Way Down Yonder in Pawtucket, Part I

From Dave Brigham:

I apologize in advance for this, but I often feel the need to explain my headline choices:

I'll admit that before posting that video, I couldn't recall what a paw paw is. I may have known when I was a kid and had occasion to sing the song. It's a fruit.

Anyway...let's dig into Pawtucket, Rhode Island, the fourth-largest city in the smallest state in the Union. This marks only the second time I've explored any municipality of Lil' Rhody. In September 2017, I wrote about a mini-vacation my family took in Newport (see September 28, 2017, "No Yachts, No Mansions").

I covered a lot of territory back in late June, so I'm splitting this review into two parts.

But first, a note about pronunciation. I've been saying "Paw-tucket" forever, but someone I met recently who lives on the South Coast of Massachusetts corrected me. "It's "Pah-tucket," he told me. Fair enough.

I like to park near town or city halls when I explore a place. Sometimes there's free parking, and usually such a building is located in the center of the action. So, after finding my spot in the lot on Roosevelt Avenue, I headed west for a short distance along Exchange Street. I was quite taken by the mural on the side of the Graham Building.

Built sometime between 1926 and 1929, the building was likely erected by the owner of H.L. Graham & Sons, a plumbing contractor, according to the National Register of Historic Places registration form for the Downtown Pawtucket Historic District.

As for the mural, it was completed by Rene Gomez for the Mental Health Stigma Campaign. "'I suffer from ADHD and I struggle with it every day. I also have an autistic son and it’s also something touching, meaningful to my heart,'" Gomez said in this NewsNation article. "'Being Hispanic, I had to put a Hispanic message up there,'" he continued. "'I grew up in a household where it wasn’t OK to cry and talk about my feelings, and that’s a stigma I would like to break.'”

"The murals also feature sign language and it’s LGBTQ-friendly because, to Gomez, it doesn’t matter who you are — mental health is mental health," the article continues. The mural program is in partnership with the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) of Rhode Island and Rhode Island Latino Arts.

Next, I cut down Montgomery Street, after getting a peek at a ghost sign.

The Times newspaper was founded in Pawtucket in 1885 as The Evening Times. "Five years later, David O. Black bought the paper, and became the first of four generations to keep it in his family," per Wikipedia. "Black commissioned a new building for the newspaper at 23 Exchange street (sic)." The building was completed in 1896, and was the home of the paper until 2019.

"In October 2023, [current owner] Triboro Massachusetts News Media announced that The Times would be merging with sister paper The Call of Woonsocket to become The Blackstone Valley Call & Times, a Monday–Saturday newspaper," Wikipedia continues.

The old newspaper headquarters, which was designed by architects William R. Walker & Son, has been vacant since 2023, I believe.

Facing the rear of the old Times building, at the corner of Summer and North Union streets, is the former Henry Arnold Livery Stable, which in more recent years was home to Feldman Furniture. Below is a ghost sign facing southeast along Summer Street (I will feature another ghost sign from this building in a follow-up post).

(Ghost sign for Sealy Mattress on side of old Feldman Furniture building.)

"Henry F. Arnold was the proprietor of the Broad Street stables in 1891, when he first appears in city directories; an advertisement boasts '37 fine livery horses, and almost every description of carriage,' available 24 hours a day," per the Art in Ruins web site, quoting from the National Register nomination for the Downtown Pawtucket Historic District. For this post, and the one to follow, I relied as heavily on Art in Ruins as I do on MACRIS when writing about Massachusetts towns and cities.

"In 1892 Arnold...moved the stables to this new building...with 176 horse stalls on the ground floor and two floors of carriage storage above. The stables were accessed from North Union Street, while the three storefronts on Summer Street were occupied by various small, mostly auto-related businesses. In 1921, H.M. Arnold & Son Co. converted this building to a vehicular garage, and maintained that business until 1940. In 1945 Feldman’s Furniture Co. moved in, with retail space on Summer Street and storage on North Union...."

Check out that web site for a photo of the great Feldman's sign that used to grace this building. When I was in the city, there appeared to be construction under way at this site, likely for condos.

Next I headed north-northwest on Summer Street, where I immediately spotted another great mural on the side of 28 Summer Street.

This work features Phillis Wheatley, an American writer who is considered the first African-American author of a published book of poetry. Enslaved as a child, Wheatley was emancipated by the Wheatley family of Boston shortly after her book was published in 1773. I have referred to Wheatley before, in a post about Boston's Chinatown neighborhood where a plaque honors her memory.

This mural was painted by Lee Adam Beard, an artist who goes by Soems. This mural and two that I will showcase below, as well as others in the downtown, all feature farmous Black people from history, per this article on the Valley Breeze web site. Developer Leslie Moore spearheaded the project on various buildings she owns.

Just up the street, at 3 Exchange Street, is a wildly colorful depiction of a peacock.

The mural on the side of the Beswick Building was created by local artist Charles Clear, according to this Valley Breeze article. As for the Beswick, it was completed in 1891 "for Frances Beswick, widow of a saloon keeper and brewer who lived on the opposite comer of Exchange and Summer Streets in the early 1890s," according to this Art In Ruins article.

The building has suffered two fires in its lifetime and has fallen into disrepair in recent years. Developers have announced plans to renovate the place. I'm not sure of the status of that project.

Next, I made my way southeast on Main Street, where I was pleasantly surprised by two more Soems works of art.

This mural features William Grant Still, a composer born in Mississippi and raised in Arkansas. He composed nearly two hundred works, including five symphonies, four ballets, nine operas, and more than thirty choral works, art songs, chamber music, and solo works, per Wikipedia. This work is located on the side of the Still on Main, a group of shops with the motto, "Eat. Shop. Vibe."

The building is known historically as the W.T. Grant Building. Grant's was a department store chain founded in Lynn, Mass., in 1906. The chain was in business until 1976. In more recent years, the building was home to the Mill River Arcade, Preachers on a Mission and The Grant, a live entertainment venue.

Just up the street is The Green on Main, an events and retail space that Leslie Moore opened in 2022.

"The Green on Main, located in the Artéé Fabrics & Home building at 230 Main St....is intended to resemble a downtown park, complete with tables for eating or playing board games such as chess, and comfortable hanging chairs," per this Valley Breeze article. There are vendors and food offerings in the space, which is intended as a place for businesses that can't maintain regular hours, while adding life to Main Street, the article continues.

I'm not sure how many tenants are located in what is known historically as the Toole Building, which rose in 1892. Two floors were added in 1922

The mural at the left side of the entrance, another one by Soems, pays tribute to Victor Green, a postal employee who, with assistance from his wife Alma, started the Green Book in Harlem in 1936. "[C]alled alternately The Negro Motorist Green Book, The Negro Travelers’ Green Book, and The Travelers’ Green Book over its 30-year existence," the guide was one of "the most successful and long-lived" methods of helping African-American travelers during the Jim Crow era know where they could safely eat, shop and lodge, according to the National Park Service.

The NPS web site quotes Dino Thompson, a native of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, about the importance of the Green Book: "...[it] didn’t tell you if a place had a good steak, or good seafood, or had a soft bed...it told you where you would be safe; it told you where you’d be welcome and not made to go around the kitchen and order something to go...The rest [of the guide books out there] are just fluff...To my mind, it’s still the only necessary travel guide that’s ever been printed."

Frankly, I'm surprised the Trump administration has allowed this information to remain on the NPS web site.

From there, I wound my way south on East Avenue, and then west on Church Street. There, I made a less than great image of the Slater Cotton Mill apartments (let's blame it on the sun angle dissuading me from getting a better shot).

Built between 1880 and 1889 for the Slater Cotton Company, this massive mill building by 1892 contained 1,475 looms and employed 600 workers, according to this Art in Ruins write-up. The company "apparently fared poorly in the first decade of the 20th century," that blog post continues. "By October 1908, it had fallen so deeply in debt that it was reorganized as a new corporation, the Slater Manufacturing Company. At this time, its functions were broadened to include manufacturing of silk cloth."

The company continued to struggle and by 1918 it had sold its various operations and become a real estate holding company, renting space to other manufacturers. In succeeding years, the building was used by ER Hutchinson Co., which made jewelry displays. I'm not sure whether other companies also occupied the old mill before 2007, when a developer acquired the property and converted it to apartments.

Across Church Street, at 450 Main Street, is another old mill building, which I assume was once part of the Slater complex.

This building, which dates to *ahem* 1900, is currently home to the city's Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, among other outfits.

From there I continued north on Pine Street, across Main, where I made a photo of Atlantic Furniture, which is located in yet another old mill building.

Known historically as the James S. Brown Machine Shop, this brick building runs for 400 feet along Pine Street between Main and Bayley streets. The mill dates to the 1840s and was built for Brown, who was a metal worker who toiled for a company called Pitcher and Gay, per Art in Ruins.

"Even before the construction of the 1848 factory, James Brown had a substantial and well-deserved reputation as a machinist and inventor," the Art in Ruins article continues. "In 1831 he invented a machine for cutting bevel gearing; in 1838 he patented a machine for boring the tubes of speeder flyers from solid iron; and in 1842, he patented a lathe for creating irregular metal forms. In the new shop on Church Hill, Brown built a variety of textile machinery, including mules and speeders, and cordage machinery; by the mid-nineteenth century, the factory employed three hundred hands."

A jewelry manufacturer occupied this building in more recent years before the furniture company took over a long time ago.

Across Pine Street running perpendicular is another mill building that's almost as large as Brown's machine shop. Built in the late 19th/early 20th century, 248 Pine Street is a 35,000 square-foot old factory that, on the day of my exploration over the summer, was on the market.

Originally home to H.A. Briggs & Co., this facility was used, among other things, to process cotton waste.

What is cotton waste? Well, the Old Structures Engineering blog, in discussing this very building, has an answer: it "apparently means scraps (left over from making various cotton products) that are being reused, with cleaning being a common use. In other words, rags, maybe fancy rags."

More recently, this place was home to Summit Manufacturing Corp.

On the corner of Pine and Bayley streets is Don Armando Meat Market.

Zoom in to see the little square cow near the door. The company has been in business for quite a few years, I believe.

At the corner of Bayley and Commerce streets I spied a sign for the Rhodium Room, operated by RI Spirits, a distillery that makes products using the Rhodium name.

Also located in this cluster of buildings is Isle Brewers Guild and The Guild, each of which offers contract beer brewing.

I continued north on Commerce Street, and snapped a photo of an old mill, a smokestack and a new development along Goff Avenue.

The complex is known as 125 Lofts, a community of studio, one- and two-bedroom apartments.

The development is located in the former Union Wadding Company complex (also seen in the image below).

"The Union Wadding complex used to be the site of nineteen one- to four-story brick buildings with a prominent round-section chimney sited next to a late 19th-century boiler house," per my new friend, Art in Ruins. Check out that link, as it features tons of great photos. Makes me wish I'd walked around this area a bit more before moving on.

Anyway, back to Union Wadding: "The cotton wadding and waste business was prone to fire; several fires between the earliest development of the site in 1847 and 1870 destroyed most of the original factory buildings. A major fire in October 2010 — unrelated to the manufacture of cotton wadding but under suspicious circumstances — claimed ten buildings at the west end of the complex. The surviving Union Wadding buildings represent building campaigns carried out between 1870 and ca. 1930."

The company went into receivership in 2004 and subsequently went out of business.

I headed east on Goff Avenue, then north on Broad Street, having no idea about the urbex fantasy world I was about to encounter.

Accessible via Broad Street, between Clay and Barton streets (the latter of which is blocked off), the Pawtucket-Central Falls railroad station was completed in 1916 for the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. The station, which straddles Pawtucket and neighboring Central Falls, was in use for barely 40 years. As regular readers of this blog know, I don't really do urbex. But obviously plenty of other people have explored this place.

"In 1959, the station building itself was in disrepair and was closed," according to Wikipedia. "Thereafter passengers accessed the platforms via stairways from Barton Street. The station was served by New Haven Railroad trains, then later by MBTA Commuter Rail, until Rhode Island stopped funding service past Attleboro on February 20, 1981. The station building was considered for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984, but this was deferred due to concerns about its structural integrity. During the Northeast Corridor Electrification Project in the 1990s, the station tracks were relocated to increase clearances for the Acela Express to tilt when going around the curve."

I've ridden Amtrak trains through here many times over the years, but never realized that I was riding underneath this old station. But when I traveled to New York City in early October, I paid attention, pointing it out to my son as we rolled on by.

In January 2023, a new station opened a short distance west from the old one, just past the 125 Lofts development I highlighted above.

Next I walked east on Clay Street until I hit Roosevelt Avenue. I was now fully in Central Falls. I think. Google Maps tells me I was; the web site for Mel-Co-Ed, Inc. says the company is located in Pawtucket. I believe that, like the train station, this building is split by the border.

In this very pleasant industrial building, Mel-Co-Ed produces pendants, pins, bracelets, necklaces, cufflinks, tie clips, hang tags, medallions, and more, per its web site. The operation was founded in 1948 in Warwick, Rhode Island, and moved to this location in 1964. A third generation of one of the founders now runs the company.

I ventured just one building north -- definitely in Central Falls now -- to make a photo of K&W Webbing Co.

"K & W Webbing is a family-owned U.S. manufacturer...with over 100 years of combined hands-on experience in textile manufacturing and engineering design," per the company's web site. The company's "facilty includes a complete dyeing and finishing plant and equipment for the application of special treatments. Our experience in the production of webbing and tapes assures you of the highest quality at the lowest price consistent with that quality."

I crossed back into Pawtucket, where in short order I stumbled across a statue that's stirred some controversy.

Known as Toleration or Tolerance, this metal sculpture was created by artist Peruko Ccopacatty and installed in August 2021. Located at the corner of Roosevelt Avenue and Exchange Street, overlooking the Blackstone River, the work depicts Rev. William Blackstone. He was an early settler of Boston who moved to what is now Rhode Island in 1635. He is considered the little state's first permanent English settler.

His surname adorns not only the river this statue abuts, but also the Blackstone Valley, the town of Blackstone in Massachusetts and the Blackstone Canal, among other places.

"The statue, as is the case with many public art projects is not without controversy and Blackstone’s past was called into question as inappropriate to be recognized due to historical issues with Native Americans at the time of the founding and development of Pawtucket," per this RI News Today post.

This, despite the fact that "[l]ittle is known about Blackstone’s direct interactions with Native Americans," according to this article from the Valley Breeze.

I don't know much about Blackstone, but I'll say this, the statue certainly stands out.

Make sure to check back in two weeks for the second part of my Pawtucket report, featuring old mill buildings, a beautiful armory, a lonely carriage house, a historic riverside mill, an amazing diner and much more!

Scrambling Through Boston's Egleston Square

From Dave Brigham:

I've danced around Boston's Egleston Square quite a bit over the years I've been publishing this blog. I've roamed Jackson Square, the Fort Hill Tower area, Franklin Park and parts of the nearby Jamaica Plain neighborhood (see the bottom of this post for links to those articles). Recently, I finally checked out the Egleston area, using as motivation my hope that there was an old sign still hanging outside the final Skippy White's Records store to close.

My jaunt through the square was part of a one-day whirlwind tour including Jamaica Plain (to make photos, once again, of Boston's old breweries), the outskirts of Nubian Square and the gritty streets of Newmarket Square (where I've also been before).

I recently decided that I want to make photos of as many Boston-area record stores as I can. I included Skippy White's on the list, even though the store in Egleston Square had closed in January 2020. I noticed on Google Street View that as of October 2022, there were signs promoting "CD's - Videos - DVDs" above the windows at 1971 Columbus Avenue. Alas, when I arrived in early spring of this year, those signs were gone. The good news is that another small business now fills the space -- I forget what sort of outfit it is, and a Google search did not provide an answer.

I never had the pleasure of going to any Skippy White's store. Founded in 1960 in Boston's South End as Mass Records, the chain grew to include shops in other Boston neighborhoods, as well as Cambridge, Providence and Pawtucket, Rhode Island, as well as New Orleans (!), according to this Bay State Banner article.

"For more than six decades, White sold gospel, R&B and soul music to Boston’s African American community and other lovers of Black music," the article indicates. I encourage you to read that Bay State Banner article.

The Skippy White signs were gone, but there were other things that caught my eye in Egleston Square, which straddles Roxbury and Jamaica Plain.

Right across Columbus Avenue from the old record store is the circular residential tower known as the Doris Bunte Apartments. Completed in 1970 for the Boston Housing Authority, the cylindrical building was originally known as Walnut Park. The architecture firm of Richmond & Goldberg designed the project. The firm, which was in business from 1946 to 1973, also designed the Egleston Square branch of the Boston Public Library; a number of temples in Brookline; and many other municipal and religious structures.

The building reminds me of Chicago's Marina City, a mixed-use residential and commercial complex along the Chicago River. I mentioned those towers in a post about the Windy City several years ago (see May 18, 2018, "Rollin' On the River").

The Bunte building is slated for renovation.

The tower was renamed for Doris Bunte, who was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1973 to 1984, and administrator of the Boston Housing Authority from 1984 to 1992. She was the first African-American woman to hold either position, according to Wikipedia.

I've taken a liking to storefronts of late, be they old or new.

On the corner of Weld and Columbus avenues stands Violeta Appliance, a store that I believe is relatively new. I really love the bold colors in the lettering and background.

Around the corner on Washington Street is Egleston Liquors. I like that the sign tells potential customers in both English and Spanish what type of store it is.

On the corner of School and Washington streets, I found a beautiful doorway.

Erected in 1905, the Queen Anne / Richardsonian Romanesque commercial/apartment block was built for D.F. and W.S. Littlefield, brothers who owned a fruit market. Currently the ground-floor retail space is occupied by a market and a barber shop.

At the corner of Washington Street and Chilcott Place stands Pika Pollo, a Dominican fried chicken joint. On the side there is a fantastic mural.

Painted by Philadelphia-based artist Betsy Casañas, the work is a vibrant addition to the neighborhood.

The furthest west I went on this jaunt was the former Franklin Brewery building, which towers over Washington Street. If you enlarge the image below, you can see the beer brewer's name chiseled into the stone rectangle in the middle of the entryway.

I wrote about (and shared images of) this place in the blog post linked above about Boston's old breweries. In part, I wrote: "Built in 1894, this Queen Anne fortress was a brewery until...1918," shortly before Prohibition kicked in. "In 1900, 'the Franklin Brewery became a branch of the Massachusetts Brewery Co., a consortium which included the American Brewery at 249 Heath Street, the Alley Brewery at 123 Heath Street, H. and J. Pfaff Co. at 1276 Columbus, and the Robinson Brewery at 55-71 Amory,' per MACRIS."

"'The brewery was named for nearby Franklin Park....Around 1918, the Franklin Brewery building was vacant and a year later was owned by the Union Wool Co. and used for storage. By the 1920's, 3179 Washington had become the home of the D.W.. Dunn Storage Company,'" MACRIS continued.

Today, this beauty is home to Extra Space Storage.

At this point, I headed north-northeast to Columbus Avenue. Standing at the corner of Washington and Atherton streets, I had to rub my eyes as I looked across Columbus. "Is that part of the old elevated railway?" I said out loud, to nobody but myself.

No, the 14,000-square foot Egleston Center isn't a relic from Boston's transit days gone by. But is an homage. Located on the site of the former Egleston Station stop on the Washington Street elevated rail line, the commercial development was built in the mid-1990s by Urban Edge, a community developer founded in 1974.

Pretty cool!

Check out this image of the old elevated station, from Digital Commonwealth.

Heading north on Columbus Avenue, I passed #1945, a large triangular property that was once a used car lot.

(The former sales office for Columbus Auto Sales and, more recently, Roxbury Motors.)

Looking at Google Street View, I saw that the last business to occupy this lot was Roxbury Motors. For years prior, it was home to Columbus Auto Sales. Sometime between August 2019 and October 2022, Roxbury Motors vacated the lot. The site has been owned by Larosa Development Corporation of Norwood, Mass., since early 2019. I haven't been able to determine what, if any, plans there are for the property.

At the corner of West Walnut Park and Columbus Avenue sits my favorite site of that day.

I love the layers of history here. In reverse order: El Cruce Market, which replaced Salcedo Market within the last three years; Columbus Market, which, judging from the plastic sign, dated back at least a few decades; and the name carved into the building, C.J. Spenceley Block, and the date "1888."

Of late, I've focused my lens on storefronts such as this one. I love the bold colors, the variety of food and other products catering to local ethnic groups, the sense of community they engender. As painter Debbie Shirley writes to describe an exhibit of hers showcasing immigrant-owned convenience stores, "Each piece celebrates the cultures, communities, and everyday encounters that give these storefronts their stories."

So, who was C.J. Spenceley?

"Christopher Jackson Spenceley was born in Wicasset, Maine on August 16, 1840," according to this Jamaica Plain Historical Society article. "He...came to Boston at the age of 17 [where] he learned to be a carpenter and by 1863 had started his own business. He became engaged in the building and selling of structures in the South End and Roxbury."

Spenceley served three consecutive terms on the Boston Common Council, a precursor to the Boston City Council. He also served a Trustee for the Boston City Hospital (now known as Boston Medical Center) for several years. He married Rebecca Staples (from Truro, Nova Scotia) on August 16, 1863 and they had three children: Joseph Winfred, Fred and Mineola, the article continues.

The family lived at 367 Walnut Ave, just a few blocks from the C.J. Spenceley Block. He died on August 12, 1903 and is buried at Fox Hill Cemetery in Billerica.

My final Egleston Square image is of a simple yet effective and eye-catching sign, in front of IAO Auto Repair, at Columbus Avenue and Bancroft Street.

The sign seems to date from when E & J Auto Tech was on the site, in early 2016, according to Google Street View.

Check back soon for my write-up about a stretch along Dudley Street on the outskirts of Boston's Nubian Square.

Below are links to posts referenced above:

March 4, 2025, "Nubian Square: New Name, Old Buildings"

October 19, 2024, "Beyond the Standpipe: I Find Black Jesus and Other Cool Stuff in Fort Hill"

September 21, 2024, "Franklin Park is Ruin-ed"

May 18, 2024, "Stadium Tour in Franklin Park"

February 26, 2022, "Jamaica Plain, Part II: The Return"

December 18, 2019, "Having a Bear of a Time at the Zoo"

January 26, 2018, "Jamaica Plain Has Plenty of Flair"

December 9, 2017, "Artist Thinks: I HAF to Fix That Smokestack"

Prowling Around P-town

From Dave Brigham:

I just realized that the headline on this piece makes it sound like I was cat burgling around the easternmost tip of Cape Cod. I promise you, dear reader, that I was not. Not that I couldn't have, given how quiet it was when I visited on a cold and cloudy day this past February.

I've been to Provincetown -- aka P-town -- each of the last three summers, but only for short periods of time. I picked up my wife there after she completed the Pan-Mass Challenge bike ride, a massive event that raised bajillions of dollars for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

The streets of the funky resort town -- a very LGBTQ+-friendly enclave -- are jammed with tourists, summer residents and PMC participants and their friends and families the first weekend of August. Bottom line: since we don't stick around long after the ride, I don't get to soak in the atmosphere and make photos of all the great buildings and such.

So I figured a Saturday in the dead of winter was my opportunity to explore.

I stuck mostly to Commercial Street, which, if you haven't been to P-town and/or don't know what the word "commercial" means, is the main retail/restaurant thoroughfare. After parking next to town hall, the first thing that caught my eye was the trio of windows on the second floor above The Cotton Gallery, a shop stocked with tons of funny t-shirts, novelty items and souvenirs.

MACRIS indicates that the common name for this circa-1840 Greek Revival building is Scrimshaw. I'm not sure if that was a restaurant or a retail store. Over the decades this place has been occupied by a furniture store, a restaurant and a post office.

I continued west-southwest. I found the sign for Marine Specialties to be quite charming in a no-frills way.

The store, which bills itself as "Provincetown's Landmark 'Army Navy Store,' has been in business since 1961. It is located in a pre-fab warehouse building that dates to the 1930s, per MACRIS. Previous uses include a gas or service station.

Next up, the hard-to-miss Ladyslipper, "a cocktail spot," per its minimal web site.

This little Greek Revival building is known commonly as The Little Shop, according to an old MACRIS report, which doesn't indicate the date it was built.

There are so many great old buildings along Commercial Street, but I didn't make photos of every one. The next one I found to be camera-worthy was an old firehouse.

"Constructed around 1868 under the direction of John D. Hilliard, Chief of the Board of Engineers, 189 Commercial Street served as the 'Excelsior' Engine #4 so named after the fire engine," per MACRIS. "The original engine was built in Boston by Hunneman & Co. in 1854."

These days the old station houses public restrooms.

I continued in the same direction along Commercial Street for a bit before doubling back. The Kiehl's store facade looked good to me.

The skincare store is one of dozens located around the country. The brand dates to 1851.

As for the building, it dates to 1920 and is known as the Provincetown Advocate / Advocate Press building, after newspapers that were located here from the 1940s to the 1970s, according to MACRIS. Also of note: this was also the location of Gallery 200, which in the 1940s "exhibited many famous painters including first showing of Jackson Pollock," per MACRIS.

Currently occupied by Cape Tip Sportswear, the Second Empire building at 224 Commercial Street was built in 1865 as King Hiram's Lodge, a Masonic hall.

"King Hiram's Lodge was organized on December 12, 1795," according to MACRIS. "It is one of the oldest lodges in the country, and certainly one of the oldest in Massachusetts. The Charter of King Hiram's Lodge was signed by Paul Revere on December 12, 1796." The Masons evidently still meet in this building.

At this point, I was back next to Ladyslipper, looking up at the sign for The Provincetown Bookshop, which has been in business since 1932.

The shop has been in various locations over the decades, only moving to 229 Commercial Street in 2022. The book store is located in a circa-1916 Classical Revival building known commonly as Treasure n' Trash, MACRIS indicates. I'm guessing that was a second-hand store. MACRIS also reports that the building was "formerly the Consolidated Cold Storage plant for fish freezing."

Always cool to uncover a connection to part of a town or city's past that many people, especially tourists, know nothing about. I'll get to another such place in a minute.

On the side of the aforementioned Marine Specialties building is a fantastic work of art I dubbed the Wolf Mural.

It's actual title is Time and the Town, and it was painted in 2021 by Esteban del Valle, a Brooklyn-based artist originally from Chicago. And those are foxes, not wolves, according to the artist, who I guess should know.

"Early on I realized that it was impossible to physically represent the wide range of people that have and continue to pass through Provincetown in its history," del Valle says in this article. "Normally some community murals take a selective icon approach, where they’re picking and choosing historical figures or community figures to focus and highlight. And I just wanted to talk more about the spirit of the place and less about specific people, so foxes became a great way to kind of talk about different time periods, different people passing through, and the overall history versus focusing on individuals," he said.

The mural takes its title from Mary Heaton Vorse's 1942 memoir, Time and the Town: A Provincetown Chronicle.

Between the book shop and the Army-Navy store there is an alley that leads to a harbor-front beach. So of course I had to walk that way. And I'm glad I did.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Lewis and Brown Fish Shed.

Built in 1870, this ramshackle place has served as a lumber wharf, a coal shed and a restaurant down through the years, according to MACRIS. There are remnants of a pier in the harbor adjacent to this property. After a pair of fires in recent years, the building was condemned. A developer has pitched a plan to raze this structure and redevelop the site, along with the building housing the book store.

Across Commercial Street from the book shop and the Army-Navy store is the fabulous Benjamin Lancy House, with a storefront tacked on the front.

This Second Empire gem dates to 1874. It was built for Benjamin Lancy, a merchant and ship owner, per MACRIS, who also owned the wharf across the street that I discussed above. For a time last century, this architectural marvel was home to the Provincetown Historical Society. Current tenants include Cortile Gallery, Sol Optics and Henna Tattoo.

Continuing north-northeast, I passed Whalers Wharf, which I had paid little attention to when I'd walked by earlier. This is an open-air arcade that features small shops and eateries, as well as an intimate movie theater. The original building rose in 1919, but was destroyed by a fire in 1998. A new structure was erected on the same spot.

Below are some images taken inside the arcade.

Across Commercial Street from Whalers Wharf is the Unitarian Universalist Meeting House of Provincetown (on the right in image below).

This house of worship was erected in 1847 and is the oldest extant church in town. On the left in that photo is a lovely Italianate / Victorian Eclectic building with, I believe, a gallery and art studio on the ground floor. I assume the upper floors are residential. In the middle of that image is a small blue outbuilding that MACRIS says dates to 1970. I like how it mirrors the architectural style of the main house. I'm guessing that smaller building may also be a studio.

I walked past the old Scrimshaw building again, and noticed a crusty ghost sign on the side facing Gosnold Street.

Given its location on the side of a building that currently houses a gift shop, I'm guessing The Family Jewels was a similar type of store going back a bit in time.

At this point, I was back to where I parked, in front of the beautiful town hall.

Built in 1886, this Queen Anne stunner was built on land that "was partly donated...and partly bought," according to MACRIS. "[I]t had business buildings fronting Commercial St., an apple orchard on the northern end."

I continued east-northeast on Commercial Street, across Ryder Street, until I was in front of the wildest storefront in P-town, which was created by artist Joey Mars.

Shop Therapy calls itself an alternative lifestyle emporium, and sells "Beads, Bells, Incense, Clothing, Tie Dye, Jewelry, Tobacco Shop, Patches, Stickers, Posters, Sun Glasses, Tapestries & Way More," per its web site.

The store is located at 286 Commercial Street, a place with a colorful history. "In 1912 the 'Star' was born, Provincetown's first movie theater, in time converted into 'Bowlaway' Candlepin Lanes, where the tid-bit diner was a favorite of Capt. Manuel 'Sea Fox' Zora, a legendary rumrunner," according to the Historical Marker Database. "In 1983 Isaac Saada (aka Zukie) introduced his Rubber Chickens. Other tenants included the Hatbox, Cheap Thrills, and Bored Stiff. In 2012 Zukie sold the property to Ron Hazel, who moved Shop Therapy, an 'Antiestablishment,' here."

Hazel passed away in May 2025.

Next door to the eye-popping storefront is Bob Gasoi Memorial Alley.

"This vibrant alley...contains jig sawed figures from murals by artist Bob Gasoi that once adorned the old Shop Therapy store from 1987 to 2010," per this Atlas Obscura article. Prior to moving to this address in 2012, Shop Therapy was located elsewhere on Commercial Street.

Born in 1931, Gasoi earned a degree from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in Manhattan. He moved to P-town in 1983, and was commissioned by Ron Hazel to create art for the original Shop Therapy store.

"The murals were a collaboration. Shop Therapy’s owner Ronny Hazel would feed stories about his own world travels and experiences to the artist Gasoi who would regurgitate the tales into scenescapes from the Renaissance, The Bible, Alice in Wonderland, 60’s psychedelia, Eastern erotica, comic books and science fiction," according to this Camp Provincetown article.

"There were cherubs, men wearing nothing but wristwatches, lactating figures (an ode to the Giambologna’s Fountain of Neptune), monsters crushing the Pilgrim Monument, mermaids, flesh-eating aliens and men holding fruit trays. Faces and bodies were morphed into the likeness of members of the Shop Therapy family along with local hangers-on, local politicians and members of local law enforcement."

Many of the local muckety-mucks were not happy with such artistic expression, but the works remained in place.

Gasoi passed away in 1997, in Mexico.

A little further along, on the south side of Commercial Street, is the Post Office Cafe & Cabaret.

From the venue's web site: "It was home to the original Lands End Marine Supply in 1940, and converted into the Wreck Club in 1960. In 1974, Phyllis Schlosberg, a theatre MFA and former educator, brought the Post Office to life. Phyllis would go on to launch many artists’ careers from the Cabaret’s stage, including Provincetown’s long-reigning drag sensation Varla Jean Merman, as well as camp queen Elvira, Mistress of the Dark."

I will discuss Lands End Marine Supply below.

As for the building, it dates to 1870 and was presumably at some point a post office, although neither the club's web site nor MACRIS make any mention of such a function.

Upon reaching Standish Street, I headed southeast toward Provincetown Harbor. On the corner, I spied a plain but nevertheless eye-catching sign for John's Foot Long Hot Dogs.

The eatery, which serves a lot more than just hot dogs, seems to have been in business for quite a few years.

The building dates to 1860 and is known commonly as Turner's Candies Store, per MACRIS.

On the MacMillan Pier, I was charmed by numerous small, shingle-covered buildings.

(I think this building is used for storage.)

(Irene's Little Art Shop is one of several art shacks on the pier.)

Back on Commercial Street I made a photo of the legendary Lobster Pot looking a little less iconic, but still gorgeous, with piles of hard-packed snow gathered at its base.

The restaurant's neon sign is well-known on the Cape and far beyond, and the food is prized among tourists (and probably locals). Established in 1943, the eatery has been going strong ever since in the circa-1890 building. "Ralph Medeiros and his wife Adeline opened the Lobster Pot," per Wikipedia. "After Ralph died in 1965 Adeline remarried and kept the restaurant in the family until 1979. It was at this point that a second family would take over as Adeline sold the business to Joy McNulty."

The McNulty family has run the place ever since.

Next door is the Old Colony Tap, which was launched in 1937, in the building now occupied by the Lobster Pot.

In 1943, the bar relocated to its present location. "The structure first appears on the atlas of 1880 and was owned by E. Gayland," according to MACRIS. "In 1901-1907, it was the home of Mrs. Charles Baker. In the mid-20th century, the house was converted to use as a bar on the first floor and a studio above."

The bar provides a little bit old old P-town for locals and visitors alike. "This is the Old Colony Tap, the town’s oldest surviving dive bar, a place where the past clings to the walls and the music never quite stops," reads a line from this Ptownie article.

A little further along is Mad as a Hatter, which is a great phrase and, guessing from its web site, a very cool shop.

The shop has been providing "hats for people with heads" for more than four decades. As for the phrase, "mad as a hatter," of the various possible origins, the one I prefer is this one offered by Wikipedia: "In 18th- and 19th-century England, mercury was used in the production of felt, which was commonly used in the hat-making trade at the time. Long-term use of mercury products often resulted in mercury poisoning-induced erethism among hat-makers....[erethism] was characterized by slurred speech, tremors, stumbling and, in extreme cases, hallucinations."

I doubled back at this point, and of course had to make a photo of the adorable Respoke building.

Founded in 2016, Respoke built its business on the concept of crafting espadrille shoes with Hermes's Eperon D'Or scarf (this sentence barely makes sense to me, a fashion idiot). The store now carries handcrafted footwear, as well as ready-to-wear apparel, accessories, fine art, home decor and more.

As for the building (which is what I really care about), it dates to 1858 and was originally a fire station known as Relief Hose #1, per MACRIS.

Continuing to walk back toward my car, I passed the aforementioned Lands End Marine Supply.

Now part of the True Value hardware chain, the store has been around since at least 1940, as was discussed briefly above. The building dates to 1942.

Arnold's Bike Shop - "Where you rent the bikes" -- is located at 329 Commercial Street, attached to Shirts 'N' Stuff.

"Provincetown Bicycle Rentals by Arnold’s Bike Shop has been selling and renting bikes to local and vacationing bicycle riders since 1937," per the outfit's web site. The building dates to 1950 and was formerly Arnold's Furniture and Appliance Store.

The Governor Bradford is a restaurant/bar/entertainment venue that also features apartments, in a pretty large circa-1840 building. Naturally, I shot the place from the less-glamorous side.

Last, but certainly not least, is The Mayflower, a family-owned restaurant that's been in business since 1929.

The building rose around 1860, and also includes apartments.

Many of these establishments were closed for the season when I passed through Provincetown. These places will surely be hopping soon, if not already. Make sure to check back in two weeks for some cool photos of cottages in neighboring Truro.