Take is going on the road, checking out New England’s corners for everything from the best bodegas to tiny galleries and music spots. We’ll be adding towns as we come across them. Check back regularly for the latest New England finds. Up next? Elm Street in Manchester, New Hampshire. 

Northern New England’s largest city was named by merchant and inventor Samuel Blodget after the industrial city in England and soon became “Manchester in America.” Incorporated as a company town in 1846 under the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, the city soon became a giant in industrial mill towns.

Today, the city’s main thoroughfare, Elm Street, is one of the longest in the world that dead ends on both sides. And in between, right around City Hall, exists a thriving downtown, given new energy by the expansion of the New Hampshire Institute of Art and the large Southern New Hampshire University campus.

And the best news? The city just signed up for a downtown bike rental program, So, now you can visit these five finds in Manchester, New Hampshire, from the comfort of a touring bike on your next visit:

Vivace Sculpture
Location: In front of SNHU Arena, 555 Elm Street

You can’t miss Vivace! Constructed by the husband and wife artist team of Jonathan and Evelyn Clowes of Walpole, N.H. Vivace’s bold shimmering green, like a giant blade of grass, shoots straight up from a hill near the arena. Since its installation, it’s become quite the meeting spot, or just a nice place for a nap in the grass.

Studio 550 Art Center
550 Elm Street

Studio 550, located in an old renovation red stone, has become an art community, bringing together local artists, photographers, sculptures and kids with a series of classes and shows. Among the events: a pie competition, a chalk art day and a teen art camp.

Milk and Honey Juicery and Cafe
889 Elm Street

For a working class mill town, the opening of a vegetarian juice bar right across the street from City Hall has been a pleasant addition to Elm Street. The items are named after colors of the rainbow with a different color menu sample featured every day. Vegan friendly too!

USA Chicken and Biscuit
990 Elm Street

Sometimes, you just need chicken wings at midnight and if you are in Manchester the family-owned USA Chicken and Biscuit is the place to go. Fresh, clean and usually crowded, this is the place to go for all things fried!

Veterans’ Memorial Park
723 Elm Street.

Manchester’s main downtown park has existed for as long as the city. Stop by to relax and watch the world go by or check out the enormous Civil War monument, sculpted by famous memorial artist Caspar Buberl in 1878. Intown Manchester also holds a series of Thursday and Saturday concerts under the big yellow tent during summer.

The post Five Finds on Elm Street in Manchester, NH appeared first on Take Magazine.

In a dusty mill building on the outskirts of downtown Manchester, New Hampshire, urban artist James Chase and an intern are struggling to hoist the massive iron frame of an old printing press onto a rolling flatbed cart. They are working late, with plans of cleaning and reassembling the device. Chase does not have letter blocks, but he hopes to use the press to roll out posters, or maybe even give his students a taste of turn-of-the-last-century printing techniques.

“I got word of a guy who owned a pizza shop who had this in his basement,” Chase says. “That happens a lot—somebody will show up at my door with old stuff, building material.” He pauses. “Junk!”

Chase’s specialty is found art. He takes old slats, bricks, or burned wood, and re-purposes the objects into colorful, modern installations. Then, those pieces can be fitted up in a location or at a pop-up exhibit, sometimes in site-specific installations like the one Chase once built on the grounds of a recently burned building.

Flux, photo courtesy of James Chase

The result is what he calls “art in the moment.” “That’s what gives the art life and energy, to not be in the vacuum of a museum, to never know how long it’s going to last,” he says.

To that end, his most recent installation, called Surge, is an enormous modernist mural painted directly onto the roll down gate of an old mill building just a few blocks from his studio. Against the drab red brick of the building, the mural pops like a sunflower in a parking lot. Chase, 35, was born and raised in Manchester and used to skateboard as a kid around that section of the city’s Millyard. Now, Chase believes that art, as temporary as it might be, can be a form of economic development, a way to breathe life into a depressed neighborhood.

James Chase in front of “Surge,” Manchester, New Hampshire, photo by Ashlyn McKibben

“That’s why it’s called Surge,” he says. “Art is about energy, and that space needed it!”
Chase is currently working with officials in Rochester, New Hampshire, to create a mural series for that city’s downtown. He sits on the board of the Rochester Museum of Fine Arts and is convinced of the project’s promise to revitalize the city. “The art is there so they come have dinner or drinks, take in the murals or catch a pop-up,” he says.

Placeholders, photo courtesy of James Chase

Chase also works in the art departments of Manchester Community College and the New Hampshire Institute of Art, and takes a similar hands-on approach when it comes to teaching his students, offering them volunteer opportunities, exhibitions, and art exchanges.

His own love for art developed when he was in high school in the city he now calls home. “I was a quiet, shy kid,” he says. “That’s why I took every art class I could. It gave me support and a foundation. Art was the way to get my voice heard. Still is.”

James Chase – Mixed Media Artist / Printmaker
Manchester, New Hampshire
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Top image by Dan Szczesny

The post Now You See the Art; Now You Don’t appeared first on Take Magazine.