Old mill town on the move

High-tech surge, sparkling arena and stadium reinvigorate slumbering city on the Merrimack

March 12, 2006|Our Cities, Our towns, Tom Long, Globe Correspondent

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- A 10-ton truck dubbed ''Superman" belched exhaust and lurched forward, crushing its way onto the roofs of five coupes lined up like roadkill. As the opening chords of ''God Bless the USA" swelled through Verizon Wireless Arena, 10,000 motor heads burst into applause.

''Sounds like one heck of a night in Manchester," cried the announcer, who was decked out in a red shirt and carried a checkered flag.

Welcome to the US Hot Rod Association's Thunder Nationals monster truck rally and one heck of a night indeed in Manchester, the newly hip city that is shedding the ''struggling mill town" label it has worn like a ball and chain for decades.

''ManchVegas," or simply ''Manch" as local hipsters call the city, has been reinvigorated in part by the arena, the addition of a new minor-league ballpark, and an infusion of young professionals attracted by the high-tech companies housed in the former mill buildings along the Merrimack River.

Others have called the city of nearly 110,000 people -- the largest in northern New England -- ''the new Portland." The idea was reinforced by a complimentary article published last year in the Maine Sunday Telegram that compared Manchester to the popular seaport to the northeast.

''Manchester is not the new Portland," countered Robin Comstock, president of the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce. ''Manchester is Manchester, an exciting, vibrant community that has made a commitment to being the best Manchester that Manchester can be. The mills were the source of the city's vibrancy 100 years ago, and they're the source of its vibrancy today."

The mile-long mountain of brick mill buildings that line the Merrimack in Manchester have found a wide variety of new uses. Dean Kamen, the inventor of the Segway human transport device, is headquartered in one of the buildings, which boasts a private heliport on the roof. Texas Instruments and other high-tech companies are ensconced in others. The University of New Hampshire's Manchester campus also calls former mill buildings home.

Any tour of the city should start at the Millyard Museum in Mill No. 3 on Commercial Street, where visitors can tread wooden floors rubbed smooth by the boots of thousands of mill workers and wonder at the width of the tunnel that once allowed water from the river to power the looms. Floor-to-ceiling photographs of mill workers provide a backdrop for an eclectic collection of working-class artifacts.

The exhibits illustrate how a 54-foot drop in the Merrimack River at Amoskeag Falls morphed from a fishing ground for Native Americans to the power source for textile mills that were the envy of the world and a lure for immigrants at the turn of the 19th century and later.