Why is nashua the gate city

My wife, for health-related reasons, does not drive, and is keenly aware of the challenges faced by pedestrians in the Gate City. A September webinar on the same topic attracted 30 participants. There are too many shopping and business districts that have no sidewalks, or sidewalks that start then disappear, then start again.

Amherst Street is particularly notorious for this on-again, off-again phenomenon. These are all areas that have high pedestrian and bicycle traffic, but inadequate accommodations like uninterrupted sidewalks, marked pedestrian crossings or traffic-calming measures like speed humps and raised intersections.

Nashua has the potential to be a very walkable city, given its existing network of sidewalks and prime walkable and bikeable areas, including the riverfront, many parks, as well as the Heritage and Riverfront trails, according to planners. Furthermore, the city anticipates several bridges may soon become red-listed. Amherst Street, or Route A, north of the Exit 7 overpass to the Merrimack town line is among the most dangerous stretches of road for pedestrians in the state.

A map generated by the planning commission shows 11 crashes along that stretch involving pedestrians or cyclists and motor vehicles in the past four years. The recent reconstruction of the Amherst Street intersection at Charron Avenue was a big improvement, with a more pedestrian-friendly traffic pattern and a new pedestrian crossing at the traffic light. But once you cross from Charron Avenue to Amherst Street, you are risking life and limb by proceeding in either direction.

The sprawl from the turnpike exit to Merrimack includes a variety of businesses and services, apartment buildings, Nashua Community College, various medical facilities and several well-used bus stops.

But no matter how many crosswalks are built, we still have to rely on motorists to honor them. Late last summer, I watched as my wife waited to cross Main Street just south of the river at a well-marked pedestrian crossing. Two cars heading south stopped for her as did the northbound car on the lane closest to the sidewalk.

She stepped off the curb, glancing left and right, and fortunately stopped dead in her tracks as another northbound car came racing up the outside lane inches from the stopped car and my wife. David Solomon was executive editor of the Nashua Telegraph from to and a senior staff writer with the New Hampshire Union Leader from to His column appears on alternate Thursdays. He can be reached at dave scdigital. Sorry , an error occurred.

Get Started. Log In Register. You are logged in. Gate City Insurance is your source for all of your insurance needs. Our family owned and operated company is customer oriented and offers the experience and personal touch you need when it comes to insurance services.

If you value honest, ethical, good old fashion customer service and experience then you must call our agency to review all of your insurance needs. Gate City Insurance is a general agency that offers a full range of competitive insurance products in the local community. Established in we carefully put together a portfolio of national insurance carriers that provide products for just about any type of insurance need.

The following year they commenced to build a second factory between both buildings they will contain spindles and will weave daily 8, yards of cotton… They have also built 48 houses or tenements…there are now about 20 stores and 2 taverns…2 churches have been built. It is impossible to examine the factories in this place when in operation, and not view with astonishment the silence, order, and decorum which so universally prevails…It has been objected to Manufacturing Establishments, that vice and immorality are more apt to prevail there…we can bear ample testimony to the correctness of the morals of its inhabitants…The number of inhabitants in this village four years since was about , there are now about For it was the canal boats that brought the raw cotton and mercantile goods up from Boston Harbor, and transported the finished textile goods back down the Merrimack River and Middlesex Canal.

The steamboat "Herald" plied the waters between Lowell and Nashua in these early days. It was built and completed in The first locomotive engine ever seen in New Hampshire was in Union Square, Nashua Village in October ; it was then described by eyewitnesses as "a super-natural wonder". Union Square was enthusiastically renamed Railroad Square. December of also marked the point that the ancient Township of Dunstable, New Hampshire was left to history forever, and the new industrial culture was firmly advanced by officially adopting the community name as the "Town of Nashua, New Hampshire".

Two Townships In , the Town of Nashua, New Hampshire divided into two separate townships resulting from feelings of insult and impropriety of selecting the location of the proposed new Town House or Town Hall.

The residents north of the Nashua River were enraged over the site selected on the south side of the river. They hired Franklin Pierce future U. President to legally represent them, and in late the New Hampshire legislature approved of the chartering of the new town on the north side of the Nashua River, Nashville, New Hampshire.

After 11 years of hard-feelings, economic and political damage, and loss of regional community standing, the two owns came together, resolved their differences, adopted a city charter form of government and thus the City of Nashua, New Hampshire was introduced to the world in Cotton manufacturing, though important, owes less for her than the combined benefits of other manufactures. Artificers in wood and iron, in cards, paper, leather; builders of ponderous or curious machines, makers of edge tools, locks, and shuttles; forge-men, foundry-men, and artisans of every degree and multifarious callings, together swell the sum of her benefits until the cup of her prosperity runs over.

By , six major railroad lines interconnected at Nashua. From Nashua manufacturers could ship freight and product anywhere in the world affordably and easily. It was the great economic and industrial expansion that followed the American Civil War that propelled Nashua forward to new heights.

Diversity in the Community Between and , the great waves of immigrant people from across the entire globe came to work and settle their families in Nashua. However, a way of life and industry was changing forever in the Merrimack River Valley. The great New England textile industry was heading south financially and literally. The New England textile empire collapsed and would never come back. Acquisition The Nashua Manufacturing Company though substantially resilient and still profitable finally was acquired by Textron, Inc.

Some 2, Nashuans of a total population of 25, were permanently out of work and the city that was created to manufacture textiles had to adapt and reinvent itself or slowly decay into blight and community disintegration. City Reborn From this seemingly catastrophic event, a new city of innovation, advancement, and modernity was reborn.

The now legendary men of the Nashua New Hampshire Foundation organized their efforts for love of their city and home, purchased the millions of square feet of empty textile mill buildings, and set about attracting new, diverse, and progressive industries to the "Gate City".