Downtown Nashua NH

Sunday, May 18, 2003

By DEAN SHALHOUP Telegraph Staff

Nashua's Changing Neighborhoods

As a pair of prominent Old Dunstable bellwethers, they might have wanted to talk about their mutual interest in business, or the merits of their respective neighborhoods.

But if influential Democrat John M. Hunt, the town postmaster, and his more conservative, industrious neighbor to the north, Nashville Whig Daniel Abbot, had agreed to put their feet up in front of the Franklin stove in the 1830s or '40s to debate, their first discussion would likely have been about who would host the meeting.

Although scarcely a mile separated their homes, one of them would have been facing a formidable journey. Between the two residences was an e"pansive no-man's land, partly choked by thick woods and written off by many as unsuitable for farming or building. Nicknamed Dunstable Plains and breached only by a dirt, north-south path called The Great Road, foot or horseback travel through its midst, especially at night, could be a creepy excursion

A lot has changed in the past 150 years.

Today, a bustling business district, city offices and scores of multiple-family homes offer nary a hint that Nashua's Main Street, from the Nashua River to near Rivier College, was once the unpopulated wasteland that separated Hunt's and Abbot's neighborhoods.

The seemingly polarized residential enclaves sprang from two autonomous cells of early settlers. Each grew at its own pace until, later in the 19th century, they overlapped and then blended, giving birth to a downtown that has alternately flourished and struggled, and is presently riding a sizeable wave of resurgence.

The place to be

That's exactly the setting that Tony Adams and his business partner, Scott Jangraw, envisioned when they were looking to open their gourmet foods shop, Cooking Matters. When space opened up in the old Woolworth Building at 97 Main St. last month, they jumped at it.

"We were going for a certain look and feel," Adams said. "Our core business is selling specialty foods, but we have a cafe in the front too, and the downtown atmosphere is what we needed. This type of place wouldn't work on Amherst Street or the Daniel Webster Highway.

"We are fortunate this space opened up," Adams said. "Here we can spend time chatting with customers instead of just selling something. And all the businesspeople know each other. This is where we want to be."

Carolyn Mortellaro, who opened the Handbag Boutique in the Chase Building in November, feels the same way. She wanted to operate a quaint, unique shop, one that wouldn't have a chain-store appearance.

"I just love Nashua's downtown - that's actually what made us decide to move to Nashua three years ago," Mortellaro said. "It reminds me of the downtown where I grew up - until they tore down one whole side of Main Street and put up a mall."

Holding a bright blue novelty handbag shaped like a watering can, Mortellaro looked out her window at Main Street activity.

"It's so nice being part of the merchant community here," she said. "They're all very friendly. I'm glad to have another place where people can just stop and chat if they want. This is the best fit for me."

The early days

Hunt's neighborhood was part of the very first settlement of Europeans in these parts. Trudging north from the Boston area as early as 1630, explorers set up encampments along Salmon Brook near today's East Dunstable Road overpass of the F.E. Everett Turnpike. They called the area Dunstable.

Settlers soon spread east to the area of Evergreen Cemetery and Rivier College, building a pair of meetinghouses that served as the town center from 1754 to about 1815. From there north to the spot where Lake and Main streets meet today was nicknamed The Harbor, a fairly active area with taverns, shops and a growing number of dwellings.

Within the boundaries of Evergreen Cemetery sits a granite marker, nearly camouflaged among the gravestones, indicating the spots of the first two meetinghouses. The first was the Bird house, built in 1747 just to the north of the marker, and the second was the old south house, dedicated in 1812.

All told, Dunstable at the time encompassed a huge area including present-day Nashua, Merrimack and Hollis, a section of Milford then known as Monson, and parts of northern Massachusetts.

Meanwhile, a little to the north, the pristine, easily navigable waters of the Merrimack and Nashua rivers hadn't gone unnoticed by other teams of scouts. Just as settlers set up housekeeping around The Harbor, similar clusters began to spring up on the banks of the Nashua River near present-day Main Street. Also part of far-reaching old Dunstable, the area was nicknamed Indian Head Village.

On a hot Fourth of July in 1803, the first inkling that Indian Head was destined to thrive as an industrial stronghold was given when a Harvard-educated, stocky man of only 26, originally from Andover, Mass., dismounted his horse on the Nashua River's north bank and addressed a holiday gathering.

The dynamic speaker was Abbot, whose eventual moniker as "Father of Nashua" was earned largely from that performance.

A hard-working lawyer with widespread political and business connections who had moved to Nashua at the turn of the century, Abbot had an ambitious vision for his new city. Taking the name of both the river and a new transport vessel launched that very day, he renamed Indian Head as Nashua Village.

Hooking up with weighty friends in the region - among them Francis Cabot Lowell, a brilliant mathematician for whom the Massachusetts mill city was later named, New Ipswich entrepreneur Nathaniel Appleton, fellow industrialist Patrick Tracy Jackson and local partner Joseph Greeley - Abbot pursued his idea: a sweeping burg of textile mills that would employ thousands and make millions.

Patterning his project after the experimental mill communities developed by Scottish social utopian Robert Owen, Abbot hired noted Boston architect Asher Benjamin to design such a village around his new mill buildings.

The subsequent industrialization turned the quiet farming towns of Dunstable and Nashua Village into a thriving marketplace. Residences, schools and churches sprang up rapidly south of the mills.

The bookend settlements were growing, closing the gap of Dunstable Plains. Soon many businesses, shops, hotels, churches and newspapers rose up in the once barren space between the two settlements. Urbanization had arrived.

New state and town borders were gradually being established, and on the last day of 1836, the last part of Dunstable that remained in New Hampshire joined Nashua Village in becoming simply Nashua.

The city split si" years later in a bizarre series of events. The wealthier, more prominent residents north of the river, enraged over losing a city vote on where to build a new Town Hall to the less educated, working-class "south-siders," renamed their town Nashville.

It took 11 years for tempers to cool, and in the summer of 1853, Nashua was again incorporated.

The same year, Nashua Gas & Light Co. began operation, illuminating Main Street from dusk until dawn by lamplight. City workers snuffed out the lamps early every morning.

Pennichuck Water Works was also formed, giving the city a system of running water that would allow indoor plumbing. Prior to that marvelous invention, residents who didn't live near a pond would walk downtown and get their water from the Town Pump, which doubled as a place to catch up on the latest social news and gossip.

The pump was removed in 1859, and about 20 years later a town common was built on the empty, dusty lot. Oddly shaped, it got the nickname "the bathtub" from the neighborhood boys. Officially the Railroad Square Oval, it was renamed in 1920 in honor of a World War I hero from Nashua named Amedee[RTF annotation: cq] Deschenes.

While the mills and an assortment of retail shops kept the northern end of Main Street bustling in the 19th century, the city's more affluent residents began looking at dozens of properties along the thoroughfare as ideal places to live. Grand mansions began to spring up as mid-century approached. The goal appeared to be to create a mirror image of those along Concord Street.

In the first half of the 20th century, dozens of these mansions fell victim to the wrecking ball in favor of commerce and industry, and some were lost to urban renewal.

Golden age

After World War II, a romantic relationship existed between downtown and Nashua's residents. It was the place to go for all your business and social wants.

Shop at Woolworth's, then get a slice of pizza and Coke for a quarter next door at Espresso's. See a matinee at the State or Daniel Webster Theater, then go for a box" of the hottest, butter-laden popcorn ever at Mr. Lebel's stand at Main and East Hollis.

For the teen and 20-something crowd, the hangouts were plentiful ñ The Rosebud, Priscilla's, the Yankee Flyer, Cheddie's doughnut shops, Sardy's or the Miss Nashua Diner.

In 1947, Jacob Crosby Jr., just back from the war, partnered with his father, Jacob Sr., who worked at Hathaway's Bakery in Boston, to buy Colburn's Bakery in Nashua and call it their own.

Crosby's Bakery was originally on East Hollis Street, and then Temple Street, before the Crosbys built the current shop at East Pearl and Spring streets in the late 1950s.

Today, Jacob Crosby Jr.'s daughter, Gale, and her husband, Mike Cummings, operate the bakery.

"We really like being downtown," Gale Cummings said. "There are many second- and third-generation store owners here with whom I grew up. It's good to see."

Although construction on East Pearl Street and overflow from the Hillsborough County Superior Court have contributed to increased parking problems on their little corner, Cummings said downtown is the place to be.

"You can't beat the camaraderie here," she said. "I know a lot of the customers well. During the week, I can call just about everybody by their first name."

For Gary Wingate, fourth-generation owner of Wingate's Pharmacy at 129-131 Main St., there has never been a need to consider relocating from downtown. By expanding into a recently vacated shop next door, he has been able to grow and stay put.

"We've changed as the needs of the community have changed," he said. "I'm glad we have been able to remain downtown."

Wingate's great grandfather, Frank Wingate, founded the drugstore at 129 Main St. on the first day of the 20th century - Jan. 1, 1900.

Down and back

By the late 1960s, the latest development craze came to Nashua - shopping malls. Clusters of stores all connected under one roof seemed so handy and practical; shoppers were cool in hot weather and warm and dry in winter.

The downside, of course, to the shopping mall boom was that downtowns suffered while developers and retail owners took their business to the outskirts. Suddenly, the fabric of a once tight-knit community had unraveled. Thursday nights at the mall just weren't the same as they were downtown.

In the late 1980s and '90s, city leaders began to realize the need to revitalize Nashua's hub. Groups of civic-minded people, both merchants and residents, sprang up, and additional personnel joined the city payroll to accomplish the task.

Officials made a point of trying to lure businesses downtown. Neglected parks and green spaces were spruced up, and old railroad beds were turned into walking trails.

Pretty much everywhere the downtown sojourner turned there was something new. The strings of white lights in the trees along Main Street, first put up just for the holiday season, made a year-round comeback in 1995 through Destination Downtown's Adopt-a-Tree program, in which sponsors paid for lights and their maintenance.

In 1997, the group also reprised the downtown block parties after a 10-year absence. An annual bash first called Twist the Night Away, and then Street Beat, and finally the Downtown Nashua Summer Music Festival, was held each year.

The Taste of Downtown Nashua is in its ninth year. And of course there's the granddaddy of them all, the Winter Holiday Stroll, which has grown bigger and better each year since its inception in 1994.

Several shopkeepers and restaurateurs took it upon themselves to give their buildings facelifts, and others expanded.

Chris and Billy Fokas renovated the circa-1887 Merchants Exchange Building that holds their restaurant and brewpub, Martha's Exchange, and their upstairs function rooms.

Just prior to that, John Koutsos took Alec's Shoe Store around the corner from West Pearl Street and opened in the former Miller's building at Main and West Pearl.

Several sandwich shops joined upscale eateries Michael Timothy's, Villa Banca and Skol, and more recently Michael Buckley of Michael Timothy's opened Surf across the street. For desserts and baked goods, Patisserie Bleu and Breadsmith have recently joined Crosby's.

A short-lived wave of disappointment broke over downtown last year after Nashua lost out in its bid to be designated a Main Street Community in a statewide competition. But members of Great American Downtown, the local group that had been working on the project, kept their momentum going and hired John Mitterholzer, a Denver-based field representative for the National Trust for Historic Preservation, to be the group's executive director.

Over the years, several well-intentioned downtown groups have appeared and faded, mostly due to volunteer members' other commitments. Burnout often stymied any concerted effort before it could bear fruit.

But with Mitterholzer on board, the Great American Downtown group has someone whose only job is to make downtown the ideal place to visit, live in and do business. At the same time, he can guide people on how to preserve the finer architectural points of the "old" Nashua while continuing its rejuvenation.

"Communities are judged by the downtown," he said recently. "They are a huge and important part of the history of the area."

Dean Shalhoup can be reached at 594-6523