Monday, September 17, 2007

Gone But Not Forgotten

In the spring I wrote a post about what we like to do and where we like to go on Cape Cod. I’m always glad to return to the Cape and find that so much still remains the same as it was when I first started coming here 50 years ago. (50 years ago! Man, I feel old).

However, it is inevitable that with the passage of time, changes do take place. And sadly, not everything remains from my younger years. So in this post I’d like to talk about some of the places that have disappeared during my lifetime, such as:

The Parking Lot at the Coast Guard Beach: When I came here with my parents as a child, we usually went to the Bay beaches. The waters were calmer there, and the conditions were ideal for a young child. The low tide brought the flats and the tidal pools where the hermit crabs and little lady crabs came out to forage for food, and provided hours of entertainment for my 7 or 8-year-old self.

But at least once or twice during every trip we did go to the more formidable ocean side, either to Nauset Beach, with its distinctive red and white lighthouse, or to the Coast Guard Beach, with the old Coast Guard building overlooking the ocean.

The summer I was 17, right before I went off to college, we came up to the Cape with my two best friends from home, since I was then at the age where being with my parents exclusively for two weeks was just not considered fun.

My friends and I liked the ocean beaches better than the Bay beaches at this stage of our lives. In particular, we liked the Coast Guard Beach. There were hunky lifeguards keeping watch over the summer hordes, perched on tall white chairs overlooking the beach, so we always begged my parents to take us to that beach instead of the Bay. I remember my parents driving the three of us to the Coast Guard Beach, and us all piling out of the car in the parking lot which abutted the beach. The year was 1971.

Seven years later, the blizzard of the winter of 1978 washed away the entire Coast Guard Beach parking lot into the ocean. It was that same storm that washed away Henry Beston’s Outermost House, the subject of a well-known book.

Now in order to access the Coast Guard Beach, you either have to park up above by the old Coast Guard building and walk on a long boardwalk down to the beach, or, in the busy season, take a shuttle bus from a parking lot a mile down the road. A group of educational plaques near the Coast Guard building commemorates the Northeaster of 1978 with pictures of the old parking lot and the devastation afterward, along with views of the Outermost House, which once stood on the nearby marsh.

The Flagship Restaurant: The Flagship was founded in 1930, not long after my mother started coming to the Cape with her own family. When my parents and I came to the Cape she kept up the family tradition and we always paid at least one visit to The Flagship during every trip.

It was a big place on a pier overlooking the Bay in Provincetown, with pilings underneath holding up the building. The bar was made from an old fishing dory, and the walls and ceilings were festooned with fishing nets with shells in them, buoys, and other nautical accoutrements. The tables were covered with white tablecloths and the food a nice mix of typical seafood (lobsters with drawn butter, fresh fish) and some Portuguese and Spanish specialties. I remember my mother used to get adventurous and order paella, which was the first time I’d heard of this dish. We would sit there enjoying our dinner and gazing out at the sunset over the water.

After my husband and I started coming to the Cape, we always made a point of going to The Flagship. Altogether my family, starting with my mother, had been going to this restaurant for about 60 years.

Eventually The Flagship closed and reopened under another name – The Dancing Lobster. But the sign still had “at the Flagship” underneath. After a couple of years, that restaurant moved out and another took its place. And then another. The décor changed, the food changed, the Flagship name disappeared, but the restaurant continued on and the old dory bar remained.

Then about two years ago the restaurant apparently closed for good. Now there is an art gallery upstairs, but the restaurant remains closed, perhaps never to open again; apparently it is being converted to residential use. A Provincetown institution has finally ended.

The Nauset Light Diner: When DH and I first started coming to the Cape in 1984, we used to go out to breakfast a lot. And our favorite place to go was the Nauset Light Diner, on the corner of Route 6. It was in a little strip mall full of white clapboard and shingled buildings, including the post office and a little general store.

The diner was at the light at the intersection where the road led off to Nauset Beach. So we used to joke that the Nauset Light Diner was named after the traffic light, rather than the lighthouse. The place had great eggs, bacon and other typical breakfast dishes. We would get a seat by the window and relax and enjoy our breakfast.

Today, the Nauset Light Diner is long gone – replaced by a Ben & Jerry’s and a Dunkin’ Donuts. But they are still housed in the same white clapboard building and the atmosphere of the little commercial strip has not changed otherwise. So now we stop and get ice cream cones at Ben & Jerry’s and reminisce about the old Nauset Light Diner, while young families congregate there creating their own memories.

The Moors: This was a wonderful old restaurant way out on the tip of the Cape outside of Provincetown that DH and I discovered during one of the summers that The Flagship was undergoing one of its transformations.

We liked The Moors because it had a lot of the atmosphere of the old Flagship, with the buoys and the fishing nets hanging from the walls. It wasn’t actually on the bay like The Flagship, but was across the street from it. The Moors also had a fairly large complement of Portuguese dishes, as well as excellent seafood. Even when The Flagship reopened we continued to go to The Moors as well during our trips to the Cape.

The restaurant was always busy and sometimes we had to wait to get in. So we were surprised one year to find it closed tight. It has since been torn down and replaced by condominiums. An article in the Boston Globe in 2005 described the end of the Moors as follows:

"Built in 1939, the Moors, owned and run by the Costa family, became known for its nightly sing-alongs, jazz brunches, and live entertainment. It was by locals, for locals, and for this it was loved. But when Mylan Costa -- tired of decades in the restaurant business -- sold it in 1998, it did not take long for it to be demolished. The site is now a complex of eight condominiums called the Village at the Moors.

''The condo-ization of Provincetown is hurting it," said Costa, who lives in North Eastham. ''I think it is becoming another Nantucket. Nantucket's nice. Believe me. It's a nice place. But it's definitely changing the makeup of the town. It's not a funky village anymore. That's gone forever. It's a commercial product now.""


The Orleans Army-Navy Store: This is the most recent casualty of progress. When we came up in the spring we found it was closing. I don’t remember how long it had been there; I recall it always being there on the road on the way into Orleans.

It wasn’t a big place, but it was chock full of eclectic merchandise. On the first floor were the more conventional items – sweatshirts, bandanas, pants. Upstairs was the real treasure trove: old gas masks and uniforms from forgotten wars, canteens, ammunition cases, and more. It was a great place to poke around on a rainy day, as well as a source of useful equipment.

For instance, it was at the Army-Navy store that we bought a case that we currently use for our camera case; and it was there that we bought Diva’s “dog tags” – real dog tags, army-style, imprinted with her name, our address and phone number.

Probably the store couldn’t keep up with the prevalence of the casual clothes now available at every store, or perhaps kids nowadays don’t relish the explorations into the past that the upstairs collection afforded. For whatever reason, it is now closed, another place from my childhood that is gone but not forgotten.














I’m sure there are many other places that have come and gone since I started coming to the Cape as a child, but these are the ones that stick in my memory.

But, as the French say, “Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose” – the more things change, the more they remain the same. I see little kids on the Bay beaches playing in the tidal pools collecting hermit crabs in pails just as I did, I see families piling into the Lobster Pool restaurant (See ‘Em Swim) just as we did. I see them going on the National Seashore nature walks and playing miniature golf, and doing all the other things I did as a child.

And I know that until this big sand bar called Cape Cod eventually dissolves into the sea, that the changes that occur will never really change the Cape. The ocean and the dunes and the wind and the sky are what matter, and they are still here.

17 comments:

pissed off patricia said...

I love the way you brought your post to a close.

Change wouldn't be so bad if what replaced it was different and unique. Instead every town is beginning to look alike. The same chain stores and the same look to them. Malls look alike all over the country as do donut shops, coffee shops etc. That to me is the saddest part. No matter where I go, it looks almost exactly the same as where I've been.

Fran said...

What a great post... I was completely drawn in.

Like PoP says... it is not the change that is bad, it is what the change is often to.

Everything is the same, even when I travel to other parts of the world, sometimes remote places.

That is sad.

Joe said...

While in most cases change can be good, when it comes to historical locations, change is almost always bad.

Thanks for sharing your post. :)

denverdoc said...

Well PO'd Pat said it for me--a wonderful post with just the right conclusion. Even though I've never been to Cape Cod, I can so relate to the nostalgia of going places (particularly with my children) where I went as a child and finding them changed. Changed or not, however, time for new memories to be formed.

There's one diorama in the Denver Museum of Nature & Science where polar bears are gathered around their dinner--a ribbon seal dead on the ice. The light on the horizon is orange and dim, probably the middle of a winter day. That scene was my favorite. I took my daughter there and she gave it the big 'ho hum,' opting instead to be enthralled at each visit, with the pack of wolves sculpture outside. Didn't even exist when I was young. Same enchantment, different visual.

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose indeed!!

The Future Was Yesterday said...

"The ocean and the dunes and the wind and the sky are what matter, and they are still here."
The original owners, you could say.

It's said change is inevitable, but that doesn't stop it from hurting our memories, does it?

Mary Ellen said...

The first time I ever saw the ocean was when I went on an anniversary trip which started in Boston and then we rented a car and stayed at various Bed and Breakfast's up the coast. We stayed at one in Cape Cod that happened to be on Main Street and a short walk to the beach. It just so happened to be right in front of the bus stop that brought tourists to the pier to take the ferry, however. Unfortunately for us, the bus ran almost all night....every hour on the hour. When it came to it's complete stop at the sign in front of our Bed and Breakfast (and our room was facing the front of the building), it revved up it's motor and spewed its fumes for all of us to take in. When going down to breakfast with the rest of the occupants, we all looked like we were ready to drop...no one slept that night! Other than that, it was a great place and we still had a blast.

I didn't like swimming in the salty ocean, though. Ick!

Mauigirl said...

Thanks so much for all the comments. I agree, the homogenization of America - and the world - is very sad. So far "our" part of the Cape has escaped the chain store phenomenon for the most part. The hardware store in Orleans is still Snow's - not Home Depot. And there are no McDonalds in sight. But of course, if you go down near Hyannis and that area, it's all there.

One of the things that has kept the Lower Cape (as the part sticking out into the ocean is known around these parts) from being completely ruined is the National Seashore. Back in the early 60's President Kennedy got a whole lot of the oceanfront property from about Orleans on down to Provincetown designated a national park. No new development. No condos on the ocean. The only things allowed to be there are those cottages that were grandfathered in. So this helps a lot. I know what it could look like...I'm from New Jersey and many parts of our Jersey shore are nothing but cottages, condos, amusement parks, and boardwalks.

Evil Spock said...

Yeah, one of the things I liked about the Cape is that there were very few corporate entities out there; lots of mom & pops.

As a child, my parents used to take me to Destin, FL. before it became a big tourist trap.

I remember playing in the dunes and fishing off of piers. Sadly its inundated with big condos and gaudy chain restaurants, which are pretty much touristy Long John Silvers.

Odessa said...

ah, i'm so jealous that your on vacation right now! =) i've never been to cape cod, so thanks for giving me a glimpse of this beautiful place. hope you had fun!

42yrold said...

You make me want to go there. never done any large scale east coast trippin' ...

Mauigirl said...

Hello again! We are on our way home again and are staying a night to go to our Portuguese restaurant in Fall River before heading back to New Jersey. We stopped here on the way up but it was too late to go hear the fado music so we made sure we'd have time on the way back.

Glad you all enjoyed the descriptions of Cape Cod. Am looking forward to visiting everyone's blogs again now that I'm in internet range! It's amazing how fast the time goes when I'm sitting at a cafe with wi fi and feeling guilty after my cappuccino has run out!

Anonymous said...

I'm the owner of the daughter of the Army Navy Store in Orleans. I just googled it out of curiosity...thank you for what you wrote I miss the store terribly, it is a childhood memory to me as well. My dad closed it to retire and the economy was tanking at the time. Cleaning out the store took months! Best wishes, Elizabeth

Mauigirl said...

Elizabeth, I just saw your comment here - a few years after the fact! Thank you for giving me an update on the Army Navy Store and why it closed. Best wishes,
Mauigirl (Mimi)

Chuck Stephens said...

Great post, I feel the same about the Cape, it’s timeless. However, it was a crime when the Moors was closed. Like you we went for our traditional summer visit and it was closed. For condos no less. We had eaten there and enjoyed their amazing food for twenty five years. They had a dish, scallops In croute, that I still think about. Several years later we found out that Lenny, their piano man had passed away and we were sorry to hear this. We have seen places come and go in Ptown, but losing the Moors was the toughest loss...

Chuck Stephens said...

By the way Maui Girl, Thanks for the memories, I’m Glad someone else remembers the Moors...

Anonymous said...

I have not been to PTown in MANY years. But I had two places I loved to eat, Café Edwige and the Moors. Just looked it up and was sorry to see it is gone. I can't remember the entrée but I do remember the guy coming around with the kettle with the corn on the cob! I loved it.

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