For the last weekend in July, a few photographs taken during a leisurely stroll downtown on an absolutely beautiful day; the heat had broken and everyone was out and about, thankful to be out of their air-conditioner-enforced seclusion. I started on Front Street, where there are so many great shops, and then made my way towards the House of the Seven Gables off Derby Street and then back to the McIntire Historic District along Essex Street. It was not supposed to be an architectural excursion, it was supposed to be a day for flower boxes and streets scenes, but (as usual, in Salem) I couldn’t help myself.
Front Street window boxes, and fabric topiaries in the window of MarketPlace Quilts.
Work on one of the gables at the House of the Seven Gables, a much-photographed entrance with its summer louvered door, two window boxes on Turner Street (I like the nautical ropes supporting the second one), and one of my favorite houses, a Greek Revival cottage across from the Gables which looks like it has its own adjacent summer house.
Speaking of summer houses, the ultimate: the Samuel McIntire-designed Derby-Beebe summer house in the center of the Peabody Essex Museum campus. Amazing McIntire detail lavished on single-room seasonal structure! I was trying to be creative with the last shot and capture three windows, but I got a car and the house across the street as well. The other McIntire/Derby summer house, larger and even more ornate, was originally situated at Elias Hasket Derby’s farm on Lafayette Street and moved to Glen Magna Farm in nearby Danvers in 1901.
Random scenes on and around Essex Street: a very patriotic window and a very classical border, a Salem pedicab(by) takes a break, lunch in the Japanese garden of the Peabody Essex Museum.