There is no way for me to write about Manchester without talking about how it used to be. I can’t even step foot on Main Street without telling whoever is nearby how different it is from the town I spent so much time in before moving across the river.

We all know what happened to downtown Manchester, right?
Everybody decided they needed malls in the 80s, followed by the Big Box stores in the 90s.
—whoosh!–
Much of its life was pretty much sucked right out during that era, not unlike how cities experienced financial strain when their upwardly mobile classes fled for the suburbs in the decades before.

It’s not that there was nothing at all remaining.

Had that been the case, I would not have noticed because there would have been no reason for me to be in Manchester’s old downtown in the 80s and 90s. There was the library, a couple restaurants including an Indian one I liked that got shut down — temporarily or permanently, I can’t recall — for having some type of unapproved oven, a jewelry store, and the convenience store. The Manchester Mall was antiques and a salon/barber I never remember seeing open. It smelled musty. And of course, there was Marlow’s.

There was Nature’s opening in 1993 with an alcohol-free open mic night, which was later replaced by Equator in 1997, another alcohol-free place for live music and poetry.

This is what brought me to the downtown, and on one occasion I arrived before opening and had to use a restroom. I glanced at the tumbleweeds rolling down Main Street and wondered what my options were. I tried this place:

My logic: it seems like a church. I’d heard churches were always open and they were supposed to be welcoming. Well, friends, I am here to say that I don’t know what they’re up to now, but in the mid-to-late 90s, while the front door was open, they would not let me use their restroom.

You know who did?

Marlow’s.

It was in the basement and definitely creepy, but they were fine letting the riffraff in.

When the store closed in 2002 after 91 years, there was speculation about what would fill the spot. The building is now gone. There’s a gap, fronted by a chain link fence to which people have been attaching locks. I hope these were locks purchased from Marlow’s, where you could find anything.

The coffeehouse always filled for these open mic nights, and stayed open longer than you might imagine for a place where people were largely sitting at tables without buying much. The space is now occupied by Sukhothai, and has been for awhile.

There had been a yoga studio in the upstairs of one of the buildings on Main Street, until that moved out.

And there was Harvest.

At the time, Harvest Beads and Silver was on Oak Street. They were originally (1973) on Main Street, north of East Center, in a house that has since been removed and replaced by a surface parking lot. Now, they’ve returned to Main Street, by Purnell Place, and under the second set of owners.

That’s what drew me back to Manchester for a few hours recently; the nostalgia of walking into this shop, like the scent of its incense, was saturating on a steamy, summer day.

The pull is never from just one source, honestly. If I’m going out of my way, it’s to visit several places on one outing.

I’d never managed to find myself in downtown Manchester when the Work_Space gallery was open, so I planned for it and at a time when I wouldn’t be crowded.

The current exhibit is “The Art Of Recovery,” with works on the theme of addiction and recovery. This will be on the walls through August 19, 2022.

The presence of art in downtown Manchester feels like the biggest change, whether in galleries or multiple stores, or in the form of places for creating things.

The Firestone is an uncramped space where visitors can pick a piece of pottery to paint or learn to use a pottery wheel. There’s glass fusing and various kinds of painting.

They have a small cafe (s’mores cold brew!), which is one of several places you can score decent coffee within a few blocks.

And, they have a small shop in which you can find local crafts.

That’s a small taste of The Market, an outdoor pop-up event twice a month during its season — May through October. The next ones are August 13 and 14, 2022. These have been on Main and School streets, around The Firestone. Previous vendors have included those selling concrete planters, artisanal tea and spices, jewelry, goat milk soap, and books.

The creation and expansion of outdoor spaces — here and elsewhere — during the pandemic has breathed life into towns. When you walk down a street, you can actually see people now. They’re not all shut away indoors, giving the impression that a place is dead.

On this day, I got an order of breadsticks to go, and went off to eat in a park, putting some space between me and the hot asphalt.

[For places that haven’t figured it out already, this is the next level: plant street trees, add umbrellas, and paint the asphalt a lighter color or throw down light colored mats/rugs so patrons aren’t completely baking]

Center Memorial Park works as a place to simply sit and eat lunch. The benches are all on the lower level, where there are a few trash cans, an outhouse, and a Little Free Library (next to a brick and mortar library). Climb the stairs, and there’s a wall to sit on in the shade, where you can watch people on the street below.

Had this been my first time in Manchester, I would have likely stayed to Main Street. Why would I go behind to the parking lots when not needing them? But I knew about the strange streets back there, or rather, that’s how they’ve felt interrupted by the sea of parking.

The hideous surface lots remain, but the approaches to them have been made more pleasant and the lots themselves improved, slightly. A guardrail I cut my leg on half a lifetime ago looks to have been replaced by something less menacing. (Maybe I washed out that cut in the Marlow’s basement bathroom too)

Parts of streets were narrowed. It feels less abandoned.

There’s still room for rethinking the sheer amount of surface lot parking. How much can reasonably be used for something better? How can local businesses remind visitors that a bus comes right down Main Street every half hour Monday through Saturday, hourly on Sundays?

Going behind the businesses also reveals outdoor seating that you might have thought missing if only approaching from the front. Silk City Coffee (below) has a patio in the shade you can reach by exiting their back door.

Before you reach the back door, you’ll notice a bulletin board covered in cards. It’s a place where people can ask for help, whether they need something practical and concrete, or they’re asking for prayers.

Every month, the cafe donates a portion of sales to a non-profit that does local work.

Of course, there are murals now.

What we got from the pandemic was people wanting the world to look less drab, and this took the shape of mural projects all over the place and some great new gardens.

Even the buildings that at first glance seem no different — occupants aside — reveal small outdoor patios and the addition of greenery.

It was disorienting to look at the Manchester Mall and see this:

How did it take decades upon decades for anyone to figure out that a little landscaping could make this entrance inviting? What I remember it being was some dated-at-the-time awning over a loading dock-looking entrance to one shitty club after another.

Today, the entrance from Main Street mostly appears the same as it ever was, aside from a small sign announcing newer tenants, but this? This is a dramatic change if I’ve ever seen one.

Urban Lodge Brewing Co. also participates in a community giving program.

Other building tenants include the Manchester Cheesecake Company, Frog & Fable Antiques, Downtown Roots, and Retro Junk.

Let’s hope each place figures out what they need to do so there’s longevity once the novelty wears off after a few years.

While peeking inside various stores and cafes that have popped up in recent years, I was struck by something. I am forever telling people that we do not need to accept the way things are, that we have the power to change reality until it becomes what we want it to.

Downtown Manchester is proof that I am not telling lies.

That the Manchester Mall’s rear is unrecognizable to me is evidence that we can have nicer things.

If you’re not interested in food or retail, or butt buckets, what else is there to do in downtown Manchester?

The entrance to Charter Oak Park via the East Coast Greenway is at the corner of Charter Oak Street and South Main Street. It’s mostly various sportsball fields and playground, but the attraction is the off-road section of the  East Coast Greenway, a route from Calais, Maine to Key West, Florida.

From the trail, you can see Porter Brook and Birch Mountain Brook come together to form Hop Brook, which is revealing the current drought.

[In this park, about an hour before Gov. Lamont announced the drought, I watched as the Town of Manchester was watering one of those sportsball fields — hose attached to fire hydrant. We’ve come so far, yet there is so much distance left to cover.]

There is highway on the other side of the park, but it’s not deafening like the portion of the Charter Oak Greenway through East Hartford. Adjust expectations.

Give the path a couple minutes and the view will get more enjoyable and less like a path next to a ball field.

If you bring your bike on the bus — all CTtransit buses should have front racks — you can hop on the Charter Oak Greenway from Charter Oak Park and ride to Case Mountain, Freja Park, and Bolton Notch State Park. From the park to Bolton Notch will be a ten mile round trip and it’s uphill going east, but there’s also a rest area of sorts about halfway with Highland Park Market across the street from a few picnic tables. Enjoy that Bolton Notch tunnel before lights are added.

From Bolton Notch you can pick up the beautiful Hop River State Park Trail which connects to the Air Line State Park trail. . . and the list goes on. You can take the Charter Oak Greenway in the opposite direction and go to Wickham Park (Manchester/East Hartford), and if you get tired of riding, know that the 88 bus travels Burnside Avenue. There is no fee for walking/biking in to Wickham Park, which is a six mile bike ride (one-way) from Charter Oak Park.

Having ridden these trails starting from Hartford, I vote for pop the bike on a bus and pick up the trail when there’s no on-street cycling required of you anymore.

Or, you can simply wander through Charter Oak Park and appreciate a town park.

Hey kids! Enjoy this brutalist waterfall!

You can walk to the Cheney Brothers National Historic Landmark District from Main Street, though be warned that one side of Hartford Road is missing sidewalk, which makes for an exhilarating walk alongside fast-moving vehicles.

Another approach: walk five minutes up Forest Street from Main to reach Labyrinth Brewing Company. You’ll have views of mansions and former mills, but on a quieter street.

The Cheney Rail Trail is a short distance from there.

What have we learned from Manchester’s ongoing evolution?

Small, local businesses in historic downtowns can triumph over the big box evil empire, but you need creativity and to recognize what the people, today, want.

To visit downtown Manchester: The 83 bus (from Union Place next to Union Station) will bring you to Main Street; the 88 bus (from Constitution Plaza) is a faster ride, but it’ll be five minutes of not spectacular walking across gas station driveways from Main & East Middle Turnpike before reaching Center Springs Park, where the trip becomes nicer. At least through December 2022, it’s free to ride CTtransit buses.