Delectations

Provincetown, Cape Cod: Before establishing their “cittie upon a hille” at Plymouth in 1620, William Bradford’s flock stopped to write the Mayflower Compact here. To grind home that event, Provincetown has erected a tall and terrible stone monstrosity modeled (loosely) on a particularly beautiful late medieval tower in Siena. It gives a stolid, forbidding initial impression of New England’s breeziest, most pleasant summer resort. If converted into a vertical motel, the Pilgrim Monument would be a great place to stay; as Frank Lloyd Wright said of Yale’s Harkness Tower, if you lived there you’d never have to see it.

Back before Stewart Udall got religion and nationalized the beaches, we used to sleep in the sand dunes at night, swim free all day, and parade back and forth all evening along aptly named Commercial Street—a cheap weekend no longer so easy to come by. Well, everything’s less fun nowadays, and too many places charge admission and post off-limits hours, including P’town. But it’s still my summer place and probably always will be.

DB

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David Brudnoy

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William F. Buckley Jr.

Provincetown, Cape Cod: Before establishing their “cittie upon a hille” at Plymouth in 1620, William Bradford’s flock stopped to write the Mayflower Compact here. To grind home that event, Provincetown has erected a tall and terrible stone monstrosity modeled (loosely) on a particularly beautiful late medieval tower in Siena. It gives a stolid, forbidding initial impression of New England’s breeziest, most pleasant summer resort. If converted into a vertical motel, the Pilgrim Monument would be a great place to stay; as Frank Lloyd Wright said of Yale’s Harkness Tower, if you lived there you’d never have to see it.

Back before Stewart Udall got religion and nationalized the beaches, we used to sleep in the sand dunes at night, swim free all day, and parade back and forth all evening along aptly named Commercial Street—a cheap weekend no longer so easy to come by. Well, everything’s less fun nowadays, and too many places charge admission and post off-limits hours, including P’town. But it’s still my summer place and probably always will be.