Ernest Morin

Of the Social Contract and Gloucester

Enduring Gloucester 10 Comments

 

 

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Proud American – July 4th Revelry Document Photo / Morin

Of the Social Contract and Gloucester

Ernest Morin

” What is the object of Human society ? Is it to dazzle the eye with an immense production of useful and elegant things ? Is it to cover the seas with ships and the earth with railways ? Is it finally to give two or three individuals out of each 100,000 the power to dispose of wealth that would suffice to maintain in comfort those 100,000 ? “

Simonde de Sismondi – Studies in Political Economy 1818 – 1836

I recently watched a video on You Tube of Gloucester locals on a roof top porch espousing, “We need to elect …   to protect our Money… to protect our Money …” in  the local elections.

You can view it here and form your own opinion :

Rooftop Republicans

I wondered how is it that particular mantra is what’s most important now to Gloucester or as political thought, even.

The social contract as Rousseau framed it essentially explains that in a state of primitive existence man has all rights and no rules nor governance.  In this state of “every man for himself”  fatal conflicts are frequent and inevitable and it’s rule by sheer brute force.

In order to avoid that brutish state, people agreed to form a collective and be ruled, for the mutual gain of all.

The assumed contract is explained in three simple points by the time of philosopher John Locke, whom our founding fathers were influenced by: Life, Liberty and Property – property,  meaning what you labored to make is yours – what’s yours is yours, not communally owned. It originally meant land as property more than material goods.  The right to the ability to grow food and survive was its intent.

Later Property was expanded to mean the pursuit of happiness – the right to exist and achieve whatever your innate and learned capacities could allow.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal” is part of our Constitution’s preamble, yet we know, all men are not created equal in strength, nor intellect,  but should have the right to reach whatever height they can so long as it doesn’t interfere with other’s rights, nor the collective good.

And we also now know that if you are born into the 1 percent now you are not created equal at all in terms of nurture, political power, ability to have freedom, live where you choose, or live a life of leisurely pursuits.

And if you are not born there, social mobility no longer exists. You will have less nurture, less ability to get a quality education, less chance of getting a high paying job, living in a quality neighborhood or not being the equal of an indentured servant to banks for school loans, mortgage and credit card expenses just to stay even. You will also likely be renting not owning for a very long time.  Thus your ability to have a life or liberty or to pursue happiness is far less optimal by birth accident, which the social contract was set up to level towards a more equal equation.

And while these are broad concepts there is universal agreement as to the gist of their meaning.

Prior civilizations understood the social contract. The Roman Empire did not let the top tier of society go below ten percent of the total to maintain itself peacefully for over 500 years. It shared the spoils of wars as well as provided allotments of bread to citizens during hard years.

In an age of machines and cities, the concept of  every man owning land and thus the means to survive doesn’t exist – therefore there is a need for some form of allowing for a means to survive economic swings. We now know the means as the various social programs of current government. Such programs are bound to have some margin of error and unnecessary costs incurred. It’s akin to a restaurant factoring in spoiled food costs as part of doing business.  That cost is inevitable, and you try to minimize it as best you can.

 

With constant progress of technology comes the constant loss of employment and continuous job reductions.  People can’t go back to subsistence farming, as they have no arable land. Provision has to be made or conditions will rightfully lead to revolt and return to anarchy and a brute state.

The problem with current society in a developed nation like the USA is that it has already devolved back to the more primitive state of every man for himself because economically 1 out of every 100,000 commands the bulk of the resources and wealth,  leaving the others scraps to fight over, albeit compared to a third world nation, the scraps are generous.

The elite now operate with little conscience for social consequences of the collective group as a result of that power concentration and its destructive actions.

They no longer believe in a social contract as it has been in the past.

Who needs a social contract if you have extreme wealth?

You can buy elections, private guards, schools, playgrounds, water, anything a government would provide, and get real service. The wealthy do not need to rely on public institutions at all.

If you live in an isolated bubble the notion of a social contract is perhaps meaningless, completely irrelevant.

Why would you want to contribute to maintaining such an antiquated notion in the age of drones. artificial intelligence, robots and G8 summits at Davos?
Or believe the notion of a nation in an age of rampant globalization, which is a mere euphemism for having no corporate national allegiance.  (The actual idea of a nation has only existed since Napoleon. It is relatively new in human terms and perhaps was an anomaly.  They may no longer be viable as we know them. Smaller regional or tribal units were the norm for millennia and existed as such under large empires.)  Are you aware GE paid no US corporate taxes on 19 billion dollars in profits last year?  Or that the major defense contractor Boeing is thinking of moving chunks of its production, outside the US now?  Under such circumstances the whole notion of a “Nation” begins to unravel into nonsense.

When your government leaders and presidential candidates like Mitt Romney keep most of their investments in offshore tax havens, when Congress exempts itself from insider trading for years and the Supreme Court gives corporations rights as people and unlimited ability to influence elections, what does a “Nation” mean aside from suckers to exploit?

It’s a long way from the society of Jeffersonian notions, of our younger democracy or New England town hall meetings.  The age of robber barons wasn’t this warped in terms of income inequality or political power of a minority.  It only took 400 families to contribute the bulk of 250 million to superpacs for the 2016 presidential elections, and many of them donated to both sides. It’s obviously a blatant attempt by the super-rich to buy influence and protect their interests above all.

That is only ten percent of the 1 percent – a tiny fraction of 360 million people living in the USA.

One could label it as: Tyranny of the extreme minority.

The bulk of the 1 percent no longer create, produce or trade any products. They are not entrepreneurial, merely wealthy. Reliance on living off one’s investment income is to lack the drive needed to be prosperous and thus protect wealth.

Hearing  the phrase “to protect our money” repeatedly espoused,  one can’t help but feel that there has been a real shift in the local demographic.

Lost is the moral imperative for the health of the commonwealth being paramount as the political concern.

Lost is any comprehension of being part of the tribe or that we are all in the same boat.

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Spectators at Fiesta- Beach Court Document Photo/Morin

 

It sounds like we may well be headed in the national direction.

This is not the Gloucester I have known in the past.

But then we are merely a microcosm of the USA now, not an island apart from the mainland.  We are suffering from the same dissolution of the social contract, albeit on a smaller scale.

We are becoming less of a working man’s town each year. The demographic is now bipolar, consisting of rich or working poor.

It’s become far less affordable than a mere six years ago. The fact that St. John’s Church and Action, Inc. are both currently exploring affordable housing projects attest to that.

The failings of the social contract will only become more visible here as time goes on.

Gloucester has always been a place where you had to realize you were all in the same boat, far more than surrounding communities, because of the staggering loss of life yearly, for a century or more,  to fishing.

The wealthy here had investments in the boats, shore facilities and banks and were linked to the local industry and workers. They attended worker weddings, baptisms and funerals.

The wealthy and summer residents now are disconnected from the local banking, industry or businesses by and large. They are no longer interwoven in the community in ways wealth was in the past.

We are no longer in the same boat.

Some have bought up the surrounding houses, which they impeccably maintain empty, as investments, not to have neighbors. Something that was inconceivable growing up here as much as the idea of gated enclaves were or the rocks along the back shore being labeled Private when the city always rebuilds the road and shuffles the rocks back, after hurricane storm damage.

That is not healthy for community or maintaining the social contract.

And a lot of the new people recently moved here with no sense of place nor understanding of what’s made Gloucester the Community it is. And indeed they want to change it. It doesn’t suit them the way it is. Frequently you hear they want it to be more like where they just came from.

I fully agree we have plenty of room to improve various aspects of our town. We tend to let it happen more organically based on need or function more than looks or perceived convenience, which is an old New England Yankee conservative value hold over, that is a strong part of our local character.

There is little understanding from the people pushing beautification schemes like the Harbor Walk or other luxury tourism or gentrification scheme changes, that once that’s accomplished it won’t retain the characteristics they moved here for, if they actually stay long enough to experience that change.

It’s obviously not easy to mend the social fabric once structural changes as such occur and people’s allegiance to the social contract dissolve at a national  level.

One shouldn’t have to wait for another great war to have the body politic realize it’s all in the same boat again.

Or that there is still good reason to maintain the Social Contract.

I should hope locally we want to elect new people to have them protect our quality of life here, protect what we value as a community and elect those who will work to strengthen our community, respect its diversity and try to ensure it remains affordable for young people who want to live, work and raise families here.

I also hope that the local mayoral and council races stay non-partisan and whatever party you’re from or its current platform questions do not matter, nor need to be discussed.

Gloucester has always left partisan politics aside, to its merit, and positions on pressing Gloucester problems were the only matter of importance in local elections.

We’ve always operated as a large New England town meeting, in essence,  despite being a city for a long time.

Otherwise Gloucester will turn into just another anywhere USA by the sea summer tourist town for the aging affluent and be but a shadow of a real place.

It’s always been valued as a very real place, which is something that should not be lost or given up easily.

Electing those who would use our collective resources wisely, for the good of all of the residents, is the place to start for maintaining it as “Gloucester” going forward.

Granted, it’s is a bit more democratic notion.  As such, it better adheres to the social contract.

 

Ernest Morin is a native of the City and a socially concerned documentary photographer.

 

 

Remembering Bob Stephenson by Peter Anastas, Ernest Morin & Bing McGilvray

Enduring Gloucester 6 Comments

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Peter Anastas and Bob Stephenson – Florence, Italy 1959

In Memoriam: Robert Douglas “Bob” Stephenson (August 21,1935 – August 9, 2015)

With the death of painter Robert Stephenson on August 9, Gloucester lost one of its most distinctive contemporary artists.  We also lost a great character, a trait that is in short supply these days.

I knew Bob from the Hovey School, where we met in Miss Courant’s fifth grade class in 1947. Even then Bob was drawing and painting constantly.  He was also a wit, who kept us laughing when we should have been concentrating on our studies.   As befits someone as creative as Bob, he was  able to turn both his art and his wit into activities that gained him academic credit.

One of our first projects together was a play we co-wrote for our unit in American history about Captain John Smith and Pocahontas, for which Bob designed the costumes, or rather, adapted them from clothing we borrowed from our mothers—today you might call it “colonial drag.”  Bob’s mother, Cora Douglas, the daughter of New England lighthouse keepers, had a house full of the most interesting artifacts, many of which she and Bob’s late father, Charles Francis Stephenson, had collected during his tours of duty in the diplomatic corps.  In fact, much of Bob’s sophistication, which made him seem so much older and more mature than the rest of us, was the consequence of the family’s having lived abroad.  I suspect these experiences may have played a role in Bob’s becoming an incredibly accomplished linguist during his military career.  It is said that he was proficient in twelve languages, including several dialects.

Once we were in Central Grammar for 7th and 8th grades, our dramatic activities did not cease.  We wrote a play about Julius Caesar, which we performed with an Italian accent, followed by a Nativity play in Yiddish inflected English.  How we got away with what today would be considered politically incorrect behavior is still a mystery to me; but those plays, and others we did together, including a British murder mystery, in which we played Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson with the appropriate British accents, were performed in the school auditorium in front of the entire school body.

During 7th grade Bob and I also initiated an activity that we would pursue well into high school.  We spent every Saturday walking all over Cape Ann.  Beginning with Ravenswood Park, where we explored every trail in detail, we branched out to Dogtown, which we crossed to Rockport many times.   There was not a single Gloucester neighborhood we had not traversed on foot, or any place on the waterfront that we did not come to know intimately.   One of our signal achievements was to have walked entirely around Cape Ann, beginning in downtown Gloucester and walking to Rockport, Pigeon Cove, Lanesville, Bay View, Riverdale and back to Bob’s house on Mansfield Street.

We did it in a single day, carrying water in canteens and packing lunches that our mothers had prepared for us.  There were no cellphones or public phones from which we might report our progress.  Always during these walks we observed nature carefully, gathering specimens of plants and wildflowers or marine life that we examined by microscope in the laboratory I had set up in the basement of my house on Perkins Road.

Looking back on Bob’s artistic career,  it is my belief that his minute depiction of Gloucester places and objects, his grasp of buildings, wharves, rocks, beaches, tidal eddies, surf, trees, bushes, flora and fauna originated in part from the experiences of those walks during which nothing was lost on either of us.  Our early walks resulted in a lifelong habit of my own of walking all over the city of my birth and writing about it in my weekly column for the Gloucester Times, “This Side of the Cut.”

Bob’s artistry was nurtured at Central Grammar by our art teachers, Jean Nugent in 7th grade and Edna Hodgkin’s in 8th.  Both were practicing artists, as was the city’s art supervisor Hale Anthony Johnson, who had taught us all the rudiments of art since first grade, along with the history of the visual arts on Cape Ann.

But it was at Gloucester High School, that amazing WPA modernist building we had the privilege of attending classes in during the 1950s, where Bob came under the influence of Gloucester’s greatest art teacher, the native-born painter Howard Curtis, who was head of the art department.  Comprising an entire wing of the school, the art department had state of the art equipment and the benefit of northern light, because Howard and the preceding art teacher, Muriel Spofford, had insisted to the architects that the original siting of the school be rotated to take advantage of the light itself.

It would be an understatement to say that the influence of Howard Curtis on Bob’s art was profound.  Curtis, a distinguished artist who had exhibited widely, along with painting or restoring earlier murals in city buildings, was a remarkable teacher.  Learned, articulate and engaging, he held sway in his two-room classroom-studio from before school in the morning until late in the afternoon.   In those classrooms, whose walls were hung with the finest examples of world art, you could find students, some of whom did not even study art, in deep conversation with “Mr. Curtis,” as we all respectfully called him.   The subjects were wide and diverse, from the forms of Medieval and Renaissance  painting and questions of perspective to abstract philosophical issues about the origins and fate of man.  Curtis himself was a deeply meditative spiritualist, a mystic, in some ways, as I look back on him.   This part of his nature and his teaching must clearly have had an impact on Bob’s future art, which has a profoundly spiritual dimension, influenced as well by Bob’s immersion in Buddhism, prompted by his time spent in the Far East during his military service.

Taken together, Bob’s encyclopedic knowledge of Gloucester terrain and his spiritual vision, in part the influence of Howard Curtis and in part his Eastern knowledge and practice, provide a lens through which we can view and understand the astounding production of his paintings.  Many were completed in his first studio on the top floor of Brown’s former department store, later in the studio he occupied at the Fitz Henry Lane House, and finally at his remarkable studio on Parsons Street, just off Main, a former garage, which Bob, with the help of friends, converted into a living and working space that took advantage of a marvelous view of the waterfront and wonderful light throughout the day.  It was a studio, like those of the Florentine masters, that was open to all during Bob’s working hours.  It was not unusual to find friends visiting while Bob painted, or a conversation ongoing about the state of the world, about which Bob had many opinions, pungently expressed.

Everyone has a story about Bob, and I will conclude with one of my own.

It was late in 1959.  I was living in Florence, studying Medieval literature at the university and about to begin teaching English at the International Academy.  Bob was stationed in Germany with the US Army.  He wrote to tell me that he had some leave coming and wished to visit me in Florence.  I had not seen Bob since I was in college and he was attending art school in Boston, prior to his induction into the army, so I jumped at the opportunity.  Bob was due to arrive on the Brenner Express, so I went to meet his train at the railroad station.   As I stood on the platform, I observed a group of Germans getting off the train, all of them speaking excitedly in their own language.  Bob was among them, conversing in what I later learned was perfect German.  He was also dressed in German clothing, a gray Loden jacket and a dark green Alpine hat with a feather in it.

Bob stayed in the Pensione Cordova in Via Cavour, where I had been living since early fall.  His room had a marvelous view of the Duomo from its window.  Soon Bob set about drawing everything he saw as we walked (of course) over every inch of the fabulous city that was to become my home for three years.   From his study of art history Bob was familiar with the storied buildings and monuments, and his knowledge of the art was extensive.  As we walked through the galleries of the Uffizi and the Pitti Palace, Bob paused to explain what artists like Botticelli had in mind as they concentrated on the placement of figures or the overall structure of the work.   We explored the interiors of the great cathedrals and churches, from the Duomo to San Miniato, adjacent to which was a vast cemetery which fascinated Bob (my friend Paul Hamilton, who was studying art in Florence took some pictures of us in that cemetery, one of which is posted here).

Back in the pensione, I introduced Bob to another resident, Carlo Cirelli, a young artist from Ferrara, who worked designing shoes for a local company.  When Carlo saw Bob’s drawings and watercolors of Florence he asked Bob if he would ever consider designing shoes.

“I’ll take a crack at it,” Bob said, setting to work with his pencil and watercolors he borrowed from Carlo.   We left him alone for a while, and when he said the design was done, Carlo and I went to look at it.  Instead of an elegant Italian shoe, Bob had painted what looked like a worn out work boot, brown, scuffed and with turned over heels.  Along the edge of the boot he had painted a wooden match stick, inserted between the shoe and the sole.  The match was on fire and would naturally have resulted in a “hot foot” for the wearer of the shoe.  This was Bob at his best, using art to make a point about the vanity of fancy footwear.

I did not see Bob again until his retirement from the military when we were both again living in Gloucester.  From time to time I would visit his Parsons Street studio to see what he had been up to.   When I reminded him about his visit to Florence and the shoe, his eyes twinkled.   “I wouldn’t be surprised if I’d started a fad,” he said.  “You know how clever those Italians are!”

​Peter Anastas​

___________________________________________________________________________________

The Most Original Native Artist of His Time​

by Ernest Morin​

Bob Ste​ph​enson, like F​itz Henry​ Lane​, ​ was a Gloucester boy.  He also shared with Lane a real sense of light and love of the harbor and city. I met him when he had his studio in Lane​’​s house.

Bob Stephenson Photo Courtesy of Greg Cook

Bob Stephenson
Photo Courtesy of Greg Cook

When it came to subject matter however Bob Stephenson was not a realist. His canvas would be a place to situate dream, myth, reality, symbols and spirituality. He would combine an eastern sensibility towards use of space and western techniques of painting with scenes that were both drawn from local reality and greatly fabricated to fit artistically into the Stephenson paradigm, a very original paradigm.

His skill and technique with paint was extreme, he was a master at use of glazing, applying hot near cold color of designing a series of spaces within spaces that had strong push pull, repetitive form, harmony culminating in complex compositions that were layered with meaning.

He also did this in a way that was simple and abstract at heart – in the way an Edward Hopper is real yet truly abstract.

Stephenson labored intensely over 6 or 8 canvases at a time. ​ ​They were works to be pondered, to be massaged, to be coaxed into life one nuance at a time once they were cohesive. His art wasn’t rushed; he didn’t produce product.

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The Fort Community

Enduring Gloucester 3 Comments

by Mike Cook

As July, 3 approaches, I can’t help but hearken back to 1992 when I was living at 51 Fort Square, where I had the honor of being a friend to and, on occasion, taking care of, John Barnes, as he waged his heroic fight against AIDS and then serenely accepted his time had come as he lay comfortably in his bed overlooking Gloucester Harbor and Ten Pound Island.

On July, 3, 1992, it was clear to me and Tanny Martin, our upstairs neighbor and “sister” in the fight against HIV/AIDS, who just happened to be the nurse who coordinated the Visiting Nurses Association of the North Shore’s AIDS home care program, that John was getting ready to leave us.

The previous few days had seen John lapsing more frequently in and out of consciousness. His breathing was becoming more labored, and he would speak openly of how tired he was and how ready he was to move on.

But that said, he never lost his wicked sense of humor. A few nights before his passing, his sister, who was full of anticipatory grief and anxiety, insisted on opening the strong box Johnny kept his personal papers in and had asked be opened only after his death.

John had been sleeping for hours, but almost as soon as his sister opened the box, he opened his eyes and with an impish grin on his face said, “Jesus, Cheryl, you couldn’t even wait til I’m dead!?”

An uncomfortable silence fell briefly over the room, only to be broken by John’s laughter as he told his sister how much he loved her – in spite of her disobedience and nosiness.

By late afternoon on July 3, Tanny encouraged me to take a break, catch some rays on Pavilion Beach, and hang out with coworkers from NUVA at the Horribles Parade.

About mid way through the parade, this intense feeling came over me and I knew I had to get home to 51 -fast. I set out at a full run, trying to make my way through the crowd on the Boulevard – which was no easy task. I was as focused on getting home as I have ever been on anything in my life.

I raced into the Fort and up the hill to 51. As my feet hit the first step, Tanny opened the door and simply said, “He’s gone”.

I went into  his room and sat on the edge of his bed. I remember  whispering, “You still look like Patrick Swayze, even dead you stud muffin you!”

Tanny was in the kitchen on the phone with Dr. Doug Fiero. As an RN, she was able, with Doug collaborating, to declare John dead.

She then called John’s mom who asked if Tanny would call Greeley’s. John’s mom just could not bring herself to do it.

When Tanny hung up the phone with Greeley’s, she came into the room and said, “They can’t get here for a couple of hours because of the traffic from the parade.”

I looked at Tanny and said, “Now what do we do?”

We got to talking about what John would want to wear at his wake – a ritual he wanted no part of but agreed to because he believed it would help his family, especially his mom,  accept the finality of his passing.

So, we went into John’s closet  and perused his wardrobe. We both agreed his black leather jeans, a faded denim shirt, a silver and turquoise bolo tie and a leather vest would be the clothes John would want to spend eternity in, perhaps with the multi-colored boa that was in the closet as an accent piece. But we also knew his mother would be mortified at just the thought of her “Glosta” boy being laid out in such an outfit. So we picked out something more “Glosta” for our friend to wear at, what he often called, his “going away party”.

We then settled into a comfortable silence, sitting on different sides of the bed thinking about how much John had done to educate people, especially young people, about the dangers HIV/AIDS could pose to them if they did not educate themselves and make responsible decisions regarding their behavior.

As the sun set, the hearse came around that 90 degree corner in the Fort just beyond the playground and the reality of what had transpired finally settled in on me.

The staff from Greeley’s came in and were a bit taken aback when Tanny and I not only stayed in the room as they placed John in a body bag, but actually assisted them in doing so.

As all this was going on, two other dear friends and neighbors came racing into the house after they had seen the hearse coming into the Fort. One was actually John’s cousin, and the other a neighbor in the Fort who, along with her two little children, had become part of what was and is a kind of extended family.

Her son, in fact, just weeks before John’s death, had walked with me in the AIDS Walk for John – well, he walked three quarters of the way until, as many eight year olds are wont to do, he began to whine about how tired he was – which resulted in me carrying him on my shoulders for what seemed like an endless trek along the banks of the Charles River. When I see that young man today, all six foot three and a rock solid 240 pounds of him, I can’t help but smile warmly at the image of him wearing a tee shirt he designed for the walk that declared John Barnes was his very best friend and would be “..until the end of time..”.

We all stood by the hearse as the men from Greeley’s put John inside, closed the doors, and started the engine.

As the hearse took John away from 51 for the last time, a loud boom shattered the silence and this enormous burst of purple fireworks seemed to light up the entire Fort. Ever one for both dramatic entrances and exits, to this day I think Johnny timed everything to his liking. Purple, after all, was his favorite color.

In the weeks and months after John’s death, several other leaders in the local fight against AIDS, including Sam Berman, who’d served as the director of what was then called the North Shore AIDS Health Project, passed away or saw their health begin to decline dramatically.

On the one hand, those were pretty somber days for people affected by AIDS in Gloucester, not unlike what is happening today for those people and their families who are bearing the brunt of the heroin/prescription opioid epidemic today. But they were also kind of heady days because they were days that saw people come together in the face of a seemingly insurmountable challenge in ways that made Gloucester stand out as a community – not just within Massachusetts, but across the nation.

The level of cooperation and collaboration that emerged in Gloucester, not just between agencies but between various citizen’s groups and volunteer organizations in response to AIDS, actually became models that the MA Department of Public Health held up for other communities to emulate as they struggled with both the epidemic and the turf issues that often arise, especially among service providers, when significant funding becomes available, and the competition for that funding often causes people to take their eyes off the really important stuff. For the most part, that never happened in Gloucester.

I see something like that happening again today in Gloucester in the face of the heroin/prescription opioid epidemic currently roiling the city. The overall positive response to Chief Campanello’s innovative and courageous shift in police policy regarding drug addiction and the people devastated by it, and the kinds of collaborative efforts between professional service providers, people in recovery, and ordinary Gloucester folk who’ve recognized the old approaches to the drug and addiction issue have failed, are strikingly similar to the kinds of collaboration and cooperation of two decades ago.

As a result Gloucester is, once again, being viewed by other communities, especially here on Cape Cod where the heroin/prescription opioid epidemic is as severe as it is in Gloucester, as a community to emulate in terms of how to address the drug/addiction issue. Chief Campanello’s actions and the response of the wider community have been the topics of both individual conversations and news stories here – most all of them positive.

Gloucester is, once again, showing itself to be a leader in the face of a controversial issue that many people either do not understand or would rather not talk about because they mistakenly view the issue solely through the lens of morality or criminality as opposed to the public health issue it really is.

But beyond Gloucester’s responses to health crises like AIDS and addiction, the kind of community spirit and activism that fueled those responses needs to be tapped into again in the face of the huge socioeconomic and demographic changes bearing down on Gloucester as the decline of the fishing industry leaves Gloucester vulnerable to the kinds of gentrification, real estate speculation, and false belief that a “visitor based” tourism economy is the key to a sustainable future for all the city’s residents.

Nothing, absolutely nothing could be further from the truth.

Anyone who doubts that assertion should just look, as I have said before, at what has happened to once socioeconomically diverse coastal communities like Provincetown, Nantucket, and Newburyport.

 

But what motivated me to write this was a desire, even from a distance, to remind people of what I told John 24 years ago when we lived together at 51. It was then I told him that, if people didn’t keep their guard up, someone with very deep pockets was going to descend on Gloucester and  transform a vibrant, ethnic working class, waterfront neighborhood like Fort Square into little more then an upscale, exclusive harbor front version of Louisburg Square by the Sea,

That someone has arrived and the process is well underway. The only question now is, “How far will people  let that process go and will it be allowed to remake Gloucester into little more than a clone of Newburyport, Provincetown, and Nantucket – where the economies are largely based, to paraphrase Peter Anastas, on the “chimera” of tourism, but the workers in that industry can no longer afford to live in the community where they work?”

People need to be thinking long and hard about that question because the clock is ticking as to whether or not keeping a semblance of the “enduring Gloucester” we love so much is even a possibility.

Still, I am betting Gloucester, given her big heart and even bigger soul, will yet find a way to navigate the social and economic changes bearing down upon her so that she remains a coastal city where all are welcome and able to live and raise their families – not just a select, well heeled few.

 

 

 

 

Mike Cook

 

 

Mike Cook  is a long time liberal and gay rights activist who saw the uniqueness of Gloucester from the first moment he drove over the bridge during his move from Cambridge to Cape Ann in 1991 to run NUVA’s AIDS education and services programs.

 

To the City’s Youth

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An Open letter
To the Youth of the City: A Call to Action

Ernest Morin

 

I took this photograph a few years ago now and it has haunted me since, for it poses a real question about what is actually going on here and seems far more fitting of a Third World port.

Gloucester will be 400 years old, in just nine more years 2023…

What will Gloucester be about in nine more years? Do you wonder as well?

What will you want to celebrate about your city at her 400th birthday ?

I was 13 years old during the city’s 350th celebration and it was a very different city.

No one asked me back then what I wanted the city to be 50 years hence.  If they had, I’m not sure that I would have of thought it would be so different at all at 13, or that being a wharf rat with your Gramps, wouldn’t exist as a common situation.

But the city of my youth is now gone and here we are at a crossroads.  There is no point in lamenting. The question is where do we go from here and how can we best arrive there?

What makes this place special?  How do we hold onto that while also moving forward?

What are the top five or so attributes that make Gloucester unique and a place you want to live in?  Can you hold onto them through the changes you see coming?

What do you see that needs to change to make a life here for your generation to be able to stay here and thrive?

Would you take a moment and consider what you would want as 20- to 30-year-olds living in your city today for work, living places, cultural activity, places to play, and access to shoreline and Dogtown?  How do you define a quality life?  What would it look like and how would it feel?

Because I truly wonder about the type of future we’re building for this child in the photograph, or for the children your generation will raise here.

If you don’t envision it, you won’t stand a chance of making it happen.

If you don’t act on your vision you will lose your city as you know it.

Much like my generation now has.  Despite strong late attempts to forestall the Government’s regulatory schemes, we have suffered the loss of industry along with the proud independent way of life that was prevalent for over 380 years.  How much longer are we to be the “Fighting Fisherman” of Gloucester?

This place has always stood for something.  Since its very inception it’s had strong values for both hard work and hard living and been a vibrant city with entrepreneurial spirit and a lot of creative energies.

Maintaining a city requires dedication and effort and you have to start now as a generation, you can’t leave it to others. You have to take care of your home, and the city is also your home. Few of my generation did so and we are paying the price now.

Pick up the torch, take control of your future, get involved, define your vision

and then commit to acting on it.  Work to see that your city government is transparent and accountable to you.

But don’t let the lack of vision within the city allow it to be less than it could be or be developed into a city you don’t want to live in or don’t see yourselves fitting into.

Many cities across the nation are facing the same challenges. How we respond to it defines character.

Gloucester as a place has never lacked character.

So what do you want your Gloucester to be?

How can you build a future to be proud about in 2023 in 2073?

You have to figure it out, if you are to stay here so that the city can function as the living organism cities are. The older generations will certainly help you along the way, as that is the Gloucester way.

So I ask you to contribute to this blog.  Write about how you feel.  Join the dialog and start working toward building a consensus on how you can affect the changes you want most and make Gloucester endure as a city that you can build a richer quality life in—one you can feel good about leaving to future generations.

Gloucester should endure as Gloucester

It’s your home.  Only you can take care of her and see to that.

 

 


Ernest Morin Is a native of the City and a socially concerned documentary photographer.

Gloucester, I Ask You-What is Art? by Ernest Morin

Enduring Gloucester 1 Comment
10f47-ernieGloucester, I Ask You-What is Art?

Art—one of the least—defined terms here,  and yet we claim to be an Arts city.

There is no clear answer as to what is meant here by helping or supporting the Arts, which arts, and  at what level of execution ?

What is craft or product versus Art or Fine Art ?

If the city intends to market itself as a center where world class artists can live and work , what exactly does this mean ?

Because depending on what you include, and  at what skill level,  you will be targeting very different people and outcomes.

To blindly go forth is erroneous and futile.

This city has a history that’s often talked about which includes
Painters Winslow Homer, Fitz H Lane, Edward Hopper, John Sloan, Mark Rothko
Photographers Ansel Adams, Harry Callahan, Gordon Parks
Musicians Miles Davis, Herb Pomeroy
Poet Charles Olson

All people at the top of their game in their mediums.

We currently have a number of well -known artists living here,  some with Guggenheim awards, a few nationally or internationally recognized ones without.

Can anyone name them ?

Have they had shows at the local museum contemporary wing ?

Is their work truly supported here ?
Seen here ? Celebrated here ?

In Japan they’d be seen as national treasures of real cultural importance.

What is the general public view of our best artists here ?

Of artists in general ?

Of Public Art recently ?

Is it really a supportive community,  or merely for a certain type of Art  among a small set of people in only minor ways ?

How we define what Gloucester should stand for as a so- called Arts community is of the utmost importance given the number of new cultural district assignments on Cape Ann and what appears to be an intent to use the arts to drive some economic gains for the city.

If what’s meant is Arts and Crafts,  then that needs to be clearly stated and elevated to a height worthy of being an area of destination of distinction.

If it’s meant to be Art of the highest caliber in a medium,  then the focus and support needed to achieve that status has to be properly assessed, planned for, and marketed to.

As an Artist, I’d say Gloucester is not a city I’d deem very supportive of its best talent.  It’s more a place that tends to be proud those people live here,  and offers them the ability to be left alone to do their work.

The city has a history of ignoring its top talent, Hopper and Sloan were refused by the local museum in their time, Charles Olson as well.  I could name existing people working here today who have been shown at Decordova Museum in Lincoln, MA or in New York, but not offered such here.

So it’s always curious to me, as a working artist,  to hear “Gloucester is a real Arts town.”

Please define both Real and Arts before we plunge into marketing for Tourism or Cultural Tourism or Art Therapy Tourism or whatever terms they will apply next, to use the Arts to bring salvation to Down Town.

Excuse me—Harbor Town,  lest I forget we were recently renamed for a smart PR angle already.
Ernest Morin is a native of the City and a socially concerned documentary photographer.
5f21b-ernie

An Open Letter

Enduring Gloucester 5 Comments
An Open letter
To the Youth of the City: a call to action
Ernest Morin
 
I took this photograph a few years ago now and it has haunted me since, for it poses a real question about what is actually going on here and seems far more fitting of a Third World port. 
 
Gloucester will be 400 years old, in just nine more years 2023… 
 
What will Gloucester be about in nine more years? Do you wonder as well?
 
What will you want to celebrate about your city at her 400th birthday ? 
 



 
I was 13 years old during the city’s 350th celebration and it was a very different city. 
 
No one asked me back then what I wanted the city to be 50 years hence.  If they had, I’m not sure that I would have of thought it would be so different at all at 13, or that being a wharf rat with your Gramps, wouldn’t exist as a common situation. 
 
But the city of my youth is now gone and here we are at a crossroads.  There is no point in lamenting. The question is where do we go from here and how can we best arrive there? 
 
What makes this place special?  How do we hold onto that while also moving forward? 
 
What are the top five or so attributes that make Gloucester unique and a place you want to live in?  Can you hold onto them through the changes you see coming?
 
What do you see that needs to change to make a life here for your generation to be able to stay here and thrive?
 
Would you take a moment and consider what you would want as 20- to 30-year-olds living in your city today for work, living places, cultural activity, places to play, and access to shoreline and Dogtown?  How do you define a quality life?  What would it look like and how would it feel? 
 
Because I truly wonder about the type of future we’re building for this child in the photograph, or for the children your generation will raise here.
 
If you don’t envision it, you won’t stand a chance of making it happen. 
 
If you don’t act on your vision you will lose your city as you know it. 
 
Much like my generation now has.  Despite strong late attempts to forestall the Government’s regulatory schemes, we have suffered the loss of industry along with the proud independent way of life that was prevalent for over 380 years.  How much longer are we to be the “Fighting Fisherman” of Gloucester? 
 
This place has always stood for something.  Since its very inception it’s had strong values for both hard work and hard living and been a vibrant city with entrepreneurial spirit and a lot of creative energies. 
 
Maintaining a city requires dedication and effort and you have to start now as a generation, you can’t leave it to others. You have to take care of your home, and the city is also your home. Few of my generation did so and we are paying the price now. 
 
Pick up the torch, take control of your future, get involved, define your vision 
and then commit to acting on it.  Work to see that your city government is transparent and accountable to you. 
 
But don’t let the lack of vision within the city allow it to be less than it could be or be developed into a city you don’t want to live in or don’t see yourselves fitting into. 
 
Many cities across the nation are facing the same challenges. How we respond to it defines character. 
 
Gloucester as a place has never lacked character. 
 
So what do you want your Gloucester to be? 
 
How can you build a future to be proud about in 2023 in 2073? 
 
You have to figure it out, if you are to stay here so that the city can function as the living organism cities are. The older generations will certainly help you along the way, as that is the Gloucester way. 
 
So I ask you to contribute to this blog.  Write about how you feel.  Join the dialog and start working toward building a consensus on how you can affect the changes you want most and make Gloucester endure as a city that you can build a richer quality life in—one you can feel good about leaving to future generations. 
 
Gloucester should endure as Gloucester 
It’s your home.  Only you can take care of her and see to that. 


Ernest Morin Is a native of the City and a socially concerned documentary photographer.