The Greater New Bedford Area is a dichotomy; the city itself has many detractors and yet has much to recommend it. Located on Buzzard’s Bay, much of the area is like Cape Cod before the tourists.
New Bedford now joins cities such as Paris, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, and Harlem as “Bench by the Road” cities.
Like any industrial city in the 20thcentury New Bedford went through a long period of lost jobs as mills moved south, a declining downtown as malls and covered shopping centers drew patrons from the suburbs to a more comfortable shopping experience, and crime increased as a result.
New Bedford has been on a roller coaster ride, and right now the city is on the upswing. New Bedford is once again the number one dollar grossing fishing port in the U.S. Our scallops are the primary catch, but many other species add to those numbers. And with help from the federal government the Greater New Bedford Area, aka the Southcoast, is once again poised for greatness. The Standard Times reported just last week:
‘With newly awarded federal funds, the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth plans to study the marine science and technology economy in SouthCoast with a goal of marketing that area as a “blue economy corridor.”
The U.S. Department of Commerce — Economic Development Administration on Wednesday awarded the school a $600,000 grant to “bring together higher education and research institutions, businesses, and civic organizations to collaborate on the continued growth of marine science and technology in the region.”’ Could we be the next Silicon Valley for Marine Sciences? Keep an eye on us.
U Mass Dartmouth is located in the Southcoast, and is ranked #121 in the 2019 Best Colleges rankings for top public schools, and #215 for National Universities. It is fast becoming a world-class research center, boasts a significant engineering program and a law school.
Fall River, another city in the Southcoast has opened a business incubator called the Business Innovation Center. New Bedford is active in E for All, whose mission is “Accelerating Economic Development and Social Impact through Entrepreneurship in Mid-Sized Cities”.
New Bedford is listed as one of the 5 best cities in Massachusetts for the arts, and one of the most artistic cities in America. Music, arts, museums, food, reasonable real estate prices, beautiful beaches, excellent health care, a downtown revival with new hotels and restaurants, and a pro business economy make it an interesting and productive place to live. But let’s not forget its history.
A recent exhibition called A Spectacle In Motion in conjunction with the Whaling Museum opened in one of New Bedford’s mill buildings. It is America’s longest painting, at 1,275 feet, and was originally shown on a backlit scrolling panorama after its completion in 1848. It has been fully restored, but for 100 missing feet of the painting, and its delicate condition precludes it from being shown as a moving scroll. It is now hung in a long stretch with descriptive plaques to guide the viewer. The exhibit shows a whaling voyage around the world, beginning, of course, in New Bedford. Some of the buildings are still here today and easily recognized. The exhibit is free to the public, but is only here through Columbus Day. See it if you haven’t, and if it comes to your area I highly recommend it.
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New Bedford was a whaling Mecca from the early to mid 1800’s, as whale oil burned cleanly and was the primary source of lamp oil in the world. But when fossil fuels replaced whale oil and over fishing depleted the whales further, whaling declined and so did the city. But the mills were its salvation.
At that same time New Bedford became a stop on the Underground Railroad, a sanctuary city for escaped slaves and the first free home of Frederick Douglass. As of this week it’s an official stop on the Toni Morrison Society’s “Bench by the Road” project at the Nathan and Polly Johnson house and museum, Douglass’s first home as a free man.
“There is no place you or I can go, to think about or not think about, to summon the presences of, or recollect the absences of slaves . . . There is no suitable memorial, or plaque, or wreath, or wall, or park, or skyscraper lobby. There’s no 300-foot tower, there’s no small bench by the road. There is not even a tree scored, an initial that I can visit or you can visit in Charleston or Savannah or New York or Providence or better still on the banks of the Mississippi. And because such a place doesn’t exist . . . the book (Beloved) had to” (Toni Morrison to The World, 1989).
New Bedford now joins cities such as Paris, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, and Harlem as “Bench by the Road” cities.
So to its detractors I say give New Bedford another chance. To those who have never visited I say come! To those looking for a great place to be an entrepreneur or get involved in the Blue Economy I say New Bedford has a place for you. And to those of us who have always seen the good in New Bedford I say thank you for believing.
Deb Pepin Bullock is a Southcoast native, author, traveler and foodie who lives in Fairhaven, MA. Follow her blog at deborahdishes.com, on Facebook at Facebook.com/deborahwhodishesor on Twitter @deborahdishes.
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