Peterborough: Influences From the Mid 1970's
In the last year I’ve gotten reacquainted with Peterborough. The people here are so polite, you’d think it was in Canada. Walking down the sidewalk, if you so much as glance at the curb, traffic comes to a screeching halt in anticipation that you might want to cross the street. People smile at you in a way that in larger cities would make you suspicious. There's great food, interesting shops - no wonder folks insist it's a "good town to live in."
I first came to Peterborough in 1975. I was working at the newly opened Folkway Restaurant and Coffeehouse, which went on to become not only a local treasure, but a nationally renowned folk music club. The story of the Folkway (which closed in the mid 90's) is its own tale.
Also in 1975 Byte magazine was started – a publication that, more than any other, facilitated the emergence of the age of the personal computer. The Byte folks (just a handful at first) took most of their meals at the Folkway, and I got to know them pretty well. Byte eventually left Peterborough, and while it still exists as an online entity today, it is not really tended to, and more or less lies dormant (that too, is its own tale, for another time).
Peterborough was quite a bit different then. Everything you need could be purchased right in Depot Square: The A & P, the lumber yard, and of course Derby’s, who carried anything that wasn’t lumber or groceries. I think that that the Folkway and Byte represented the forces of change that eventually enabled Depot Square to become what it is today – gentrified, to be sure, but in a wholesome sort of way.
On one hand, Folkway took counter-culture and made it somewhat respectable. Conversely it also siphoned down a bit of haute cuisine and made it accessible to "common folk". I believe it was the first restaurant in the region to serve quiche, and the salads bordered on the exotic. Byte brought in an influx of the a new breed of technical elite and over a short period of time nourished a new breed of publishing professionals as well - teaching new skills to folks who might not otherwise have had the opportunity, and creating an environment for a plethora of other publications (technical and otherwise). Most of them were short-lived, but when they disappeared, in many cases the talent stayed around, finding work as freelance writers, editors and designers, many of whom still enrich the work force.
It would be interesting to hear from folks who remember the Folkway/Byte era – what are your thoughts about how Peterborough evolved as a result of those influences? What else was going on at the time that I missed? Of course there are things going on today that are setting the stage for changes that we will reflect back on in another 30 years, just as there were people in the mid seventies who no doubt noted earlier steps in the evolution of the town. What’s your prediction?
Bravo Gordon, I thoroughly enjoyed your blog about Peterborough in the mid '70s, having lived there at that time and on the brink of major life changes myself, as was the town. For me there was a another agent of change in P'boro that affected me most deeply. It was Mike Goldman's drugstore, which occupied the space roughly where the bank offices are now on Main Street.
I visited Mike's drugstore from 1971 through 1976 (until he became too ill to work), ostensibly to pick up various prescriptions for my three young children when they needed them - but more often for the camaraderie, the always interesting and provocative conversations that spontaneously happened around Mike's coffeepot. I met so many interesting people there -- including a number of MacDowell Colony residents, Gov. Walter Peterson, Art and R. M. Eldredge who held wonderful jazz concerts in their barn, as well as an oddball assortment of like-minded townfolk and others passing through who created a small, ever-changing, subversive community of questioners, agitators, art lovers and artists, Democrats all in a Republican stronghold -- a haven at that time in my life as a stranger in what then seemed to me a closed, conservative, propriety-serving town.
I would come to regard Peterborough very differently, revel in the Folkway's nouvelle cuisine, and absorb computer know-how at BYTE and thereby launch a durable career throughout my 38 years spent in and around the Monadnock region, my home. How I came to love and make my home here is another tale, as you are wont say, but one whose beginning and circuitous plot started with the heady brew served by Mike Goldman in the rarified atmosphere around his drugstore table. Is there anyone else who remembers those times?