(The photo, btw, is taken from the Daily News Web site. That's Sue Little standing in her new shop in the early 1970s.)
The pair bring interesting perspectives on the downtown. Both of their shops have been in downtown for three decades, renting their space while the downtown was still being reborn. Plus, both shops, as purveyors of books and records, compete directly with the dreaded chain stores (although I have to think a great percentage of Dyno's stock can't be found at your local Wal-Mart.)
Yet neither storeowner seems to be sounding the alarm so readily rung by critics of how the downtown is being managed.
From the article:
The change to boutique-style stores — carrying gift and decorative items, fashion and accessories — began in the ‘70s, but accelerated in the early 1980s. Prices and rents started to go up, and Little said the artists and musicians began to move north to less expensive communities.
Osborne and Little attribute the disappearance of basic stores downtown less to the changes in Newburyport than to changes in the retail industry itself, what Little called “buying patterns that were foisted on us.”
“Those shops haven’t left because of anything that happened in downtown Newburyport,” Little said. “They left because of the large chain stores.”
She also said the smaller, high-end boutiques that replaced the basic stores are a boon to the city.
“Newburyport’s lucky that it’s had alternative stores that could come in,” she said.
They have watched the city become a tourist destination with more stores that cater to visitors, or gift-giving locals, but neither of them see that trend as negative. They also said the evolution of the central business district has been gradual, rather than sudden and jarring.
“I know people complain, but if you look at other desirable towns, it’s happening all over,” Osborn said. “The changes have happened relatively slowly and that’s good. People want to look long and hard at everything here.”
“Newburyport has become a destination for upper-middle class families,” she said, not just to shop but to live. “You can’t hold back that type of evolution and I think it’s been done relatively gracefully.”
Osborne and Little said there is a segment of the population that values smaller stores and personalized service that are more likely to be found in Newburyport than at a typical mall.
“As long as we have unique stores, people will come back,” Little said.
Just an aside, I would add unique stores with exceptional customer service like the care I received at Jabberwocky on Saturday night.
I give these opinions a great deal of weight. Osborn and Little own perhaps two of the more long-standing shops downtown. Both have gone toe-to-toe with chain stores and they're living to tell about it.
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