Trails Site #14 : Rockaway Hotel Site, 7 Rackliffe Street
DIRECTIONS: From Stevens Lane continue down Wonson Street and bear right onto Rackliffe Street at the fork. The Rockaway Hotel site will be on the right.
The Rockaway Hotel followed the familiar trajectory of the summer hotel in New England: a boarding house beginning in the 1890s, wooden hotel expanding into many buildings through the 1920s, a retraction in the 1930s, the lowest ebb in the 1960s, and replacement with condominiums in the 1980s.
Most of the southern end of Rocky Neck belonged to the Wonson family, but in 1850 they sold some land to William and George Rackliffe. William’s daughter Dorcas Foster opened a summer boarding house, which then became a hotel. In August 1900, it was thronged with prominent artists who spent their winters teaching in the cities in the East and Middle West and their summers relaxing in Gloucester. Four whose reputations have survived are Duveneck, De Camp, Potthast, and Twachtman. In 1902, the Fosters sold to William Alexander Publicover and the glory days of the hotel began. He attracted prosperous middle-class who would settle in for a month or two, the men going on fishing expeditions, the ladies taking painting lessons and everyone playing bridge in the evenings. Until 1922, the Rockaway and its fellow hotels—there were at least four in the neighborhood—held art exhibits in their lobbies. Then the North Shore Arts Association and its rival Gloucester Society of Artists were formed. There was also a strong Little Theater with a theater school on Rocky Neck.
Few of the professional artists could afford the Rockaway during the 1920s, but it was full of well-to-do ladies who supported the arts with enthusiasm. When the Depression hit, families who were devoted to Mr. Publicover returned but no new families joined them and the possibility of spending a whole summer at play disappeared.
dock, c. 1917.
