Postcards from New Bedford

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Editor’s Note: These New Bedford scenes were reported by the 2025 summer interns for the New Bedford Light, who are part of the South Coast Internship program, designed for local students. 

At 6:30 a.m. on a Monday, a delivery truck worker moves boxes at Fisherman’s Wharf in downtown New Bedford. Four laughing men stand aboard a fueling dock, and one leans against a chain link fence, watching his coworkers below preparing the fishing boats for repairs. 

Saltiness lingers in the humidity and the pungent smell of diesel demands attention. The oceanfront workers at Fisherman’s Wharf start on their tasks for the day, each hanging close by their travel mugs. Their work is loud, metal clanging and heavy hoses dropping, but the rest of the pier is quiet. The only other noises in the early morning are the seagulls and the exhaust of the delivery truck.

Laughter is their common language. When a truck passes through the wharf, a dock worker pumps his fist and yells out, “Give us the horn!” The truck driver obliges, honking three times in response. The men pause their work to clap and giggle for a moment. 

Once it hits 7 a.m., with the sun higher in the sky and the heat of the asphalt radiating up, the water starts to look refreshing.

Over the helms of the docked boats, construction cranes on Fish Island come to life. They move left and right, up and down, acting like a signal that the day has started for the rest of us. Pick-up trucks and utility vans enter the parking lot of the wharf. Each vehicle knows their destination, beelining for the boat they will be working on. 

Three vehicles pull up to a scalloper boat named Endurance. The men gather by the side of the marine vessel, making casual conversation for a few minutes. Once they cross the gap between the dock and the deck, there’s no hesitation. Each heads in a different direction with determination in their stride, and after a blink the men have been swallowed up by the boat. 

— Avary Amaral

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At the Buttonwood Park Zoo’s coyote enclosure, a zoo employee takes dead mice out of a bag and places them around the habitat. Through the window, attendees watch as a coyote scarfs down one of these mice. It could have been difficult to tell what the coyote was eating, until you notice the mouse’s tail hanging slack from its mouth.

Over in the barn area, currently under construction, the cows, pigs, and goats are missing. There is only one horse munching on hay while stepping with its hind legs. Childhood memories had painted this field full with many more horses. 

The next building, the one holding fish and seahorses and various monkeys, is air-conditioned. The luminescent jellyfish move with grace. The monkeys jump from branch to branch and let off screeches that echo off the walls. At the touch tank that contains no animals, you can graze fingers along sea shells and burrow them into the sand. One person finds a fish positioned vertically at the bottom of a pool, its head touching the bottom. She wonders aloud if it is still alive before walking back out into the heat.

There were two elephants living at the zoo in most people’s memories, and now there is only one. A sign introduces zoogoers to Emily, the last Asian elephant in New England, and memorializes Ruth, her companion for decades. Emily stood in her enclosure alone, swinging her tail back and forth while rubbing her body up against a hanging tube. The father of one family watching Emily said he read in the news some time ago that the zoo would not be adding any new elephants to the enclosure. Emily, he said, will remain there alone.

The zoo begins and ends in the gift shop, where people pick stuff up and put it down, pick stuff up and put it down. You can pick up a crocodile keychain and, to everyone’s surprise, put it down at the sales counter and pay for it. Meanwhile, a little boy keeps trying to stick a toy cow up his nose, an act his mother is not putting up with. As an employee restocks the Dippin’ Dots freezer and sighs in relief at the cool air, one can’t help but think that the zoo doesn’t have any crocodiles.

— Kristina DaPonte 

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Most at the New Bedford District Court have gone to lunch by noon, but a few still stick around in its black quartz corridors. Just past the entrance, a father rants to his lawyers about a teacher fighting his son. On the lower level, two brothers lie on a bench while playing video games on their phones. Up the stairs and to the left, two women in their 20s sit on opposite sides of the pre-trial courtroom’s hallway. 

Of these two women, the closest to the courtroom is accompanied by a young girl, around six years old, and she passes the time checking her phone and playing with the girl. The other woman sits silent and across from the door to the pre-trial courtroom, patting and bouncing a baby. 

As time creeps their energy fades, and both women look burnt out by the next hour. 

Eventually two men, roughly in their 30s, leave the courtroom. One wears an orange shirt, while the other wears one promoting a personal defense company. They turn the corner to walk down a hallway to their left, guided by a sign that pointed in the direction for “Restraining Orders.” 

Shortly after, an older woman walks out of the pre-trial courtroom, followed by her lawyer and two younger people. The lawyer jokingly apologizes to the group for keeping them in “that muggy courtroom” for so long, which they all laugh off. 

The older woman walks across the hall to the young mother to tell her the results of the pre-trial and when their next court date will be. The mother says she’s relieved to hear the news, and hopes she can now sleep like her baby did. 

Then, the older woman calls the two girls sitting closer to the courtroom, who are her daughters, to leave with her. As she leaves the courtroom, her lawyer walks around the corner to explain the outcome to the man in the orange shirt. 

“You can’t talk to her,” he says. “If she calls you, and you pick up, you’ll go to jail. Do you understand?” Once he acknowledges the conditions, the lawyer leaves as well. 

About a minute later, the man in the orange shirt emerges from around the corner, repeating, “It’s f—ing r—ed,” while tearing up a paper. He walks up to the young mother and asks if he could hold their baby, but she tells him that would wake it up. After that, the two sit in silence, and she holds their baby, as he clutches his head.

— Zakary Sarkarati

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Gallery X, a building with its stained-glass sign hanging outside, has welcomed local artists through its doors for 30 years. Up the stairs, its interior is covered with artwork. This month the display is in honor of Pride Month, including the names of trailblazers whose sacrifices and fight for the movement will last longer than the artwork, but also the month itself.

Today the gallery hosts a rehearsal for a play based on the textile strikes in New Bedford in 1928, an event that led to an improvement in workers’ and immigrants’ quality of life during the era of industrialization.

Further into Gallery X is Russell Ramos, the man responsible for retelling this chapter of the city’s history — one that occurred almost 100 years ago.

Ramos, 66, commands the performance of his actors like a maestro. Each actor, paper scripts in hand, has volunteered their time with one common goal in mind: to bring awareness to these strikes. Everyone knows this will be the first of many stage readings, edits, and revisions. Ramos knows this best of all, as this play is a remaster of his original Strike of ’28 production, performed in front of a public audience several years ago.

Ramos’ directions are clear, telling the actors what to expect as the script expands. He paces around the gallery’s hardwood floor and motions with his hands. He stresses the importance of audience participation and an interactive environment that will get the people involved — mirroring those who bravely campaigned against the mistreatment of factory workers 97 years earlier.

The play, although not fully written, has an artistic direction that Ramos explains at length. The actors are like sponges, listening with the kind of attention Ramos demands. After the first run-through of the script, Ramos ensures that each volunteer has a chance to speak from their perspective on stage.

“I don’t like to be Mr. Know-it-all,” Ramos explains. “There’s more than one way to do something, so if anyone has any suggestions or input, we can work on making this thing great together.”

— Brenton Jackson

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To the left of MacArthur Drive is Coal Pocket Pier. To the right, the Fairfield Inn & Suites. And in between them, Ground Floor Coffee.

It’s 8:43 a.m. Some customers admire the fishing boats along the pier before strolling into the cafe. Others head straight to the door. 

Tourists often swarm Ground Floor like bees to honey. They can check out at the hotel, pop in for a bite, then catch the ferry. The tables are packed with Polo shirts and khaki shorts on the weekend. But today’s Tuesday, so Ground Floor has become a gathering place for locals.

A flyer on the community bulletin board explains how to protect yourself from ICE raids. Menus are to the right. Some items look like they were plucked off a Gen Z TikTok feed: iced matchas, lattes with blueberry pancake syrup, juices that are totally not the same thing as Dunkin’ Refreshers. 

A woman in line wears the latest fast fashion. Behind her, an old-timer sports an eyepatch. He bumps into a friend who has tattoos scaling his arms and legs, a backwards cap, and a Crystal Ice shirt. They share a handshake and a laugh. The woman orders a cappuccino-latte-something-or-another. The old-timer orders a black coffee.

Every customer has a different story trailing behind them. A woman in scrubs. A man in a safety vest. Junk removal workers and drywall contractors in between finance guys hunched over their laptops. A couple on a date sings along to “Supercut” by Lorde as they wait for their drinks. Three employees from Seastreak, the ferry company, chat with an old woman. Based on her outfit, she was probably a hippie six decades ago. The Seastreak people order the refreshers.

The line hasn’t started picking up yet, so the crew behind the counter ambles from pastry to pastry, smiling at the regulars. They heat up a pistachio croissant for a customer. He grabs it and sits back down. They heat up another pistachio croissant, but nobody claims it. It seems they doubled the customer’s order, so they give him the croissant on the house. He nibbles on it while scrolling through his phone, humming to himself. It’s the first week of Wimbledon; maybe he’s keeping an eye on the scores. Jannik Sinner takes the second set as the man tosses the two containers in the trash and heads out into the city.

As the minutes pass by, more and more cars turn into the lot. The crew quits ambling and starts scurrying — the line is out the door now. New Bedford is waking up.

— Annica Dupre