Atlantic Heights WWI Shipbuilder Neighborhood Story Told in Book |
HISTORY MATTERS
Not many low-rent neighborhoods are designed by high-minded architects. And few get to be the topic of an entire book. But back in 1985 Prof. Richard Candee of
Don’t worry, you can get it cheaper. This month, finally, Atlantic Heights: A World War I Shipbuilder’s Community has been re-released by the Portsmouth Marine Society Press. The paperback edition sells for $20. And with it comes a chance to tell this unique story all over again.
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THE BOOK IS BACK!
A limited number of copies of Prof. Richard M. Candee’s reprinted Atlantic Heights: A World War I Shipbuilder’s Community will be available for sale at Discover Portsmouth,
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An English village setting
It looks vaguely like an English village poised above the dark
“I remember we were coming across the I-95 bridge from
Only one road,
That design concept evolved from the work of English town planner Sir Ebenezer Howard, who imagined ideal self-sustaining villages adjacent to industrial work areas. Transplanted to
With World War I raging, the federal government needed lots of large new freighters built quickly. The Atlantic Corporation, located in an old paper factory on the
The original complex included 278 units in 150 detached, semi-detached and row houses with one to six families per building. There was also a series of worker dormitories, a brick store block, cafeteria and school. Workers walked en masse to the shipyard nearby, or traveled by trolley. But the war ended suddenly and The Atlantic Corporation closed quickly thereafter. The entire government-owned housing complex was sold a few years later in a two-day auction. A colorful poster picturing
CONTINUE First Federal Housing History
Won’t you be my neighbor?
The Heights today looks much as it did in its original 1918 architectural sketches and is now officially on the National Register of Historic Places. Unlike typical
Former resident Donald Hersey, a retired postman, recalls the changes he witnessed after moving to
“This was not a desirable place to live,” he remembers. “We were definitely second-class citizens.”
The Atlantic Heights Neighborhood Association now meets regular to hash out local issues. They sponsor holiday block parties, yard sales and a well-attended pocket garden tour. Members exchange information on the best home repair vendors, lobby for group heating oil discounts and host political discussions with local candidates. The association has its own Facebook page and an email “list serve.” If a car is seen moving dangerously fast through the neighborhood streets, one Heights resident notes, 60 people will know instantly via the Internet and the offender’s license plate number turned over to the police. If a skunk or coyote is on the prowl, neighbors know.
“You can’t buy what this neighborhood offers,” one homeowner says. “We have every kind of diversity – ethnic, sexual, social, economic, age. I am friends with a woman who has lived in
The brick village layout is repetitive, but not stark. The streets conform to the curve of the land and, although the houses are alike, no street or grouping is identical. Six distinct house styles are disbursed around the neighborhood, incorporating architectural details borrowed from historic colonial homes of
Now retired, historian Candee notes that the inherent neighborliness of today’s residents proves that the progressive designers at the turn of the last century knew what they were doing. Under the guise of a war emergency during Democrat Woodrow Wilson’s presidency, Candee explains, a group of social reformers were able to rapidly envision, fund and build the village.
“They are beautifully designed as a landscape,” says Candee, an architectural historian, “and extremely well built. The homes are in solid shape and that has kept this from being a tear-down neighborhood.”
“The Heights” is not for everyone. Most units, with two rooms up and two rooms down, are no larger than a city apartment. The original architect’s notes, now in the National Archives, Candee says, suggested that the living rooms should accommodate no more furniture than the family could haul in a small pickup truck. Larger rooms, the designers concluded, would make the homes attractive to middle-class families who would then buy them out from under their blue collar occupants. No one back then envisioned two-car families, wide-screen TVs, kitchen islands, or large plush sofas. While a few homes have seen extensive additions in recent years, most sit on a footprint too small for growth.
CONTINUE Atlantic Heights low-income houseing
Gentrified but much the same
“It’s a real house that’s apartment sized,” Candee says.
Marion Fritz, 88, recalls that
“After the War we paid $26.50 rent a month which was what my husband was making at the shipyard in 1945. I don’t know how we got by, but we did,” Fritz says. “It was an ideal spot to raise children. We weren’t professionals. None of us were rich up here, but everybody kept their house nice. I never felt that I was a second-class citizen.”
Back then, Fritz says, all the children attended the
Most longtime residents agree that
Clearly the neighborhood is gentrified. New and longtime members of the community still enjoy trading tales of changing prices. The 1925 sales poster shows that units were then renting for as low as $6 per month. Today that figure hovers over $1,000. Don Hersey remembers when a local developer bought four run-down
Don Hersey, who lived in four Atlantic Heights homes before retiring to Florida, says he knew, even when kids poked fun, that he came from one of Portsmouth’s coolest neighborhoods. Having seen his investment grow four thousand percent, he reminds us that -- he who laughs last, laughs best.
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Copyright © 2012 by J. Dennis Robinson, all rights reserved. Robinson’s history column appears in the