Go Westerly, Old Man!

This is the promised part two of a pair of posts on my return to the city of my birth, Westerly, Rhode Island (part one being the review of Frank Ferrante’s Groucho show at Wilcox Park). I originally considered combining them into a single post, but for the sake of organization we split them in two. This one is a contemplation of the town itself, since I was delighted to find that the place was humming in comparison with any time I’ve gone there previously.

My most recent visit had been over a decade ago, when I went to speak at the town library about the 1915 Douglas Fairbanks film American Aristocracy, which was shot at the mansions around Watch Hill, where Fairbanks used to summer at the time. In the mid-to-late 19th century, several resort areas emerged in Rhode Island. Fans of The Gilded Age know that Newport headed the list for many decades. Block Island, off the Southern coast, has long been a kind of lesser cousin to Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. For a time, Narragansett, closer to where I grew up, had a similar stature, although all of the grand old hotels and its impressive casino burnt down by the mid-20th century. There are still several mansions there, though, and the beaches flourish. And there was Westerly, home to the mansions of Watch Hill, and still home to the massive Ocean House hotel, which was rebuilt in 2005.

Watch Hill was regarded as a much more private alternative to Newport back in the day. It also has what many claim is the oldest continuously operating carousel in the United States, though others do vie for the title. Next door is Misquamicut, with a small amusement park.

Westerly is so named, obviously, because it is the westernmost part of the state; in fact it reaches way out over the Connecticut border. It is shaped like Alaska, tapering off at its westernmost extreme, Nappatree Point, which reaches out toward Fisher’s Island (New York) and beyond that the North Fork of Long Island. These spits of land reach toward each other like the fingers of God and Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. They’re clearly connected geographically, simply inundated by the Atlantic. (By rights, Long Island ought to belong to Connecticut, which once sensibly claimed it. The Duke of York got his talons on it in 1664 when the Brits seized New Netherland from the Dutch. The Duke’s aggressive move was because New Haven had hidden three of the judges who had sentenced his father Charles I to death. In case that’s of interest. It interests me, at any rate!) At all events, this is why Rhode Island shares a nautical border with New York.

North Fork, lower left; Westerly, upper right

I grew up in nearby South Kingstown (from which Narragansett separated in 1888). In between lies Charlestown, home to the Narragansett Indian Tribe. During my visit this weekend, they were holding their annual pow-wow. I’d attended once or twice as a kid and would have loved to have gone there this week-end but couldn’t squeeze it in, between visiting old friends and seeing the Ferrante show.

I did have a couple of hours to kill in downtown Westerly and was delighted to see it abuzz as I said, with restaurants, pubs, shops, and art galleries (whereas, last time I was there, the place seemed moribund, with half the storefronts boarded up). In the name of boosterism, I wanted to share a few snaps I took as I kicked around town.

Westerly Hospital, my literal birthplace, and also that of Ruth Buzzi!

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This mural memorializes the disaster I wrote about here.

This little town of 23,000 people has no fewer than three theatres. The Colonial, which hosted the Ferrante show, is, along with Trinity Rep and Theatre-By-The-Sea, among the reasons I myself pursued the theatre as a young person. There’s also:

The Granite Theatre, named after the area’s biggest industry from roughly 1830 to 1950.

The newly restored and revived United Theatre is not just a cinema, but also has a black box theatre for live productions and other cultural events, classes, etc. I’m pretty certain the advent of the United is responsible for the general revival of the town. The success of the local restaurants and watering holes seems pegged to it.

I was delighted to come upon this little free museum right on the main drag. At present, a good portion of the museum is given over to a 50th anniversary celebration of Jaws, but there’s also tons on the animals themselves (lots of teeth, egg cases, etc on display). Learn more about the Living Sharks Museum here.

I am very excited too to learn that the Westerly Museum of American Impressionism is due to open later this year, with works by Childe Hassam, John Singer Sargent,Lilla Cabot Perry, et al promised.

Lastly, there is the lovely Wilcox Park, designed by Warren H. Manning, an acolyte of Frederick Law Olmsted, in 1898. This is where the Ferrante show was held. One could photograph it all day, but I just wanted to share a couple of markers that caught my eye:

As I mentioned above, from the late 19th century through the mid 20th, Westerly was known for its locally quarried granite and for the related stonecutting industry that grew up around it. This is what drew thousands of skilled Italian immigrants from Sicily and Calabria to Westerly. The town is 1/3 Italian, and was surely more than that a century ago. (See the park’s Columbus statue here). This is a partial explanation for why a tree is dedicated to boxer Rocky Marciano. It’s more than that, though. Marciano has been essentially adopted as an honorary Rhode Islander, on account of the fact he was from nearby Brockton, Mass., and fought many of his important bouts at the Providence Auditorium.

Tarzan Brown is a big local hero where I come from; his name was still spoken in hushed whispers when I was a boy. In fact he was still living until I was about ten years old. Two time winner of the Boston Marathon, and a contender at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Brown was born in Westerly and a member of the Narragansett Indian Tribe. If he was still around, he’d have been attending that pow-wow I mentioned!

One last thing before I go. With this post I inaugurate a new Rhode Island section of Travalanche! I realized that I have long since attained critical mass for such a thing, between travel oriented posts about favorite places, and posts about notable people who come from my home state. There are over 60 such articles there now. I hope you will check it out. It is here.