Firehouse Center for the Arts

CONTACT:

1 Market Square
Newburyport, MA 01950
978-462-7336
www.firehouse.org

Kimm Wilkinson, Director of Productions

DESCRIPTION:

The history of the Firehouse Center for the Arts began in 1823, with the construction of a brick markethouse and town meeting facility following the great fire of 1811, which destroyed downtown Newburyport. In the 1840s Ralph Waldo Emerson, Daniel Webster and Oliver Wendell Holmes lectured in the second-floor hall, and in 1864 the first fire-wagon was moved into one of the market bays. From then until 1979, when the fire engines were moved to a new facility, the building was "the Firehouse".

In 1978, the Newburyport Chamber of Commerce founded the Society for the Development of Arts and Humanities (SDAH), to enhance the cultural landscape in and around Newburyport. In 1985, the Society was charged with raising the money, restoring, and maintaining the Firehouse in perpetuity as a community art center.

Since its doors re-opened in 1992, the Firehouse has become one of the fastest-growing cultural institutions in the Commonwealth. Its 195-seat theater, art gallery, and privately operated restaurant support music, dance, theatre, lectures, children's programs, community forums, authors' series, art exhibits, performance art, a talent competition, and an annual June Arts Festival -- more than 400 events a year, for an audience of 32,000 in 1997, with 200,000 visitors to its galleries.

(1998: CULTURE: Arts: Community)