The spirit of Salem
No, not that kind of spirit. An influx of restaurants, shops, and condos is unmasking a chic city.
SALEM -- This may be the self-proclaimed "Halloween capital of the world," but Andy and Jackie King will not bake a single witch cookie this year in their new shop, A & J King Artisan Bakers.
The three-month - old bakery, purveyor of such European-style offerings as "chocolate bouchon" and "pain au levain" is taking a stand against witch kitsch. "It would seem out of place for us to bring witches in here," Jackie says. "What would we make, 'Bread of the Seven Gables '?"
A few months ago, this kind of talk might have been heresy in Salem, a city that issues a local guide to "Haunted Happenings" that's 48 pages long. Salem may be forever linked to its infamous 300-year-old witch hunt history but it's not exactly shy about cashing in on it, as one quickly discerns on a stroll down the Essex Street pedestrian mall, replete with psychic fairs, aura photos, seances, tarot card readings, custom fangs, and more witch museums than you could shake a broomstick at.
But the face of Salem is changing, as evidenced by a recent influx of new businesses in the downtown retail area, none of them ghostly or haunted. It's exhibiting the unmistakeable signs of encroaching urban chic, a natural fit for a city that already has fashionable cobblestone streets, a seaside location, plenty of upscale restaurants, and the high-profile Peabody Essex Museum with its grand $125 million renovation that includes an authentic 200-year-old merchant home brought over from China.
Now comes a baby store selling organic diapers. A boutique yarn shop with evening wine parties. An independent bookstore with rotating art exhibits.
"We're hip, you know," declares the city's new mayor, Kimberley Driscoll, who has been in office for 10 months. "We're hip in Salem."
Salem's new look is not unexpected. Two years ago, the city's tourism group hired a Boston consulting firm to reinvent its public image, downplaying the witches and dungeons and championing its art, ships, and architecture.
Driscoll is now at the forefront of this initiative. Among other efforts, she is working with downtown property owners to attract businesses that don't have the word "witch" in their business plan. "If you're a tourist, you need a certain number of T-shirts and crystal balls, but there is more to Salem than just witches," she says. "There is a huge opportunity to have quality retail that is not just related to tourism."
The opportunity has come about, in part, because of a recent condo boom in downtown Salem, which has lured a critical mass of young people priced out of Boston neighborhoods. They are people like Mickey Northcutt, 26, and Jason Burke, 31, who migrated here from a condo in Boston's Fort Point Channel area, which borders South Boston. In March, they bought a luxury condo in Derby Lofts, marketing itself as "the new face of Salem: a mixture of storied history and funky modernity." "The apartment we live in in Salem is not something we would have been able to purchase in Boston," Northcutt says. "It's larger, it's new, and the cost of living is less expensive here."
Their neighbors include Dan and Danene Cronin, who moved here in April from Charlestown. "My place in Charlestown was 750 square feet and it was appraised at $385,000," says Danene, 28. Her new condo is 1,600 square feet, cost $398,000, "and it has granite countertops, cherry cabinets, and the duct work's exposed," she says. "It's pretty cool."
But a "funky modern" lifestyle requires a funky modern infrastructure, and it hasn't taken long for entrepreneurs to jump on the opportunity. Andy and Jackie King were living in Portland, Maine, when they happened to drive through Salem one day, spotted not one but two gourmet pet shops, and knew they'd found a home for their first bakery. "There are certain little things that are good signs, " Andy says. "This indicated there were people with disposable income."
It turns out others were noticing the same signs. Consider the arrival, in August, of Crunchy Granola Baby on Washington Street, a baby supply store specializing in green baby products, such as bamboo crib sheets, that are way ahead of the trend curve. Or Fiddlehead on Front Street, a sleek, minimalist flower shop that opened three weeks ago, owned by interior designer Jacqueline Albanese.
"This is as good if not better than anything you'd see in Boston," says Dirk Reckerman, 27, who was in the shop one afternoon to buy a bouquet of yellow roses; he moved here recently from the Back Bay and commutes to his high-tech job in Boston.
A few steps away is Seed Stitch Fine Yarn on Front Street, a high-end knitting shop. New Civilitea came to Derby Street on July; it's a specialty tea shop. And on nearby Lafayette Street is that increasingly rare entity, an independent bookstore/coffee shop called Cornerstone Books , which hosts author events, live music, and open mike poetry readings.
"I thought about (opening a bookstore) in places like Somerville, Cambridge, and Coolidge Corner," says owner Gilbert Pili . "But they all seemed to be pretty well covered by bookstores, and the rents were high."
Visiting the area on a recent weekday afternoon, the ambie nce seems more Newbury Street than North Shore, save for the distinctive signs of Salem in October -- the parking lot attendant who extends a clawed hand from the booth along with your ticket; or the man striding purposefully to work in a Dracula suit.
The new shops reflect a subtle, insider awareness of all that is current and yes, hip -- a hand-hammered copper table here, a stained cement floor there, the occasional design tour de force, like a tall flower planter at Fiddlehead, filled with 25 pounds of pumpkin seeds. Or the multimedia wall art at Seed Stitch Fine Yarn: It's made out of Italian scarves and hot water bottles.
"Knitting is very couture," says owner Victoria Berkwits , who makes annual pilgrimages to Florence for the European fiber show and sells fibers made from spun soy and bamboo. "If you see something in Vogue magazine, two or three months later, the pattern is out. This is a sophisticated handcraft."
What you don't see in these shops is much that is orange, black, or pointy, though Cornerstone Books does have a prominent display of such books as "In the Devil's Snare" and "Entertaining Satan."
"Obviously, we have some witch material, but there is more history to the area than that," Pili says. "There's Hawthorne. There's the maritime trade. We want to raise the bar a little in town." 