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The silver jubilee is upon us!
Thursday brings a celebration of the 25th anniversary of AHA! (Arts, History, Architecture), the South Coast’s premiere cultural organization.
In 1997, New Bedford convened a Regional Community Congress, uniting six societal sectors — business, education, health and human services, arts and culture, the environment and communities of faith — to work together to transform a vision of the city as a vital center of commerce and culture into a reality.
It worked.
Starting on the second Thursday of July 1999, AHA!’s free downtown cultural night was launched. Thursdays were chosen as a nod to the late-night shopping opportunities that were a staple of downtown in the heyday of the Star Store, Cherry & Webb, Saltmarsh’s, C.F. Wing’s, Kresge’s and the like from the 1940s through the 1960s.
AHA! hoped to return that kind of vibrant buzz to a downtown that had become desolate for myriad reasons, including urban renewal and many consumers’ increased preference for suburban shopping malls.
While downtown still has far too many empty storefronts, historic buildings have been refurbished, new shops and restaurants and entertainment venues have opened, and the community of visual, performing and literary artists has grown as they continue to dig their heels in downtown, standing proud. AHA! has always been an ally to the creative sector.
The second Thursday of the month AHA! events have been a staple for two-and-a-half decades. The cultural community and municipal authorities and much of the citizenry recognize that AHA! has greatly contributed to downtown New Bedford’s evolving success.
In 2015, a visitor survey conducted by the Center for Policy Analysis at UMass Dartmouth determined that AHA! Nights brought 24,000 visitors to downtown, resulting in $887,000 in economic benefit to local businesses, cultural organizations, restaurants and bars.
In March 2020, AHA! Night was the last public event before the City of New Bedford went into pandemic lockdown. By the second Thursday of April, AHA! went into a virtual mode and recreated itself as VAHA! (Virtual Art, History and Architecture). Throughout 2020 and much of 2021, VAHA! provided a lifeline for the arts community, providing online content available to visitors from the safety of their homes, 24/7.
In September 2021, no-V AHA! Nights returned, utilizing an outdoor format while following common sense safety protocols. Slowly, something resembling pre-pandemic normalcy reasserted itself and as the worst of COVID abated, AHA! and the community reconvened.
AHA! has nearly 100 supporting partners, ranging alphabetically from Alison Wells Fine Art Gallery to the Zeiterion Performing Arts Center. Almost all are downtown. As one might expect, virtually every museum, gallery, alternative exhibition space, music venue and theater is aboard. But so are fine restaurants and bars, coffee shops and pizza vendors, churches and municipal departments and merchants and nonprofits and so many more.
It is as if they all understand how important AHA! is to the city. It is a truly mutualistic symbiotic relationship.
“For 25 years, AHA! has thrived because of the incredible support and contributions of our programming partners and the Greater New Bedford community. We look forward to toasting the next 25 and having everyone join us for a big outdoor street party to celebrate AHA’s journey and the collective spirit that makes downtown a vibrant hub for arts and culture,” said Kim Goddard, executive director of AHA!
Twenty-five years is a big deal. And without hyperbole, this party may be the biggest bash downtown New Bedford has seen this century, perhaps ever.
And what’s that party going to look like? What follows is a primer, of sorts.
On Thursday, the celebration kicks off as a block party at 4 p.m. and takes place in three main “activity zones” within the Seaport Cultural District: the New Bedford Whaling Museum plaza and parking lot, the Fiber Optic Center’s loading dock on Centre Street, and on lower Union Street, abutting Route 18.
At Activity Zone 1 (the NBWM plaza and parking lot), which is the prime kid-friendly location, there will be a complimentary birthday cake, while supplies last. But c’mon, it’s cake. Get there early. It will be served alongside a 6-foot tall, 3D faux birthday cake built by Michael McLean and “frosted” with a mosaic of words hand-lettered by artist and AHA! Program Coordinator Partner Liaison Mandy Fraser. The words were provided by members of the community to describe what AHA! means to them.
In the same zone, there will be musical performances by the Toe Jam Puppet Band and the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra, as well as crafting tables, courtesy of the Fishing Heritage Center and the Women’s Fund, among others. The Zeiterion is providing lawn games and bubbles. Round the Bend Farms, Sorbae Frozen Treats and Ground Floor Coffee will offer up food trucks specialties.
At Activity Zone 2 (at Front and Centre Streets), live music will be provided by The Jim Robitaille Trio, the South Coast Brass Band, Hip-Hop cypher artist Hendrick Hernandez-Resto, and The Bobby Keys Trio. A circus stilt walker will perform, the Buzzards Bay coalition will host a scavenger hunt, and there will be offerings available from Cork Wine & Tapas and the Rose Alley Tavern.
At Activity Zone 3, circus artist Gina DeFreitas will perform a highwire act and an opportunity to engage in community mural making will be provided by DATMA and Vineyard Wind. Artist Alex Buchanan, who currently has a one-man exhibition called “Aberration” at the New Bedford Art Museum, will be hosting an on-site printmaking session using rope as the primary medium.
Also at Zone 3, a dance party will be hosted by DJ Mikey Life, and visitors are encouraged to dress in the styles of 1999 and to participate in a fashion parade, complete with catwalk. New Beige, PLAY Arcade and Moby Dick Brewing will all have pop-ups.
Somewhat inexplicably, one of the most iconic television series vehicles — right up there with Adam West’s Batmobile and the Partridge Family’s Mondrianesque school bus — the bright orange Dodge Charger known as the General Lee from “The Dukes of Hazzard,” will be on display.
Artist Elaine Alder will be working on “The Water We’re Swimming In,” a sculpture utillizing marine debris collected off the coast of Massachusetts, at Captain Paul Cuffe Park, at the corner of Johnny Cake Hill and Union Street. The work-in-progress (to be formally unveiled on Sept. 22) is done in partnership with the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the New Bedford Whaling Museum, in order to draw attention to the issue of marine waste.
All of AHA!’s usual participants, including the Rotch-Jones-Duff House and Garden Museum (featuring a session of the Five Pillars of Hip Hop), Gallery X (displaying “Portraits of New Bedford”), the New Bedford Main Library (offering lessons on making wind chimes) as well as the New Bedford Art Museum, the New Bedford Whaling Museum and all the rest will be involved in the celebration.
Starting at 8, an official “AHA! After Party” will be underway, thanks to Cork, Cultivator Shoals, Moby Dick Brewing, PLAY, New Beige, Rose Alley and Quahog Republic’s Whaler’s Tavern.
AHA! and downtown New Bedford have been linked for 25 years. Like a happily married couple of the same vintage, there is comfort and love and always new things to experience.
AHA! Started in 1999.
On Thursday night, take some advice from Prince: “Party like it’s 1999!”
Don Wilkinson has been writing art reviews, artist profiles and cultural commentary on the South Coast for over a decade. He has been published in local newspapers and regional art magazines. He is a graduate of the Swain School of Design and the CVPA at UMass Dartmouth. Email him at dwilkinson@newbedfordlight.org
Wish I could be there
The city is lucky to have Kim Goddard leading AHA! Bravo.