De Hirsh Margules, Mother Ann Lighthouse, Eastern Point, Gloucester, 1946. Gouache on paper. Gift of Jean M. Horblit, 2002. [Acc. #2002.004.002]
Boston Globe: First light to last light: The arc of a perfect summer day in Gloucester
By David Lyon and Patricia Harris, June 13, 2025
GLOUCESTER — The long days of summer are upon us, so you’ll have to get up early to catch the full arc of the day in Gloucester. That’s OK. It will be worth it. Thanks to the convoluted Cape Ann coastline, you won’t even have to leave town to experience both sunrise and sunset.
At Long Beach, the day’s first glimmer of light rims the horizon beyond the twin lighthouse towers of Thacher Island. You might treat yourself to a room at the Cape Ann Motor Inn and watch the sunrise from your own balcony. You could even bring Fido, since the motel is pet-friendly and leashed dogs are welcome on the motel’s stretch of beach. Slightly farther south, Good Harbor Beach, backed by dramatic rolling sand dunes, makes an equally good vantage. Unlike Long Beach, Good Harbor has a large municipal parking lot. This much longer beach of powdery sand also has a bathhouse.
There’s no shame in settling down on either beach for the morning, then packing up your beach chairs and following the sun. But if you’re feeling more ambitious, Gloucester has plenty to fill the day. By the time you’ve walked the length of Good Harbor Beach, Cape Ann Coffees will be opening at 6 a.m. At the other end of the harbor, Mom’s Kitchen starts dishing pancakes and eggs at 5 a.m. What can we say? Fisherfolk start early.
While the rest of Gloucester is waking up, walk off the breakfast carbs by hiking the trails in Dogtown. Every town deserves a mysterious, spooky wood, and Dogtown is Gloucester’s. Site of the 17th-century settlement, the ghost town sits atop a glacial moraine. Trees and shrubs have overgrown the vast boulder field since this inland village was abandoned about 200 years ago as Gloucester sought its living from the sea. Yet cellar holes and patches of ornamental flowering plants and fruit trees persist as silent witnesses to lives once lived here. The “Babson Boulder Trail″ is the most popular way to explore Dogtown. Look for massive stones inscribed with inspirational words — “Truth,″ “Kindness,″ “Prosperity,″ and so on. They are the work of Depression-era unemployed stone cutters hired by Gloucester native Roger Babson.
Gloucester may be one of America’s oldest European settlements, but the English were hardly the first to live here. At the Cape Ann Museum Green campus, located between Dogtown and the Route 128 traffic circle, a contemporary art wetu (a traditional Indigenous dwelling) and a stone mush8n (a wooden version of an Indigenous dugout canoe) nod to earlier occupants of the land. The brightly painted wetu contrasts with the weathered clapboards of the adjacent 1710 White-Ellery saltbox house. Although the downtown location of the museum remains closed for renovation until 2026, CAM Green offers tours of the White-Ellery House and mounts changing exhibitions in its soaring, light-filled gallery building.
By now you’ve probably caught on that Gloucester is a pretty special place. So it’s no surprise that the glorious light has long drawn artists to town. Starting in the mid-19th century, artists have flocked to Rocky Neck, a small peninsula poking out into Gloucester Harbor. It claims to be “one of America’s oldest working art colonies.″
Rocky Neck is a compact spit, easily walked from the municipal parking lot on Rocky Neck Avenue. Check out the former studio of Marsden Hartley at 9 Rocky Neck Ave., now a private home. He spent summers here in the 1930s and often painted the glacial moraine of Dogtown. The former studio of A.W. Buhler at 17 Rocky Neck Ave. is now a gallery. Buhler is best remembered for his painting “Man at the Wheel,″ the inspiration for Gloucester’s iconic Fisherman’s Memorial statue. Take a short detour to 2 Clarendon St. to see the house that Edward Hopper painted as “The Mansard Roof.″ Or just wander the galleries and shops, including the sleek gallery and wine bar called Salted Cod Arthouse, and pop into any open studios. You will see a lot of paintings of boats, harbors, and broader seascapes. Gloucester is, after all, also America’s oldest working fishing port.
Downtown knits together Gloucester’s maritime and artistic histories. As you wrap around the head of the inner harbor, you’ll pass the site where Hopper painted “Tall Masts″ in 1912. Hopper was hardly the first artist to be entranced by Gloucester’s waterfront. One of your first stops on a walking tour along the harbor will be a three-story Gothic Revival stone house on a high hill above the working port. Looking almost like a waterfront watchtower, it was designed by Fitz Henry Lane, the Gloucester-born artist whose radiant images of glowing sky and restless seas first drew other painters to the seaport. He lived and worked here from 1849 until his death in 1865. Just feet away, Alfred Duca’s evocative 1996 bronze statue shows the painter perched on a rock, sketchbook in hand, looking out on the harbor.
Also on Harbor Loop, just below the Lane House, Maritime Gloucester is a living museum of the city’s saltwater history. In the Dory Shop, Geno Mondello continues to build historic Gloucester fishing dories when he’s not tending his 200 lobster traps. One of the founders of Maritime Gloucester, Mondello says it takes five to six weeks to build a boat. Just below the shop, the oldest operating marine railway in the country still hauls ships out of the water for repairs, just as it has since 1849. At an adjacent pier, the pinky schooner Ardelle offers daily public sails until October.
A little farther west along the harbor, Seven Seas Wharf has served the fishing industry for more than 350 years. It’s still used to stow and repair nets, fuel up for offshore trips, and unload lobsters and fish. The Gloucester House Restaurant dominates the wharf. Enjoy seafood in the rough from the takeout window of Blue Collar Lobster Company while looking out at the fishing vessels and Cape Pond Ice.
Continue west to 18 Western Ave., the building that Hopper painted in watercolors in 1926 as “Anderson’s House″ (owned by the Museum of Fine Arts Boston). The dwelling sits just above the Town Landing at the end of Pavilion Beach. It’s a short walk along Western Avenue to the “Man at the Wheel″ statue based on Buhler’s painting. It’s the focus of the Fisherman’s Memorial, where bronze plaques list the names of those lost at sea. Keep walking across Blynman Bridge (also painted by Hopper) to the more recent statue of the Fishermen’s Wives Memorial, which notes the sacrifices of fishermen’s wives and families. This side of the bridge is planted with striking flower beds that flourish in the diffuse seaside light.
Be sure to return to Pavilion Beach for sunset. It doesn’t face perfectly west, but the setting sun illuminates the wet beach with a shimmering slick of color. Clouds above the city blaze with red and gold. The opposing horizon beyond the Eastern Point Light glows rosy pink. Suddenly, darkness falls. Then you can call it a day.
To read the full Boston Globe article, click here.
