Fairfield Inn
New Bedford, Massachusetts
April 16, 2022
Today’s goal was to get to New Bedford, Massachusetts where I will tour the Titliest Ball Plant 3 on Monday.
Mission accomplished — with several neat stops in route.
US 1 south of Portland is a busy road running through a continuous stream of towns and villages. Having spent the past three weeks away from sprawl, this drive was a bit stressful. I drove through the resort town of Ogunquit which was quite pretty — and busy.
Ogunquit is a resort town in York County, Maine. As of the 2020 census, its population was 1,577.
Ogunquit, which means "beautiful place by the sea" in the indigenous Abenaki language, was first a village within Wells, which was settled in 1641. The first sawmill was established in 1686, and shipbuilding developed along the tidal Ogunquit River. Local shipwrights built schooners, brigs and dories.
At what was then called Fish Cove, near the unnavigable Josias River, fishing was a major livelihood. But the cove was unprotected by a headland or breakwater from Atlantic storms, so fishermen had to protect their boats by hauling them ashore each night. Resolving to create a safe anchorage, they formed the Fish Cove Harbor Association, and dug a channel across land they purchased to connect Fish Cove with the Josias River. When the trench was complete, erosion helped to further widen the passage. The resulting tidewater basin is called Perkins Cove, spanned by a manually operated draw footbridge. With a three and a half-mile beach of pale sand and dunes forming a barrier peninsula, connected to the mainland in 1888 by bridge across the Ogunquit River, the village was discovered by artists. It became a popular art colony and tourist area.
Particularly after 1898, when the Ogunquit Art Colony was established, it was not unusual to see both artists and fishermen working around Perkins Cove. To accommodate summer crowds, several seaside hotels and inns were built. Marginal Way, a scenic trail dating back to the 1920s, runs along the coast from Perkins Cove to Ogunquit Beach. Ogunquit seceded from Wells in 1980 and incorporated as a town. Ogunquit was named America's Best Coastal Small Town in USA Today's 10 Best Readers' Choice 2016.
Ogunquit is a destination for LGBT tourists, with numerous LGBT-owned and -operated hotels, restaurants, bars, theaters, and other businesses. Most of the LGBT-oriented businesses are in the village area of the town.
A July 2016 article in Bloomberg News cited Ogunquit as one of several Maine coastal destinations being visited by "trendsetters and gentrifiers".
Part of Stephen King's The Stand, published in 1978, is set in Ogunquit. The first episode of the 2020 miniseries adaptation is set in the town, though the series was filmed in Vancouver.
I had seen the town of Seabrook, New Hampshire on my map and caught a glimpse of the so named nuclear power plant. One of the more controversial plants when it was being constructed as it close to a large number of people, especially in the summertime.
The Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant, more commonly known as Seabrook Station, is a nuclear power plant located in Seabrook, New Hampshire, United States, approximately 40 miles north of Boston and 10 miles south of Portsmouth. It has operated since 1990. With its 1,244-megawatt electrical output, Seabrook Unit 1 is the largest individual electrical generating unit on the New England power grid. It is the second largest nuclear plant in New England after the two-unit Millstone Nuclear Power Plant in Connecticut.
Two reactors were planned at Seabrook but the first unit didn't begin full operation until 1990, a full 14 years after the construction permit was granted, and the second unit was never built due to construction delays caused by protests, cost overruns, and troubles obtaining financing. The difficulties led to the bankruptcy of Seabrook's utility owner, PSNH.
I have this thing with US 20. I crossed over it today and was tempted to take it to its endpoint in Boston. But I was not up for fighting Boston traffic. When I looked up where it ends, I realized it’s a couple of blocks from Fenway Park and I have already been there.
I stopped at a “service area” to get gas and hit the head. Of course the inside of the building was decorated with mementos from Boston’s sports teams. 😁
My mother’s mother lived in West Roxbury until she passed away in 1969 (I think I have that right). Thanks to my sister Jacquie who had the address of her house, I drove by there today.
West Roxbury is a neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts bordered by Roslindale to the northeast, the town of Brookline to the north, the city of Newton to the northwest and the town of Dedham to the southwest. West Roxbury is often mistakenly confused with Roxbury, but, by around 6 miles, the two are not connected. West Roxbury is separated from Roxbury by Jamaica Plain and Roslindale.
Founded in 1630 (contemporaneously with Boston), West Roxbury was originally part of the town of Roxbury and was mainly used as farmland. West Roxbury seceded from Roxbury in 1851, and was annexed by Boston in 1874. The town included the neighborhoods of Jamaica Plain and Roslindale.
A video of the parkway on the way to my grandmother's house:
West Roxbury's main commercial thoroughfare is Centre Street. West Roxbury Main Streets is a local non-profit that works to enhance and promote the business district. The neighborhood has some two-family houses but mostly single family homes; many of Boston's civil servants live there.
I had nor been to this area in 50 years but I remember this intersection in front of the house. Funny the things we remember.
This was my grandmother’s house.
Pretty house next door:
West Roxbury is home to District E-5 of the Boston Police Department, Boston Emergency Medical Services Ambulance 5 that posts at the intersection of West Roxbury Parkway at Centre St and Paramedic 5 stationed at the Faulkner Hospital provide EMS service, and there are two Boston fire stations, Ladder 25 & Engine 30 on Centre Street and Engine 55 on Washington Street. The Needham Branch of the MBTA Commuter Rail network has three stations in West Roxbury (Bellevue, Highland and West Roxbury). Several MBTA bus lines run through and/or terminate in West Roxbury. A large Veterans Affairs hospital is located opposite the Charles River on the VFW Parkway near the Dedham line. West Roxbury is home to several places of worship, including three Catholic parishes, churches of various Protestant denominations, and a Jewish synagogue.
The neighborhood was home to an experimental transcendentalist Utopian community called Brook Farm, which attracted notable figures including Margaret Fuller and Nathaniel Hawthorne, whose 1852 novel The Blithedale Romance is based on his stay there.
Like its neighboring communities, West Roxbury's residential development grew with the construction of the West Roxbury branch of the Boston and Providence Railroad; the area grew further with the development of electric streetcars.
My destination was New Bedford, home of Titliest Ball Plant 3.
In-person tours of the home of the #1 ball in golf – Titleist Ball Plant 3 – will resume on April 18th!
The global center of Titleist Golf Ball technology and manufacturing, Titleist Ball Plant 3 is located in New Bedford, MA and is home to over 250,000 square feet of engineering innovation. It’s also in the same city where Titleist founder Phil Young introduced the first Titleist golf ball in 1935, driven by the core belief that by implementing a better process he could produce the best performing, most consistent and highest quality golf balls in the game.
New Bedford is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts. It is located on the Acushnet River in what is known as the South Coast region. Up through the 17th century, the area was the territory of the Wampanoag Native American people. English colonists bought the land on which New Bedford would later be built from the Wampanoag in 1652, and the original colonial settlement that would later become the city was founded by English Quakers in the late 17th century. The town of New Bedford itself was officially incorporated in 1787.
During the first half of the 19th century, New Bedford was one of the world's most important whaling ports. At its economic height during this period, New Bedford was the wealthiest city in the world per capita. New Bedford was also a center of abolitionism at this time. The city attracted many freed or escaped African-American slaves, including Frederick Douglass, who lived there from 1838 until 1841. The city also served as the primary setting of Herman Melville's 1851 novel, Moby-Dick. From 1876 to 1900, New Bedford served as the initial home port for the Revenue Cutter School of Instruction, the precursor of the United States Coast Guard Academy.
As of the 2020 United States Census, New Bedford had a population of 101,079, making it the state's ninth-largest city and the largest of the South Coast region. The city is also known for its high concentration of Portuguese Americans. New Bedford remains known for its fishing fleet and accompanying seafood industry, which as of 2019 generated the highest annual value of any fishing port in the United States. The city is also home to the New Bedford Whaling Museum.
The Port of New Bedford has become a significant asset as the offshore wind industry has begun to grow in the United States. New Bedford and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts have been preparing for the offshore wind industry for the past several years. In 2015 the state completed the 2-year construction of the Marine Commerce Terminal, a 29-acre facility built specifically for the construction, assembly, and deployment of offshore wind turbines.
In 2016, Governor Charlie Baker signed the Act to Promote Energy Diversity, allowing for the procurement of up to 1,600 megawatts of offshore wind energy by 2027. And in May 2018, the first winning bid was announced to Vineyard Wind for 800MW of offshore wind energy; Vineyard Wind also signed an 18 month lease with the Marine Commerce Terminal in October 2018.
The Port of New Bedford is poised for the development of the offshore wind industry. As the leading, most valuable commercial fishing industry in the country, New Bedford is also one of few marine industrial working waterfronts on the east coast that is home to a full suite of shoreside services that can support diverse industries.
As the commercial fishing industry continues to consolidate, the Port of New Bedford remains a global hub for landing and processing seafood, supported by ample infrastructure and shoreside services that strengthen the Port’s ability to attract and support new marine industry. While many see the fishing industry as a barrier to offshore wind, we see it as providing us with a competitive advantage – the full supply chain that is already in place to support commercial fishing can also support the offshore wind industry.
As the offshore wind industry continues to develop further south, impacting additional fishing communities, the lessons learned through their work with the Port of New Bedford will only set them up for greater success as they expand operations. Time invested working with the Port of New Bedford to ensure compatibility in shared ocean space with commercial fishermen will save time and effort over the long-term expanding south and in the Pacific Ocean.
Due to our long history as a marine industrial working waterfront, the Port of New Bedford is dedicated to advocating for maritime-based infrastructure needs, maritime-based workforce development, and maritime-based public policy, which also suits the development of offshore wind.
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