Then & Now: Not Goodbye Yet

This photograph from the 1970s shows better days for this building, which has stood for over 200 years on this spot.

At the height of the China trade, when masts from around the world crowded the horizon, Salem was a frenzy of activity most days.  Ships would load and unload piles of merchandise into warehouses that grew on the ever-expanding wharves of the town.

During this time of expansion, the hub of activity was the busy waterfront and Derby Street. Where once there were a few wharves and merchants' homes, now warehouses and wharves were crowded together along the harbor.

During the Age of Sail, Salem had some 50 wharves throughout the city. Derby Street was prime real estate. Not only were new wharves and warehouses built, more houses and stores to cater to the crowds of sailors spread along the length of the street. Derby Street in the early 1800s was home to several grocers, taverns, chandlery shops, rope makers, tea merchants, ship painters and butchers. Given the intense commerce, it seemed wherever there was a wharf, there were stores close by.

One new wharf built a good distance from downtown on the road to the Neck was the India Wharf constructed in 1800. Like most wharves, it was crowded with warehouses, sails and rigging along the watersides and stretched to the street where merchants opened shops, many in their homes, to accommodate the booming trade.

One such building, directly across from India Wharf, is the building in this photograph in later times. Early records indicate this building was erected around 1800 during the time of the Maritime trade.

Being a rather modest building in size, we can imagine it was probably built for a mariner or a local merchant ready to try his hand at trade. We do not know when the store was added, but it seems a good guess to conclude that the store was either built or added early on to the living space.

From early records, we know there was a grocery story owned and operated by Abner Hill from 1836 to the 1870s, when he sold the property to John Casey who made it into a saloon. During the 1880s, the city directories changed the saloon listing to a liquor store.

By this time, the age of Sail had come to an end and Salem had adapted to the times by becoming a coal port and gateway city for the transshipment of coal to the mills of Merrimack Valley. India Wharf became Phillips Wharf with its railroad lines running down Derby to Webb Street and north to the mills. The area of Phillips Wharf was the heart of the coal trade. Derby Street reflected these changes by becoming more industrial and more ethnic as immigrants came to Salem to work in the mills and factories.  

In 1897, the building was sold to Edward Donahue, who opened a lunch room here. A few years later, in 1905, it was called the Beacon Express Co. and was owned by John Mason. In 1910, it became home to Silets and Drub, Painters.

In 1915, it once again became a grocery store owned first by Joseph Skurski then H. Ganz in 1920. In 1930, it was a variety store owned by Anthony Bartkievicz. It again changed hands in the 1930s, when Alexander Palmer, a baker, ran the store here until his death in 1933 when his wife Staislawa took over and ran the grocery store through the 1940s. It once again changed owners when it was bought by the Bik family in 1950.  It then became Bik’s Variety as seen in the photograph from the early 1970s.

Bik’s Variety became a fixture in the neighborhood for some 40 years.  In 1991, it was vacated and has remained unused since. You may have noticed in the "now" photograph the tell-tale red symbol painted on the door symbolizing that it is currently an unsafe building.

The building was sold earlier this year. In March, the new owners received approval from the Salem Historical Commission for demolition of the rear addition, renovation of the main front section, construction of one additional building with two units and addition to original structure as proposed in the concept drawings submitted. They will still need approvals from the Salem Zoning Board.

While many of the building's original features have been altered or lost over time, restoration could renew this building to its former historical aspect when tall ships docked across the street.

Derby Street, with its eclectic collection of buildings, offers us a microcosm of Salem’s history, reflecting the various changes through the ages in its buildings and parks.