Page 37 - Cultural Studies A Practical Introduction

Place, Space, and Geography 21

collected together pieces of the past, moving buildings from various places

to create a new artificial town on the site of one of the old ship - building
yards that used to line the river in the nineteenth century. The museum
succeeded by creating a sense of a simulated town in which certain features
of nineteenth - century life were on living display, from a blacksmith forge
to a newspaper and an apothecary. While these elements of life were jux-
taposed incongruously, they nevertheless conveyed the sense of a diverse
culture and economy. They were not a realistic representation of actual life
in Mystic, but that was not the point. They served as a plausible simulation

of that life. Even if the artificial town was not historically accurate,
it managed to create certain meanings for visitors that allowed them to
conceive and imagine life in nineteenth - century Mystic.
The changes in the landscape of Mystic were not over. While the museum
drew crowds, few people visited the actual downtown. A few tourist shops
existed, but for the most part, the town had a local feel. There was a
“ notions ” store that sold knitting and sewing supplies and a shoe repair
shop. There was one upscale clothing store and a few others that catered
to the middle class. A diner sold inexpensive meals and had a 1950s aura
about it. There were no upscale restaurants, and the one hotel was fairly
dingy and old - fashioned. The beauty of the river mouth did draw those
with money, and someone had built condominiums along the river to
accommodate them. But the town had a functional local feel to it while
also being a part - time, summer tourist attraction.
Then, a recession came in 1989, and the local economy suffered. Newly
arrived younger merchants realized something had to be done to increase
their income. So they organized a movement with state funding to turn
Mystic into Mystic Coast and Country , a tourist destination that would be
advertised across the country. Two local indigenous tribes had built casinos
in the meantime, and they were drawing customers that, the merchants
decided, could be lured down to Mystic. As a result of the campaign, the
culture of Mystic changed. Tourism became a year - round business; crowds,
which used to be limited to the summer, became a permanent feature of life
in the narrow main street. The notions shop closed and was replaced by an
expensive rug store, then an upscale toy store. The shoe repair shop disap-
peared and was replaced by a shop that sold interesting expensive clothes.
More upscale clothes shops appeared, and a fine Italian restaurant opened

in the newly renovated hotel. The local lumber yard, housed in an old
nineteenth - century building along the river (on land that had suddenly
become quite valuable), closed and was torn down and replaced by an open
grassy area, where the local Chamber of Commerce decided that tourists