Author: Joey Ciaramitaro

Laura Bly swung by the dock on July 8th as part of her tour of Gloucester for a story she would be producing.  Well that story hit USA Today and the internet today.

Travel writer Laura said she decided to write this story after seeing a story that PR firm Matter Communications worked with one of her colleagues on about cruise ships coming to Gloucester. It ran in USA Today in April. Matter Communications is the PR firm in which my pal John McElhenny works and has been hired to promote Gloucester under the stewardship of the Cape Ann Chamber of Commerce.

Congratulations to the Cape Ann Chamber of Commerce and kudos to those local businesses who had the vision to hire Matter Communications and lead this positive PR campaign for Gloucester.

You can read it here-

A sea change for Gloucester as it goes fishing for tourists

GLOUCESTER, Mass. – Twenty years ago this October, a howling Nor’easter blindsided the New England coast and sank a Gloucester-based swordfish boat at sea with all six hands aboard. Author and then-resident Sebastian Junger weathered the tempest from town, and his best-selling account of the tragedy, The Perfect Storm, prompted a Hollywood film and a wave of visitors curious to learn more about America’s oldest seaport.

Even before the loss of the Andrea Gail and her crew, rampant overfishing by foreign vessels, dwindling fish stocks and stringent government regulations were deep-sixing a once-vibrant marine economy in Gloucester, less than an hour’s drive northeast of Boston.

• PHOTOS: Gloucester’s charm and character

Now tourists — including a record 20,000 cruise-ship passengers expected this year — are challenging fishing as the town’s leading economic driver. While parts of the waterfront remain crumbling eyesores, a microbrewery and upscale restaurants have moved in. And that evolution continues to fuel a passionate debate about the close-knit community’s authenticity and seafaring future.

“A lot of the old-timers here are resistant to change,” says Heidi Wakeman, 41, who sells high-end tote bags made from recycled sailcloth at a local shop called Again and Again.

“There’s still a public hunger,” says Wakeman, for the iconic fisherman represented by Gloucester’s “Man at the Wheel,” a statue of an old salt in a slicker and sou’wester gazing resolutely toward the open sea.

I find it incredibly ironic that she writes in the top part of the story with a picture that-

The most iconic structure in Gloucester is the Tarr & Wonson Paint Manufactory, a marine paint factory built in 1863. Vacant since the 1980s, it has been purchased by the Ocean Alliance and will be used as a research and public outreach center.

In light of the proposed demolition.

For the entire Gloucester article from Laura Bly at USAToday click here

Here are some pictures of Laura and I that Craig Kimberly took while he was down the dock-(click pic for slideshow)

and here are some of my photos she used in the story on USAToday-

Here is good egg Heidi Wakeman who was quoted in the USAToday article talking about her feelings for Gloucester in a GMG interview 3 years ago-

and part II