Late on a warm summer night more than 50 years ago, I was bicycling home from an evening downtown when I came upon an apparition. Or so it seemed — but it was real: the unmistakable figure of old man Heaton Vorse parading barefoot under a full moon in Bryant’s parking lot, playing a ukulele, with his little dog, Johnny Lowdown, following behind. It stopped me in my tracks. Man, my 20-something self thought, I will never get that beautifully high in all my life.
Ever since, on thousands of trips past that spot, I have never failed to relive that moonlit sight. Like so many other landmarks in town, Bryant’s parking lot evokes a particular memory for me, and it always will. I am not alone in this.
Now we receive the news, in last week’s Independent, that the parking lot and the adjacent Angel Foods market are for sale. The real estate listing names its “many potential uses including mixed use, residential, commercial and land development options.” There is no mention of moonlit ukulele serenades.
This is just the latest in a series of actual or possible changes in town that have longtime residents reeling. Where to start? Napi’s, a fixture for so many years, is no longer a restaurant. Soon Lands End Hardware, around even longer, will not be there when you need a lightbulb or boating supplies. Waydowntown is closed. Cuffy’s is, too. The Provincetown Brewing Company has moved. I am sure I am overlooking something near and dear to someone.
Change is difficult for all of us. It is human nature to want things to stay the same. When I rise in the morning, I expect to encounter the same setup in our house that was there when I went to bed. It is not just a human predilection: our cats, living exclusively indoors, know every inch of our place, and if there is the slightest addition, deletion, or change, they are on it. Even an empty Amazon box demands their immediate attention.
Many who have lived in town a long time decry the changes as the result of outside money, real estate interests, and colluding town officials. You can hear their outrage on social media and in encounters at Stop & Shop. Greed is often cited as the underlying cause. There may be some truth in what they say — although in all my years at town hall I never witnessed anything untoward by town staff or volunteer board members. The reality is that we live in a beautiful place that carries the seeds of its own undoing. It is just so desirable to live and do business here that inevitably properties will change hands, as will their appearance and use.
Why can’t things just stay the same?
First of all, we live in America, where property rights are a priority. Zoning, health, and planning boards, historic district and conservation commissions all come up against this reality. There is only so much you can do about what people choose to do with their propery. Most of us would support this arrangement, with some (major) reservations. After all, who wants to live on Nantucket, where your options for painting your house are dictated by a committee?
Second, change has always happened. We learn from David Dunlap that Angel Foods continues a tradition of there being a food market in that building for over 100 years, but before that it was a chandlery, selling ship equipment and supplies, and the parking lot was a shipyard with a 900-foot wharf extending into the harbor. The Beachcombers Club building next door was a sail loft.
Those who came before us would not recognize this town today, missing its roughly 40 wharves and attendant industries, none of them very pretty. Of the seven cold storage plants in town, only the Ice House Condominiums remain to remind us of their size and dominance of the landscape. I can remember when CVS was Duarte’s and before that a car dealership, and I know before that it was part of the Old Colony Railway. I remember when the Provincetown Theater was a garage. I remember when the Aquarium Mall was actually an aquarium, and there was a bowling alley downtown.
It is also true that change is not always bad. The changes being discussed for North Eastham’s new commercial district seem to this reader to be positive steps to creating a more livable town.
Still, I bemoan the possible loss of a beloved market and the probability of yet another building occluding the view of our harbor. As it is, you can get a crick in your neck trying to see the water from Commercial Street. (Hurrah for the new Cannery Wharf Park.) Beauty is always taken for granted until it is threatened.
I hope there can be some resolution. Heaton Vorse and his dog are now bona fide apparitions, but the moonlight still shines on Bryant’s parking lot.
