If MacMillan Wharf is the heart of Provincetown, then surely Lopes Square is its aorta, where thousands of visitors surge, pulse, and begin their journey into town. After their stays, they pour back through the Square to get to their ferries, joined by additional thousands of whale watchers, lobstermen and dragger crews, charter boat fishermen, sailing cruisers, shoppers, and sightseers. It is an unbroken link to our history: the centrality of the wharf and its anteroom — for want of a better word.
Although its shape is actually a rectangle, Lopes is a square in the medieval sense: it serves as a commons, an area accessible and used by all in a free and democratic fashion. It could be described as a hyperdimensional space — or as a six-ring circus. A typical summer day will witness myriad coexisting activities there.
First, the vehicles. The buses: huge lumbering beasts bearing many visitors, including our own local lines and the many private conveyances bringing tourists from around the globe. This summer I saw a “Christian Tours” bus; there may or may not have been a Muslim equivalent. These behemoths come down Route 6, turn in at Conwell Street, merge tortuously onto Bradford Street at Far Land Provisions, and attempt to turn left onto Standish Street, and then, somehow, maneuver through the tight intersection of Commercial Street into Lopes Square.
They are joined in this daily parade by the hourly caravan of Art’s Dune Tours in flat-tired Chevy Suburbans that leave their Standish Street headquarters, circle the Square, and head out into the wondrous dunes that so many townspeople have never seen.
Of course, there is a steady stream of other drivers hoping that they will get to the huge-but-not-huge-enough public parking lot on the wharf before the “Lot Full” sign goes up. Those poor souls must then seek another spot for the car — perhaps out in the high school lot, a bewildering mile away, perhaps halfway to Truro. Add to these the commercial trucks hauling fish and the pickups carrying lobsters, dripping as they go.
What else? Multiple taxis, driven by an array of unusual and personable drivers, and fleets of pedicabs, the modern-day equivalent of rickshaws. The passengers laugh and try to enjoy their trip through town, but some who are “woke” must have a guilty feeling that they are reenacting their colonial ancestors’ yoke on the oppressed. The beefed-out, shirtless, mostly Bulgarian pedicab drivers allay those fears, at least for those susceptible to their charms.
And there is also the endless array of electric scooters and bikes and people riding plain old bicycles that wend their wobbly way (me among them) through the Square. All this movement is orchestrated by the valiant corps of traffic supervisors blowing whistles and waving hands and trying to keep order and facilitate progress. In the tradition of Donald Thomas, “the dancing cop of Provincetown,” they are friendly and professional, though they lack his signature moves.
Ducking through all this are hordes of pedestrians, getting and spending. The premier destinations, among others, are John’s Footlong and the Coffee Pot. John’s has been there forever (well, since 1961), and many people still see Marian (Cook) Goveia and Shirley Baker at the window, even though these “civic treasures” (David Dunlap’s term) are long gone. People line up at John’s, and you are liable to see across the Square the rescue squad and police vehicles double-parked by the Coffee Pot; there are also a host of retired fishermen and other hangers-on outside.
Long ago, the Surf Club reigned in the Square, with a great bar and the fabulous Provincetown Jug Band playing, but its latest incarnation is Luke’s Lobster (with a $50 lobster roll!). There are numerous other shops selling shells and airbrush tattoos, ice cream and trinkets, and the headquarters of the chamber of commerce.
The island in the middle of the Square hosts many people-watchers, juxtaposed against an enormous ancient anchor that lets you know you are not in Kansas. Now that it is December, it is joined by the Popko family’s lobster pot Christmas tree in its 20th season — a welcome splash of festive lights for this dark time of year.
Poor Manuel Lopes, born in 1892 and killed in the First World War. What would he make of all this? (Not to mention that lobster roll — and a pot shop at the old New York Store.) I daresay it would bewilder him, as if in 2075 spaceships docked at Minsky Square.
Time does roll on, but watching a parade of people is one of life’s pleasures. And nowhere is it more easily done than at Lopes Square.
