Vacancy, Art, & Transformation: Winooski 1969-2005

The book portrays a New England Mill town's numerous attempts to reinvent itself following the closing of the mills in the late 1950s and the impact of those policies on the people living there. Included are over 50 pages of portraits. Higgins presents a 1970s downtown where people socialized in the restaurants, where shuffleboard tables were ubiquitous, and where people filled the bingo parlor nightly. He describes the Urban Renewal project that demolished the east half of the neighborhood and urooted residents. He recalls the importance to musicians of the Melanson's Mill Restaurant, the town's ongoing atraction for artists, and the city's visionary proposal to use federal funds to cover Winooski with a dome. He describes the regional excitement over the "Renaissance" development in the 1980s, celebrates Winooski's former prominence as a center of Halloween activity, and finally he honors the influx of residents from other countries who have added to the town's cultural richness.