Design New England - March/April 2012

antiques written by jill connors • photographed by russ mezikofsky
ESSEX ANEW • A spiffed-up Main Street welcomes shoppers
looking for vintage finds — and the original fried clam
FOR HUNDREDS OF years, Essex, Massachusetts, was famous for its wooden boats. Indeed, it is said that in the mid-1800s, one in every 28 ships sailing under an American flag had been built in this town nestled along the Essex River, some 35 miles north of Boston. Today, antiques shops, not boatyards, bring visitors to its waterfront, where the locals claim there is a greater concentration of such year- round stores — more than 30 in a 1-mile stretch of Main Street — than anywhere in New England. (continued on next page)
vintage hand mirrors
rest atop a 1940s hotel
dresser made of steel
at Andrew Spindler
Antiques, one of the
many shops along
Main Street in Essex.

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