After my parents split when I was four, my mom moved my little brother and I from a duplex on High Street to Haverhill. My dad stuck around Newburyport. Whenever my brother and I stayed with him, he would take us to the Mall Pond to play basketball at the playground, which is still there, though updated and shed of its Dubus-era character. In the winter after it snowed, we’d sled down those steep double hills onto the ice. Actually, literally as I write this, so many more memories of my childhood in Newburyport are resurfacing than I even realized existed. Which is probably why I suddenly feel so concerned for the future of this weird little port city.
Newburyport has seen a lot of turnover, to speak kindly. Some of it hasn’t even turned over. It just ceased. This realization drifts like a dark cloud eclipsing the cathartic glow of memories as I can’t help but wonder: what will MY son have to remember of Newburyport, 30, or even just 20 years from now? Express Video, a staple of my own youth, is gone. In fact, all video stores are extinct, victims of a technologically terraforming world. Magazines and cigars? What are we, dinosaurs? But keep the Fowle’s sign. It’s good for the aesthetic. Pink houses emblematic of our city and its history? Give me a nice bald spot in the marsh any day.
I don’t think I can be blamed for feeling less than optimistic about what the future of Newburyport holds for my son. It feels — and maybe this is the feeling of an entitled first-world citizen — a little like a quality of life question. Not many of the stores I was raised on have managed to stick around. Like leaves blowing in the wind, they rustled away, some quietly, others with great cacophony. And it’s not just a simple transition of one longstanding store to another. I mean why didn’t that post-Fowle’s pancake place stick around? I still dream of those pancakes. I could’ve built memories around that place, taken my son for cinnamon swirl pancakes the same size as the plate. What the hell does my 1-year-old son want with a bougie oyster bar, lost in the half-dozen other overpriced eateries and bars?
Is Newburyport going to gaslight my son?
Will he walk up state street at 32 wondering: Was that bookstore really ever there? Did that restaurant ever exist? Did the Grog actually host live music? Those small, plain fisherman’s homes…were they a figment of the imagination? They’re already beginning to seem like a figment of mine.
On a recent stroll through the Tannery, I walked into Jabberwocky to peruse their great used book room, and to say hi to Paul and Ilene (sorry for the definite misspell Ilene), and as I approached the door my eye was caught by a sign that read:
“Due to vulture capitalism, all books are 10% off.”
I asked Paul, eternally holding down the counter, about the sign, and he told me a pretty heavy tale, all about Barnes & Noble. Apparently they have recently spawned more than 50 new stores, many within 10 minutes of a previously thriving local bookstore, and then offered 10% off all books at open. Apparently, a new B&N just went up in Seabrook. Rather than roll over, Jabberwocky is offering that same discount.
It’s easy to forget that when you transact directly with the creator or seller of a product, there is inevitably passion involved. Want to have a book recommended by someone you know loves books? Talk to anyone at Jabberwocky. The book they’ll find for you will be more bespoke than a Brooks Brothers suit. Need some décor both unique and beautiful? Browse The Green Plum and feel like you entered Ali Baba’s cavern — if it were curated by half-a-dozen clever, fashionably intuitive ladies in love with their labor.
Change is inevitable. But the bottom line is, we are the boss of that change. Sometimes we may not be able to control it, but for the most part, it’s our judiciously spent dollars that dictate who sticks around, and who withers on the economic vine. The stores we love need our patronage. Sure, It’s possible that an item you can get on Amazon might cost $1.50 more downtown, but isn’t it worth it if you like the street you walk down, and the idea of raising your kids on that same street? I know there are already a lot of conscientious shoppers out there, and this isn’t an indictment. In fact, maybe I need to hear this more than anyone else. I think it took the loss of the Pink House to really shake me up.
The bigger picture is constantly buried in the bottom line, and that line is cut with money. But we have to give them the money to cut it with. So when you pass Barnes & Noble and think, boy, wouldn’t a book and a cinnamon bun be nice, remember, you can get both of those downtown (Illume and Plume Cafe are probably closer in proximity than the B&N cafe and its Adult Fiction section). Both will taste better, and both will be transacted by someone who cares and who you may realize, even in the most peripheral way, you care about too.
So fuck Barnes & Noble, and I’ll see you guys at the Tannery trying not to make awkward eye contact while you sit at one of those little tables in the hall sipping your fresh coffee from Chococoa, modeling your equally fresh haircut from Mick at The Clipper Shop, reading your extra double equally fresh new (or used) book from Jabberwocky, and when I do I’ll raise you a secret toast with my iced coffee from the Black Duck, where I really only go so I can hear Ricky, warmly and reliably, cry out “hey how are you brudda?”
Peter Neverette
Rowley resident
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