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Give Mom A Special Tour of Salem

History, Salem Event, Salem Shopping 1 Response »

May 102015

Whether you live in Salem Ma or in a neighboring community, or just happen to be here on Mother’s Day, there is an extra special treat you can give MOM. Besides the candy, flowers and breakfast / brunch / lunch at one of our many fine eateries, you can present her with a tour of the city, courtesy of The Salem Trolley which is offering a $5 discount to Moms on May 10th.

Moms are invited to sit back and relax on the 1-hour narrative tour through the streets of historic Salem, Ma. Oh, you may have driven through Salem and “seen” the sights, but now mom and you will discover & uncover history as you learn through fact, humor and even questions.

Weather forecast calls for a partly sunny day with temperature in low 80s, no rain and occasional 14 m/p/h breeze. Lovely day for a trolley ride.

The eight mile ride through Salem takes you past the Charter Street Burial Ground, the House of the Seven Gables, Witch Dungeon Museum, Salem Witch Museum, the historic waterfront area and other locations. Among those is Chestnut Street, which is considered to be one of the most beautiful streets in America.

One of the nice little extras about the Trolley is that you may get off and on at any of the 13 stops throughout the day and view Salem at your leisure, thus using the trolley as an almost personal shuttle service for you & mom on Mother’s Day!

Tours operate from 10am-5pm and begin at the National Park Service Visitors Center, 2 New Liberty Street, Salem. Convenient parking can be found across from the Visitors Center at 1 New Liberty Street.

To order tickets on-line click here or call 978-744-5469.

Salem Salutes Itself with Community Service Awards

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Apr 262015

Who are the “best of the best” when it comes to business & community activity over the past year in Salem Ma? The Salem Chamber of Commerce asked residents to select from 36 nominees in six categories. Over 1900 people responded.

Awards were handed out at the 93rd annual Celebrate Salem Awards Dinner, on April 22at the Peabody Essex Museum.

2014 Businesswoman of the Year: Brandi Dion – B&S Fitness Companies & CrossFit IronSpider

Businesswoman of the Year is a Chamber member who has demonstrated excellence in business practices throughout the year and has demonstrated a sincere commitment to Salem.

B&S Fitness Companies’ goal is to improve the quality of life and health for every customer through innovative and effective fitness programs. CrossFit IronSpider is a fitness community dedicated to helping everyone achieve their individual goals within an inspiring group setting. In addition to fitness programs, B&S offers event management which raises and donates over $50k each year to non-profit organizations.

2014 Businessman of the Year: Paul Van Ness – CinemaSalem, Salem Film Fest, The Cabot, Van Ness Creative

Businessman of the Year is a Chamber member who has demonstrated excellence in business practices throughout the year and has demonstrated a sincere commitment to Salem.

CinemaSalem is more than a film-lover’s movie theater; it’s also a café, an art gallery, an art house, a live music venue, and a home Salem Film Fest, one of America’s largest all-documentary film festivals. Van Ness and a group of investors recently acquired The Cabot in Beverly, MA. Van Ness Creative is a full-service film and video production company

2014 New Business of the Year: The Ugly Mug Diner

The New Business of the Year award is given to the best new business that opened in 2014.

The Ugly Mug Diner is a twisted American Diner in the heart of Salem. A foodie haven, serving beer, bacon and espresso, with a soda jerk, hand cut fries, and biscuits with red gravy.

The 2014 Excellence in Retail Award: Milk & Honey Green Grocer

The Excellence in Retail Award showcases the outstanding achievements of Salem retailers and will be awarded to the retailer that applies superior knowledge, creativity and industry know-how to develop innovative strategies, and contributes to the growth of the Salem retail sector.

Milk & Honey Green Grocer is the local grocery store for people who care about the environment, community, and sustainability. Offering residents of the North Shore carefully selected products of the highest quality.

The 2014 Community Service Award: Creative Salem

The Community Service Award is awarded to a member or organization who has an outstanding record of community service and volunteer participation.

Creative Salem celebrates the city of Salem as a hub of creativity, providing contemporary tools for local creative professionals to find and connect with new audiences while encouraging them to apply their skills to help solve challenges facing the community.

The 2014 Long-Term Achievement Award: Jim & Nancy Hurrell (Salem Trolley, Pirate Museum, Witch History Museum, Witch Dungeon)

The Long-Term Achievement Award is given to a business that has achieved 10 or more years of success in the community.

Witch History Museum: The stories of 1692 told through a historically accurate live presentation and tour. Witch Dungeon Museum: An award winning reenactment of the trial of beggar-woman Sarah Good – from the original transcript of 1692. Salem Pirate Museum: The unique and little-known history of New England sea-robbers comes alive at the Pirate Museum. The Salem Trolley provides visitors with a narrated one hour tour and all day shuttle service through beautiful and historic Salem.

This year, winners received an original wood sculpture created by Tommy Gagnon of Boston Woodturning.

For more information on the event or the Salem Chamber please visit www.salem-chamber.org or call 978-744-0004.

Global Event ‘Record Store Day’ to Have Salem Connection

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Apr 162015

Vinyl, wax, platters, discs…. all names for the LP, more lovingly recalled as a ‘record.’ Yes, the round thing that rotated on a record player your parents or grandparents talked about from their youth. To celebrate the continued existence of records and spread the word about the unique culture surrounding independently owned record stores in the US and world-wide, Record Store Day was created. Locally the Salem Theatre is partnering with Salem’s own independent record store, The Record Exchange, to promote an entire weekend, April 17-19. (Record Store Day usually takes place on the third Saturday of April. )

The day is for the people who make up the world of record stores to celebrate the unique culture of a record store and the special role these independently owned shops play in their communities. Special vinyl and CD releases and various promotional products are made exclusively for the day.

The Record Exchange advises from its Facebook page: Come and celebrate records, music & YOU, our amazing customers & friends, this Saturday from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM. Yup…it’s RECORD STORE DAY! We’ll have Ziggys and Sons Donuts for all, some very cool RSD limited edition records, and we’ll be putting used CDs & DVD sets on sale just for the day.

As for the live musical contribution from the Salem Theatre, kicking off the weekend on Friday, April 17 at 7:30pm is a returning favorite Don White with opening act Julie Dougherty.

Saturday, April 18 at 7:30pm is a CD Release for Justin Goodrich. Justin is an American singer-songwriter and actor. Independently he has released two solo-acoustic EP’s, “A Revenant Affair” and “Fallen Angels, Tears of Stone”. Each ticket purchase for the Justin Goodrich concert will include a free copy of the new album “Steadfast Hearts and Borrowed Time”.

Wrapping up the weekend on Sunday, April 19 at 5pm is An Evening with Chris Noran and Kevin William. Chris and Kevin are Indie Folk artists from Salem and Boston respectively. Together these two will play two full sets of Bon Iver-esque, ambient rock-folk in a warm and intimate space.

To give you an idea of how the “culture” of a record store can have an effect on someone, David Grohl of the Foo Fighters, who is the 2015 Ambassador for Record Store Day, recalls: “I found my calling in the back bin of a dark, dusty record store.

1975’s K-Tel’s Blockbuster 20 Original Hits by the original Stars featuring Alice Cooper, War, Kool and the Gang, Average White Band and many more, bought at a small record shop in my suburban Virginia neighborhood, it was this record that changed my life and made me want to become a musician. The second that I heard Edgar Winter’s “Frankenstein” kick in, I was hooked. My life had been changed forever. This was the first day of the rest of my life.

I believe that the power of the record store to inspire is still alive and well, and that their importance to our next generation of musicians is crucial.”

Record Store Day is managed by the Department of Record Stores and is organized in partnership with the Alliance of Independent Media Stores (AIMS), the Coalition of Independent Music Stores (CIMS) and celebrates the culture of independent record stores by playing host to in-store events/performances, signings and special product releases on a global scale.

The Record Exchange, located at 256 Washington Street, is one of the oldest used brick & mortar record stores in the United States; it was founded in Salem, MA in 1974.

Founded in 2002, Salem Theatre aims to enrich the artistic, cultural and economic life of the Greater Salem region and build connections with new, diverse audiences and theatre artists through the performance of classic, contemporary, and new works of exceptional theater as well as through the arts education outreach. It is located at 90 Lafayette Street.

For more info on the concerts, either call The Record Exchange at 978-745-0777 or directly contact the Salem Theatre at www.salemtheatre.com or call 978-790-8546 .

(Record/turntable photo courtesy of J Fry from FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

Salem Cable Replacement Project Getting Underway

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Mar 102015

It’s been said there is a great deal of history buried within the bricks and cobblestones of Salem, MA. Some of it good, some not so good, and some just the kind that needs to be updated. National Grid will be working to replace two aging underground electric transmission lines, located through a small stretch of Salem. These lines transmit electricity used by hundreds of thousands of residents and businesses in Salem and throughout the North Shore.

This of course means a slight bit of inconvenience to motorists driving and parking in the City.

A small number of “no parking” signs will be posted in advance of construction, and those restrictions will remain in effect until construction is complete for that day. Police details and signs will always be present to assist everyone through the work zone and to facilitate traffic management.

The Salem Cable Replacement Project will install new cables in a duct bank and manhole system, which will eliminate the need to dig up Salem streets for regular repairs. The new, modern cables will also address capacity limitations and maintenance issues with the current system.

The weekday work hours for the Salem Cable Project are 7 am to 4:30 pm (which includes the last hour given over to work site clean-up),

The first two work sites for the project, beginning on/or around March 11: Hawthorne Boulevard, just north of the Derby Street intersection, and Congress Street, on the north side of the South River Bridge.

Hawthorne Boulevard : contractors will be installing a large manhole. This work is expected to last for approximately two weeks, weather permitting.
Congress Street : contractors will begin installing the duct bank that will house the new underground electrical transmission cable. This installation will continue northward, towards Derby Street, ending at the newly installed manhole described above. Due to the nature of this type of work, it is estimated to be completed in five to six weeks, weather permitting.

Also, during the construction activities, one National Grid Gas crew will be finishing gas line installations on Hawthorne Boulevard between Derby Street and Washington Square South; and along Congress Street, on the north side of the Congress Street Bridge.

A project map including the approximate location for the Hawthorne Boulevard and Congress Street work sites is available on their website’s Blog: www.salemcableproject.com/blog .

In fact, to stay up-to-date on each phase of the Salem Cable Replacement Project, just sign up for email updates, like it on Facebook, and to follow on Twitter and Instagram. You can also call the toll-free hotline at 1-844-SALEMCABLE (1-844-725-3622).

March Meatball Madness — Where Else But Salem!

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Mar 062015

Meatballs are globally loved as local author Adeline Lutts Myers discovered and uncovered for her new cookbook Global Meatballs. In celebration of her work, several of Salem’s finest restaurants are cooking up a foodie event Meatball Fest, March 5-12.

Meatballs get a slot in the Salem festival calendar? Those simple things where you take ground beef, add some spices, roll it and cook it? Yes, but what kind of meat and which spices? And can you substitute anything else for beef? Do you fry or bake, or use another method? As the author learned, each country rolls differently with its native recipes.

“In writing the book,” she reveals in her blog, Kitchen Roots, “we wanted a representative group of meatballs from around the globe. I ended up with recipes from over 40 countries and cultures. In doing the research some were easier to nail down than others.”

Here in Salem on March 5-12 you will find these special meatball related recipes/offerings at:

Adriatic Restaurant and Bar (call for specific menu offering)
Bella Verona (the delicious PolpiteVeal Meatballs baked with penne as well as Lasagne w/polpettine small meatballs)
Cilantro (Albondigas al Chipotle – Cheese stuffed meatballs cooked in a spicy smoked chipotle sauce)
Finz Seafood & Grill (traditional style meatballs using ground beef, pork, and turkey; roasted, then smothered and baked with marinara sauce, mozzarella and parmesan cheese)
Firenze (call for specific menu offering)
Nathaniel’s at the Hawthorne Hotel (assorted meatballs, with appropriate sauces and or garnishes such as roasted chicken‬ & spinach meatball; beef, arugula & portabella meatballs; and chicken with ‪chorizo‬ sausage, Jalapeño-jack cheese, ‪bacon‬ and cilantro)
Opus (call for specific menu offering)
Peabody Essex Museum’s Garden Restaurant (Greek-style lamb meatball with feta cheese, spinach, tomato, mint, oregano and olives, served with a roasted pepper and tomato chutney)
The Tavern at the Hawthorne Hotel (Appetizer‬: ‪‎Buffalo chicken‬ meatballs, stuffed with blue cheese, served with hot sauce and sour cream dips with blue cheese stuffed celery. ‎Entrée‬: Fresh ‪‎mozzarella‬ and basil stuffed meatballs, spaghetti, marinara sauce and shredded parmesan cheese)

In addition, there will be a book signing with the author on Sunday, March 8th from 1 – 3 pm at Wicked Good Books, 215 Essex Street, here in Salem. You’ll get the chance to ask for her favorites, and share your thoughts.

Whether you favor a spicy meatball, a soft or bread crumb encrusted type, swimming in a sauce or standing alone, or even meatless, Global Meatballs by Adeline Lutts Myers will tantalize your literary tastes, while Salem’s restaurants will do the same for your taste buds.

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