-rise hotel) to several attractive bed-and-breakfasts.

Bikes and blades can be rented on lower Main Street, and getting out onto the lakes is as easy as stepping onto a ferry: the 75-minute crossing to Port Kent, N.Y., is a great ride; just $5.75 round trip. The waterfront is also departure point for inn-to-inn kayak tours through the Champlain islands.

With a car, admittedly, you can bed down in genuinely rural settings or at the Inn at Shelburne Farms, a lakeside, turn-of-the century manor set in several hundred acres landscaped by Frederick Law Olmsted, an experimental farm known for the cheese made from its own herd of Brown Swiss cows. Frequent tours and children's programs are offered. Tip: Have breakfast at the inn and spend several hours wandering the farm.

Shelburne Farms is the anchor venue (July 12, 18, 25, and Aug. 1) for the 25th annual Mozart Festival, a musical happening that now includes more than Mozart, and a variety of venues in northern Vermont throughout July. This estate was also the home of Electra Havemeyer Webb, founder of the Shelburne Museum, which -- up until a decade or so -- was not only the big thing to see in the area (7 miles south of downtown Burlington) but the number one attraction in Vermont.

With 37 buildings, each housing a different collection -- more than 700 quilts, 130 weather vanes, 175 or more 18th- and 19th-century trade signs and figures, and important collections of French impressionist paintings (Monet, Degas, Corot, and Manet) and American paintings (Erastus Salisbury Field, Fitz Hugh Lane, Edwin Romanzo Elmer, etc.), The Shelburne Museum absorbs the better part of a day and requires another story.

Obviously, this is one good week to visit Burlington, but if you can't make it, there is the entire summer -- every day of which this city celebrates one way or another.

For the Discover Jazz Festival, call the Flynn Regional Box Office at 802-86-FLYNN (ticketed events range from $2 to $30) or simply pick up a program in Burlington. Check out the Web site at www.vermontinc.com/discoverjazz.

The Mozart Festival Web site is www.vtmozart.together.com.

For the Shelburne Museum, call 800-253-0191. Admission is $17.50 per adult, $7 per youth (6-14).

For lodging information, The Chamber of Commerce publishes a bed & breakfast guide. The Downtown Burlington B & Bs that we have stayed at and can recommend are the Willard Street Inn (802-651-8710 or 800-577-8712) and 288 Maple Street (802-863-2033); both offer lake views. We have also visited and can recommend the Howard Street Guest House (only one room, but it's great (802-864-4668), The Woodbury Guest House (802-263-9748), Victorian Bed and Breakfast (802-862-8061), Howden Cottage (802-864-7198), and Burlington Redstone (802-862-0508). The Radisson Hotel (802-568-6500 or 800-333-3333) is downtown with great lake views, and the Sheraton-Burlington (800-325-3525) is just off Interstate 89 but on the bus line.

The Inn at Shelburne Farms (802-985-8498) is the most luxurious local lodging, an experience in its own right.

Heart of the Village Inn in Shelburne (802-985-2800) is also special. The Inn at Essex (800-727-295) is a 97-room luxury motor inn that also serves as a campus of the New England Culinary Institute, and its Butler's Restaurant is outstanding.

Restaurants: In addition to the new places noted, we should mention dependably outstanding places like Iron Wolf (reservations suggested: 802-865-4462), Trattoria Delia, and Isabel's on the Waterfront.

For inn-to-inn kayaking tours from Burlington to the Champlain islands, call True North Kayak Tours (802-860-1910).

Summer events in Burlington also include:

June 20, Arts Alive Festival, Church Street Marketplace. Hands-on activities for the whole family.

June 20-22, Lake Champlain International Fishing Derby. Free.

June 26-28, Vermont Food Fest: Green Mountain Chew Chew. Burlington waterfront. Music, family fun.

July 3, Independence Day Celebration. Festivities and fireworks, waterfront.