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Provincetown
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The compact fishing village of
PROVINCETOWN
("P-Town") is right on the knuckle of what would be Cape Cod's clenched fist. Silvery clapboard houses, with gloriously unruly gardens, line its tiny winding streets. Provincetown is far from secluded: its population of five thousand rises tenfold in summer. Self-professed
bohemians
and
artists
have always flocked here for the dazzling light and vast beaches, and in 1914 Eugene O'Neill established the Provincetown Playhouse in a small hut. It has also become renowned, since the beatnik 1950s, as a
gay
and
lesbian
center. Commercialism, though rampant, is countercultural: gay, environmentalist and feminist giftshops join arty (not craftsy) galleries, restaurants and bars on the aptly named
Commercial Street
.
Provincetown retains a firm grip on its past. Strict zoning ensures that there are few new buildings in town, and there is barely a sign of ugly development. Albeit crowded and raucous from July through September, P-Town remains a place where history, natural beauty and, above all, difference, are respected and celebrated Other useful information
for tourists (each section contains more specific sub-sections): |
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United States,
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