Newburyport: A Measure of Change

He probably saved the city. I think the city would have really disintegrated. I don't know, it's hard to say, but I suspect that if the buildings hadn't been safe, the city as a center simply wouldn't be here. It would be a community, but as Mary Sandra would be April or Amesbury or some other larger city, I don't think that financially I could have survived the attitude with which we finally ended the mayor's office after six years on the City Council was certainly negative and The first thing we did was try to

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the public's attitude in the sense of not changing them but making them more aware of our own community and we have done that.

I think we are on the right path to an economic recovery in this community this is an opportunity that has come in, say, 300 years, a city has the opportunity to reorganize its landscape, make it more beautiful, make it more durable and it should be made the most of. . I mean, a delay of one or two years is nothing when you think that the buildings that exist are going to set the tone the aesthetic tone for the next one hundred or two hundred years the issue is urban quality the city is Newburyport Massachusetts I see in many cities people young man who is leaving here I see that they stay or return I think that there is an authentic quality of life here that has to do with the scale it has to do with the water it has to do with the barbecue on a boat the landscape is the legacy of the 18th and 19th centuries, when Newburyport was an important The Maritime Center at the time of the American Revolution was one of the country's major cities, the shipbuilding trade and privateering brought great wealth to Newburyport, which in turn generated a quality of architecture and urban design equaled by few cities in the 19th century.

Progress bypassed Newburyport. While the elegance of our architectural heritage was maintained, our economy declined, the population stabilized at 14,000 and remained constant for the next century. In the 1960s, Newburyport joined urban renewal as a catalyst for economic redevelopment. People had come to associate the old brick buildings of the city center with continued economic stagnation. They hoped that by replacing the Newberry ports the commercial vitality of the 19th century business district could be restored and when the urban redevelopment program began to grow o became operational in Newburyport, these bulldozers came in and in a matter of a few days they just stripped it away.

The ground was vacant land, it was balls of dust where there were once quite beautiful buildings, the buildings date back to the 19th century and even before that, and I think people used to look at them with the feeling that, well, they're out of fashion or they're in a state of decay and they should be replaced with something better, but when they actually saw them fall and the bare earth there, they had this feeling catastrophic destruction, it was like a bomb fell somewhere, the bomb was an urban renewal, the target was the city center. Newburyport, in an attempt to attract shoppers back to the city centre, provisions were made for ample parking.

One-story structures were planned as replacements for existing three-story commercial buildings. In fact, the plan was an attempt to transplant the suburban shopping center concept to the heartland. from downtown Newburyport, you come down one day and everything is gone and it's that terrible gap-tooth kind of thing where you try in vain to remember what was there and you find out you can't, in fact there was a whole street there that was wiped out and that street had its own character by demolishing buildings and streets urban renewal destroyed patterns of daily life that had existed for generations this edge of Newburyport made in 1774 shows many of the relationships essential to understanding the physical character of the city the environment at the mouth of a great river who wants a highway for trade with the rest of the world the predominance of church towers and ship masts evidence of two main forces in the early economic and social life of the city the existence of a common space held in trust by the town for public use in the 18th century for grazing and watering livestock the compactness and communal qualities of its domestic and commercial architecture between 1774 and 1884 the population of Newbury Harbors grew from 3,000 to 14,000 as the town grew , the streets and buildings of the city center were preserved their intimate scale and character people moved easily within the city on a well-developed public transportation system the streetcar system with 128 miles of tracks served Newburyport and connected the city With other cities in the Merrimack Valley the transition to the automobile ushered in the physical erosion of buildings and public spaces as the automobile replaced public transportation, downtown businesses became dependent on off-street parking soon were needed. lots to create them buildings were demolished Wolf's Tavern, a community gathering spot for 200 years, was replaced by a service station before the automobile appeared Newbury The downtown harbors had a rich texture of buildings, alleys and streets that They supported a wide variety of activities and uses.

By 1965 large parking spaces had been created. The open areas had been expanded by the demolition of disused coastal buildings that had fallen into disrepair four years later. Urban renewal. demolished much of what was left of the city center destroyed what remained of its intimate, pedestrian-oriented character for some cities this would be the beginning of a Downtown Development Program marked by department stores and office blocks in Newburyport the The shock of the demolition marked the beginning of a concerted effort to preserve what remained of its 18th and 19th century architecture; once scheduled for demolition, these buildings were saved.

In 1965 it took insight to see that behind the clutter of signs, aluminum storefronts and painted bricks were structures that were historically valuable and commercially sound. The buildings exist. Today renovated rather than demolished, their existence can be attributed to a small coalition of citizens, both long-term residents and newcomers, who were able to foresee that economic redevelopment and preserving the character of Newberry Harbors were not incompatible. I guess we really got into this about 10 years ago. I got involved by being on a committee of concerned people who just felt that this was too important a section to be torn down and just turned into an ordinary shopping centre, we said just don't tear them down, let's think about Look at them at that time when the proposals.

I got involved as a banker. We are financing one of these plots. We believe it is a very solid investment. I opened my business because Newburyport appealed to me and I wanted to live here if they had demolished buildings and built a shopping center I probably wouldn't have looked for a small community that was still intact. The way the city feels and the quality of life here is important to me. I'm not interested in spending my day, you know, in a chrome shopping center, by saving the buildings the new report has preserved an important part of our city's landscape and Heritage Market Square is probably the best federal period shopping center there is nowadays.

Lower State Street and Market Square had always been Newberry's ports. shopping center that in the early days served as produce in the fish market as the city grew, it became necessary to organize and regulate marketing activities. A public market was built in 1823 to regulate international trade. A United States Custom House was built in 1835. And the customs houses were special buildings, their design and prominent locations reflecting their unique importance to the community, but the character and durability of Market Square depended more on the commercial buildings that surrounded Market Square. and framed their entrances from all the main streets, considering that they were Built by many independent entrepreneurs, they reflect the notable design consensus.

They were built after a large fire in 1811, a fire that spread through 16 acres of wooden structures during the reconstruction of the commercial district. The city passed an ordinance outlining standards for new construction. It required that the buildings be of brick and granite and that fire walls and chimneys extend above the roof line to prevent the spread of fire as an early example of urban renewal. Market Square established the value of cooperative effort to create lasting architecture with roofline restoration and brick repair. and window replacement the buildings have returned to the more coherent appearance they had in the 19th century the effort to reclaim downtown Newberry Harbors extends beyond the restoration of the buildings the streets that were once open to automobiles are now Telephone poles and lines are being recovered for pedestrian use and have been buried thanks to the cooperative efforts of the community and utility companies.

Federal and state funds that were originally limited to automobile traffic improvements are being spent on pedestrian amenities such as brick and granite pavements. Urban renewal and city funds have been used for street lighting more compatible with the scale and character of the architecture. Entrepreneurs have adapted to signal control restrictions that improve the appearance of buildings and suggest a new consciousness. of the importance of maintaining a unified character in the city center the restoration of the Newberry ports in the city center has created a climate of trust whose effect is visible outside the urban renewal area the incentive to renovate buildings has resulted in improving former residential neighborhoods where 17th and 18th century buildings had fallen into disrepair there were many streets in a new report at the time we first moved here that we were afraid to buy because the neighborhood was so bad , although there were many good houses on these streets, they were in such poor condition and in such a sorry state that we were afraid to buy in the neighborhood and live in it, but Now if there isn't a street in Newburyport that I would be afraid of buying or starting a restoration, but you know you have such a positive feeling that you know it's going to go uphill and that any good initial structure will be restored People spend hunger and literally thousands of hours removing the centuries of paint accumulated in the house and you know that they have added value.

If someone takes away 20, 20 layers of paint and you expose the original. detail, then you are only exposing the beauty of the feature itself and what brings value back to it, although their efforts have transformed neighborhoods, not all the effects have been positive. Rising property values ​​have forced many older residents to leave. The history of restoration of old buildings has provided design inspiration in the construction of new buildings. The design direction has not been so clear. The first new building proposed for downtown Newberry Ports as part of the urban renewal program would be built near Market Square on cleared land.

At the demolition of the 1960s, the building was to be adjacent to a row of Federalist commercial buildings that were part of that large group rebuilt after the 18 fire led by a group calling themselves Friends of the Newburyport Shore Our objections to the new building where it is scandalous in compatibility with the historic buildings that were being rehabilitated in the area that the building in no way fit or blended with the old buildings we do not object to the fact that it was not a reproduction we object to the fact that the The materials, scale, size and entire character of the building were completely incompatible and many citizens did not realize that the only recourse they had was to speak up, attend meetings and invoke due process. of the law when that became available to us a battle ensued, on one side there were people who felt the proposed building threatened the historic character of Market Square, on the other side there was a redevelopment board that had been diligent in seeking developers and who felt that new construction in the renovation area was vital to the city's economy, I didn't really like the building very much, but you know the building as it is, but I thought it would be nice and I felt that Because of the tax return it would bring, it would be an advantage and I thought it was nice to have something different.

I didn't want to have the same thing as we have the design itself. I mean, I think if we had a better design maybe we could have chosen a better design in the In the absence of a satisfactory design solution, the debate was presented to the National Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. Market Square had been identified as an important historic asset and selected for theNational Register of Historic Places, so any new construction in the urban renewal area was subject to federal review. the council ruled that the proposed building was unsuitable for its site the decision to prohibit construction was made just as groundbreaking began the building was never built my feeling was that we had certainly had enough knowledge and review of the structure that was being proposed to knowing that it was certainly compatible with the downtown area, some people disagree and this is where we come to our biggest disagreement about downtown redevelopment.

I firmly believe that it is 1974 and we have done our job as a very progressive community and restoring all the old buildings downtown. I don't think we should go into the trouble of imitating buildings built in 1813, but rather we should have something to guide our future generations of people here, something that we did, something that our particular generation did. something to drive our children and that we should also have our own line of buildings, our architectural design, not that it should be so different, but it should be something different from what was there and I think the structure of plot eight was still a of In the most attractive designer buildings I have seen, how different should the new buildings be to assess the impact of the new.construction in Market Square the Advisory Council requested an environmental impact study the study suggests ways to define compatibility qualities between one building and another the approach can be used to develop guidelines for the design of new buildings what is the overall mass of adjacent buildings height width and depth what are the proportions of individual buildings and their relationship to each other what are the main elements of a building in this case a granite post and beam foundation a two story brick face and a gable roof what are the minor features such as doors and windows and roof elements such as fire breaks and chimneys.

What about the character of the details? Can it be brought to a new construction? And finally, the actual materials. Its color and texture. All of these qualities can be

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d and applied to new construction more frequently. Newburyport is no exception. New development in an old urban environment is quite difficult in areas where the past is coherent when the past has been destroyed. The problem of creating an appropriate building design and defining land use is more complex on the Newberry Coast. The historical tradition calls for an architecture whose character encouraged the easy movement of pedestrians to the water's edge, most of the redevelopment proposals made for this site as part of the urban renewal program did not reflect the importance of public access, the right of inhabitants to use the boardwalk as a public place historically public access had been guaranteed by law in the 19th century alleys are passageways between buildings that allowed freedom of movement to and from the water these passageways evolved from a tradition that existed from the beginning of the city's history new reports the original shoreline was considered common As commercial activity, such as shipbuilding, developed, it became necessary to subdivide areas of the shoreline for private use, as had been made with agricultural properties in the interior, although the coast lots were privately owned, the public's right to cross the property was legally protected by 1662.

Docks have been established. Built to accommodate the loading and unloading of ships at the height of maritime trade in 1826 the docks dominated the waterfront the finger-shaped projections simplified the transfer of cargo from tall ships to port warehouses by 1880 many of the docks had filled up to provide new land for the construction of factories and mills in those parts of the coast where docks remain traditions of public access continued in areas where Forbes had given way to coal sheds the possibilities of public use of the coast disappeared railway yards built along the coast cut through traditional roads and access to the water Newburyport by developing an industrial waterfront had built a wall between it and the river, although the railroad tracks disappeared the pattern of industrial use continues to separate the river city waterfront redevelopment creates unique environment The opportunity to reestablish public uses along the riverfront, defining an appropriate architectural character for the waterfront has become an important issue for the city as well as the developers and architects who have participated in the urban renewal process.

It seems so obvious to me that this location should be a generally public type of place, meaning that in the development process developers should find uses that serve the broadest spectrum of the public. What kind of uses could they be? Without a doubt, they would be shops. A place like this. find restaurants can find a hotel or any applicant in public access there are too many questions what should be the design character of an individual building whether the developer is allowed to own the land and buildings how much parking should the site have to accommodate if there were public boat docks or a walk along the water's edge in search of direction to help answer these questions, the patterns of history are providing insight into how to generate an interpretation of urban design.

I think we can all agree that it has made us deeply aware of history and that a government agency cannot play maliciously, let's say, with history, particularly as it relates to the buildings in Market Square or in the city center , new report that refers to the coastal zone. I think probably that awareness of that monitoring by friends has been good. I don't think anyone would deny this, it has kept us on our toes and we are becoming more aware that it has led us to investigate more what we are doing and be more sensitive to what the community wants each summer in Newburyport. was a homecoming festival in recent years, more and more people have come to experience the city and celebrate New England history.

Homecoming takes place only one week a year in Newburyport, at which time there is an outpouring of community spirit and an open recognition of its importance. of history as a community experience in the battle to preserve an architectural heritage Every new addition, whether a street, a building, a park or something like a streetlight, a sign becomes a link between the past and the future.