New England - Portland, Newburyport and more (aka A Whole Lot Of Brick) 2022

[AlyssaGrace]

Hi everyone! These are photos I've taken of various towns and cities in New England throughout 2022. These are not in chronological order.

We start our journey in Portland, Maine, the largest city in Maine. The population within city limits was 68,408 as of 2020, with a metro population of 214,514. (MSA population 556,893)

I actually lived here for a few years from 2015-17, but I have been back a bunch of times over the past few weeks because I'm dating someone who lives there.

Most of these photos are concentrated in the downtown area, and specifically the Arts District.

































































Next, continuing with our theme of port cities, here are some photos from my trip to Portsmouth, New Hampshire in April.
Portsmouth is a much smaller city about 50 miles south of Portland.
Its population was 21,956 in 2020.








































These next few photos are from Wells, Maine a littler bit over the border from Portsmouth.












Next we will pay a visit to Haverhill, Massachusetts, a former industrial city on the Merrimack River, with a population of 67,787 in 2020. Once a bustling shoe manufacturing center, Haverhill hit a period of decline in the 1920s, from which it has never fully recovered, although there has been a recent revitalization of the downtown area.




































Our penultimate stop is my hometown, Newburyport, Massachusetts, another historic port city, with a population of 18,289 in 2020. In terms of built form, it is fairly similar to Portsmouth; I often describe Newburyport to people as "a smaller, more boring Portsmouth."










































Let's pay a quick visit to Newburyport's "twin city," the slightly-smaller Amesbury (population 17,366 (2020)). In contrast to Newburyport, which has maritime roots, Amesbury is industrial in origin.
















Bonus: here are a few pictures of some of the towns and cities the Amtrak Downeaster train passes through between Portland and Boston.

Old Orchard Beach, Maine: resort town on the Southern Maine coast.
Population: 8,624 (2020)




Biddeford, Maine: former industrial city on the Saco River
Population: 22,252 (2020)





A street in Dover NH (another former industrial city;
population 32, 741 (2020)

[Shawn]

Epic photo dump of great pics! Makes me homesick. One of my aunts lives in Byfield, near Governor Dummer or whatever it's called now. When that 10 story glass lux building in Haverhill was first announced, I thought it was a joke. Really cool to see it get built.

Can I humbly request an October in Salem set?

[Murphy de la Sucre]

Some of the photos in the beginning having a little bit of uh... metropolitan vibes

[EastSideHBG]

In many of your pics Portland reminds me of the smaller cities here in PA like Harrisburg, York, Lancaster. Great pics!

[geomorph]

Originally Posted by AlyssaGrace

This is my favorite building in this set, thank you!

[Quabbin]

Great set! Your Portland pictures are less composed, more on the fly with some taken out the car window driving by. That's a factor in my thought that the whole set shows the most damage to urban fabric from cars and car infrastructure in Portland--i.e., cars everywhere, parking lots, wide roads. Even though lots of foot traffic in many photos. Much less car impact in Portsmouth and even less in Newburyport, where you took all the pictures on foot. I love the picture looking down on the Newburyport Turnpike-- shows how to make highway infrastructure minimally intrusive on the town.

[JMKeynes]

New England is gorgeous.

[montréaliste]

Lotsa brick in this set, but that New England clapboard ain’t too shabby either…

[xzmattzx]

Nice pictures! I have to get to Portland some time. It looks like there's quite a bit of construction there. What is that they are doing at Congress Square?

Portsmouth is the only of these cities I've been to. The Downtown area is really nice.

I can see the similarities between Newburyport and Portsmouth. Newburyport looks like a really nice place.

Thanks for the pictures of Wells, Amesbury, Biddleford, and more! It's nice to see some of random northern New England!