(1961)
Herring Cove Beach Bathhouse I.
Herring Cove Beach (formerly New Beach) offers something for everyone, generally in degrees of abandon that correspond to distance from the parking lot. The opening of the first Herring Cove Beach Bathhouse in 1953 was a sufficiently auspicious event to draw Gov. Christian Herter. Designed by Mario Caputo, the state-built bathhouse was a handsome-enough Modernist structure with a glass-block facade. It could almost have passed for a small-town airport terminal. Adjoining shower and locker pavilions brought its length to 148 feet. The second story, shown in this postcard view, had what looks like a large wall of glass block. It was demolished years before the rest of the structure, which was given a marvelous send-off in 2012 as the setting of an art festival, “10 Days That Shook the World: the Centennial Decade,” organized by Jay Critchley and Ewa Nogiec.
¶ Adapted from Building Provincetown (2015). ¶ Image courtesy of the Provincetown Public Library, Josephine C. Del Deo Heritage Archive.