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On a hot Sunday in July, a walk down Commercial Street in Provincetown brought photographer Edward Boches mask-to-mask with a slow summer-paced wave of humanity. Whether seated in the shade, walking determinedly, spinning slowly, or rolling to a soft electric hum, people were all eyes. It was rare to see anyone unmasked.
PROVINCETOWN — Outdoor dining for restaurants, new picnic areas on town property, an experimental car ban on Commercial Street, and extra oversight of the excursion fleet were all approved at a two-part meeting of the select board and board of health on Thursday, May 28, and Monday, June 1. Both boards affirmed many of the town recovery coalition’s recommendations, establishing a joint order that will govern Provincetown’s reopening.
The joint order included the same mask rules on Commercial Street that the select board passed a month ago. This followed a week-long tug-of-war that featured impassioned public comments, hundreds of emails from citizens, and an apology from the town’s legal counsel.
The non-mask parts of the agenda went relatively smoothly. The joint order lays out an approval process for restaurants to move their seating outside. It also authorizes the placement of picnic tables, handwashing stations, and porta-potties at various town-owned properties, since many restaurants have shifted to selling takeout food, and there are few places in town to sit and eat.
The meeting agenda indicated that the new town park at the Hall property, Ryder Street beach, Johnson Street parking lot, and Court Street landing were all being considered as picnic locations. Select board member Louise Venden asked that the West End parking lot or some other West End location be added to the list.
The joint order included closing Commercial Street to vehicles, but only for one weekend as an experiment: Thursday through Sunday, 6 to 10 p.m., between Standish and Court streets. Government vehicles and some delivery vehicles will still be allowed, and bicyclists must walk their bikes. Select board member Lise King expressed concern about the impact on nearby residents, and the board asked that those residents report their experiences or difficulties at its Monday, June 8, meeting.
The boards also voted for an extra layer of supervision for tourist excursion vessels at MacMillan Pier — specifically including the whale-watch fleet and sightseeing cruises, but not smaller deep-sea fishing charters. The board of health, in conjunction with the Pier Corp. and harbormaster, will have to approve docking privileges.
“At some point we expect the governor to issue guidance [on whale-watching],” said Steve Katsurinis, chair of the board of health. “Just like with inns and restaurants, that guidance will be their main guidance. I do want to see their plan, though. Even if you reduce the number of people on board, when the actual whale breaches, everyone rushes to one side.
“Separately, if there were a big increase in infections in town, shutting down the whale watch temporarily might be one of the things we need to do,” Katsurinis continued. “It’s the single largest draw of people into town besides the National Seashore. We can’t say we have a plan to control our population in an extreme situation and then not have a plan to control the single largest driver of people coming to town.
“Also, we really don’t want to be shutting things down,” he added. “Bring us a plan, and we will look for ways to approve it.”
A Tug-of-War Over Masks
The select board met three times in seven days — on May 26, May 28, and June 1 — and at all three meetings, the most tense exchanges were about masks. Like a grueling tug-of-war — or, as Lise King put it, a “pushmi-pullyu” — all that effort seems to have canceled itself out, resulting in no change in the current rules.
At the May 26 meeting, several speakers expressed concern that the mandatory mask zone would be abandoned. Some asked for it to stay in place, while others asked for it to be extended to Bradford Street, Shank Painter Road, or the entire town. Select board member Bobby Anthony tried to offer a motion to extend the zone to include the entire length of Commercial Street, but after some discussion, the decision was moved to May 28.
By May 28, town counsel John Giorgio had written up a mandatory mask policy that would apply even on private property. In Giorgio’s scheme, as soon as people stepped outside their homes — including their back yards or inside any other building in town — a mask would be required.
Giorgio apologized at the May 28 meeting for creating confusion. Reached by email for comment, town manager Robin Craver said, “I believe he was saying he assumed and wrote the most constrictive order without getting direction on preferred language. Many saw the draft language and assumed the select board was in favor of a town-wide mandatory mask requirement.”
By June 1, more than 400 emails had been sent to the select board. “There was a great deal of consternation and stress that was produced by the proposal that this be extended town-wide, 24 hours a day,” said Venden. “There have been 400 letters tallied so far, and 23 of those were in favor of 24/7 town-wide. The remainder were mainly interested in going back to what we had in place earlier.”
Anthony withdrew his motion at the start of the June 1 meeting. “I just want to be clear that my motion on [May 28] did not include the whole of Provincetown,” Anthony said. “It included the whole of Commercial Street.”
“There’s been a lot of chatter on social media over this 24/7 everywhere thing, and about where it came from,” said King. “We really appreciate counsel Giorgio bringing this forward: he wrote it without checking with anyone. It’s important for all the residents and business owners in Provincetown to know that. None of us were pushing for this everywhere, on the salt flats, in your backyard thing.”
At the end of the third meeting, the mask order had not been canceled or expanded. It passed into the joint order completely unchanged.
Meetings Ahead
All meetings are held remotely. To watch a meeting, go to provincetown-ma.gov and click on the meeting you want to watch. Follow the link to the agenda for instructions on how to watch and participate.
Thursday, May 28
Tuesday, June 2
Wednesday, June 3
Conversation Starters
Coronavirus Update
As of May 25, Provincetown had one confirmed active case and one death from complications related to Covid-19, and 27 additional cases were considered recovered.
Reopening Policies Vetted
After weeks of planning, the town manager’s recovery coalition began Tuesday to unveil recommendations from a 70-page report (available on the town’s website at provincetown-ma.gov/archivecenter/viewfile/item/24230) they presented to the select board and the board of health. The two boards are charged with setting policies for the summer of 2020.
The discussion began on Tuesday and continues Thursday, May 28, at 4 p.m.
On Thursday Health Director Morgan Clark will present results of a community-wide survey created to get residents’, workers’, and property owners’ opinions on how public spaces and businesses could be allowed to open safely without causing a surge of Covid-19 infections.
The select board will then take up the suggestion to shut down Commercial Street to cars from Standish to Court streets in order to create more room for outdoor shopping and dining. The recovery coalition’s recommendation would ban cars Thursdays through Sundays from 6 to 10 p.m. starting June 4. This could be extended or ended by June 30, depending on how it goes, according to the report.
The coalition has also suggested banning parking on Commercial Street on Friday nights from Bangs to Johnson streets from 6 to 10 p.m. through Labor Day. This would allow more room for people to spread out during the East End Gallery Walk.
All kinds of other changes are on the table regarding restaurant seating, which will be discussed on Thursday as well. With relaxed restrictions for outdoor seating, restaurants could put tables outside in parking areas, as long as this did not increase overall seating.
Restaurant seating could also be expanded into beach areas on a “case by case” basis, the report states.
The coalition recommended that retailers be granted regulatory relief to display merchandise outside, so the entire summer could become a Monumental Yard Sale Weekend.
Doing business outdoors with a lot more takeout food will require more public picnic areas. The coalition proposes to add picnic tables and a handwashing station to the new Waterfront Park, recently purchased from Elena Hall at 387 Commercial Street. Other seating could be added to a small area at the end of the Johnson Street parking lot. The coalition asked the board of health and select board to consider placing roll-out beach access mats, also known as “Mobi-Mats,” to sections of the beach by Ryder Street Extension and by the pier to allow people to spread out. —K.C. Myers
I will miss the throngs on Commercial Street in the center of town: the hubbub, the chatter, the flow of people, the animated wave of humanity — young and old, gay and straight, in every manner of dress and hairstyle and makeup, in all sorts of footwear or perhaps none at all. All kinds of people with their heads bobbing, laughing and talking, ducking into and out of shops and galleries, congregating, darting across the street in front of slow-moving cars and speeding bicycles. It is exciting.
There is, over all, an awareness, a group awareness. Notice that very few people bump into each other. No, as in a school of mackerel or a flock of starlings, there is a smoothness to the movement of the crowd: how else could this happen if each individual did not consciously or unconsciously (or some blend of the two) make himself or herself aware of the people on all sides. We slow down for the old or differently abled, we make way for the strollers and wheelchairs, we do not step on little dogs.
There is an intense and positive energy to the crowd: barkers and street musicians, drag queens and performance artists, the people lounging on the benches in front of Town Hall, and shoppers, shoppers, shoppers.
Oh, how I will miss them all.
In the spring and fall, the older visitors from the tour buses walk around town, somewhat bewildered, with their name tags dangling. Children may have their faces painted. Foreign visitors (say, from Beijing or Idaho) seem bemused. What are all these people after? Ice cream and estate jewelry, T-shirts and salt-water taffy, sunglasses and hot dogs, designer fashions and original art, sometimes a tattoo, perhaps a drink or two (maybe more!) along the way, or a snack, or lunch, or dinner. Food is a central focus of the crowd. Drink is a close second. Baubles come next: there is a compulsion to buy something.
Commercial Street has a life of its own: in the early morning there are mainly dog-walkers and joggers and solitary strollers with their first cups of coffee, all these accompanied by the legion of trash haulers picking up the previous day’s residue, the municipal street-sweeper, the delivery trucks bringing in supplies for the day ahead, the window washers. As the day progresses, the shops and restaurants open and the crowd begins to grow, almost like an organism, especially if it is an overcast or rainy day, a non-beach day. The afternoon blends into the evening, and perhaps more are interested in the restaurants and bars. Evening progresses and the “night life” begins: sounds of joviality and clinking glasses and alcohol-elevated voices. The night goes on and the crowd starts to thin to quiet couples and the serious cruisers. Even in the wee hours of the morning, a few souls are about, probably up to no good.
It is a pleasure to be part of the street scene, to pick up on the positive vibes, the good-natured, relentless getting and spending, the people out for a good time, the sexual tension. There is a continuous parade of personalities, of “characters,” a never-ending cavalcade of humanity, a scrolled-out cinematic display of human behavior: laughing and talking, ogling, being ogled, being amused, looking for amusement and refreshment.
The energy of Provincetown’s Commercial Street is urban in a sense — like that of Greenwich Village in New York City or Boylston Street in Boston — but there is a difference: a gaiety (in the original sense of the word) of people almost exclusively out to enjoy themselves. There is a hum akin to a beehive. It is glorious.
Oh, how I will miss it all.
PROVINCETOWN — The Mary Heaton Vorse House, at 466 Commercial St., is the informal epicenter of town history. Vorse, a journalist and civil rights activist, spent most of her adult life in the house, from 1907 to 1966, when she died there at age 92. While she was alive, the house was a
