Street’s future is now
Changes are not all good for this key gateway to the city
Keene Mayor Dale Pregent made a prediction last week: “Within the next 10 to 12 years, Ward 1 will be almost totally college students.”
That ward includes Marlboro Street, the neighborhood where I grew up and where Pregent still lives.
On the mayor’s 75th birthday Wednesday, the two of us sat down for coffee to talk about that area.
Marlboro Street has always been an odd mash-up of homes, businesses and industry. Forty years ago, when I was growing up in that neighborhood, big companies such as MPB, Kingsbury Corp. and Markem employed hundreds of people.
There was O.K. Fairbanks grocery store, several gas stations and a couple of car dealerships. Families went to Dog ’n’ Suds to grab lunch or an ice cream, and the only strong presence from Keene State College was a college fraternity house close to Main Street. Single-family homes lined each side of the street, interspersed with apartment buildings. It was a busy street and one of the major arteries into the city. Read the rest of this page »