Why we live here

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On one of those crystalline sunny days of summer in Maine, Heidi Johnson was walking with her two children in Norumbega Park, an esplanade along the Kenduskeag River in downtown Bangor. She had her 2-month-old son, Nicolas, strapped to her chest. Daughter Olivia, who is 3, scooted around playing a game of “monster” with 12-year-old Katie Durgan, a friend who had seen the Johnsons from her mother’s car and jumped out to spend the afternoon with them in town.

Johnson, a former producer at a local TV station, gave up her job when Nicolas was born, and now is a stay-home mom. She grew up in the Bangor area, and her husband, an air-traffic controller at Bangor International Airport, is from Nashville, Tenn. When they married, the couple considered moving to the South. They also thought about living in Hawaii, where they had honeymooned. But the pull to return to Maine was strong, and they ultimately landed in Levant, a suburb of Bangor.

“Because my husband is an air-traffic controller, we really could go anywhere,” said Johnson, who is in her late 30s. “The main thing for me is family. When you have children, the smaller town environment is a better place. It’s quieter here and not so busy. I think it will shield my daughter from some of the difficulties you find in larger cities. That’s my hope anyway.”

If you were to do an informal survey among families like the Johnsons – young, professionals who could be living anywhere in the country but chose to call Bangor home – you’re likely to find similar stories. We moved to Bangor because it is safe. We moved here because we want our children to have charmed childhoods. We moved here to be closer to our families. It’s only a guess, but family life and safety from the hard-bitten ways of larger cities may well be among the top reasons people live here.

While Heidi Johnson has an upbeat take on the city in which she is raising her family, Bangor has had its share of ups and downs, and if you knew it in the 1970s and 1980s or even 10 years ago, you would say mostly downs. As tens of thousands pour into Bangor this weekend for the 65th National Folk Festival, it’s likely that most don’t realize that not long ago, many downtown buildings had stood vacant since the center of commerce shifted, as it did in small cities nationally, to the mall on the outskirts of town.

But Bangor is gradually making a comeback as civic leaders begin to look toward a creative economy they hope will reinvigorate a city that, 100 years ago, was a small metropolis with a sophisticated cultural life. The movement is slow, but the choice of Bangor as the site for the National Folk Festival, is an audacious vote of confidence for the economic and cultural promise of this city. A lively, locally produced festival, to continue after the National’s three-year residence ends next summer, as well as the influx of festival-goers who may subsequently see this area a tourist attraction – or better, a place to live – could well be among the forces that put Bangor on the map of destination spots in the Northeast.

That’s not to say that Bangor still doesn’t face hurdles, especially regarding its young residents, those in their 20s looking for fun and work in the same place. The city has a limited nightlife, a meager singles scene, and a Main Street that shuts down early. And let’s face it: The 20s are noisy, expectant, partying years, and for all its appeal to families, this is a somewhat sleepy place for the young crowd that shows up for professional positions they hope will lead upwardly to work elsewhere.

Four ambitious architects in their 20s recently discussed life in Bangor as they sat around a conference table at WBRC Architects/Engineers, a prominent firm in town and the third largest in the state, according to its president John Rohman. Rohman is also chairman of this weekend’s festival, president of the Maine Arts Commission and one of the city’s most vocal champions of the creative economy model for development. He has regularly recruited young workers to the area, and each of the employees around the table that day relocated to Bangor specifically to take a job at WBRC. They love their work, but the question of whether they would stay for the rest of their careers did not yield compelling responses. Their answers were: “No.” “Maybe.” “I want to go to Portland.” “It depends on my husband.”

Not one definitive yes, not even from the one who moved here because the area appealed to him and his wife as a place to raise their son.

Yet down the hall was Matthew Carter, another architect, who grew up in Bangor, went away for school, worked in Alabama and Pennsylvania and could have continued to have a lucrative career in nearly any city in America. Nevertheless, he and his wife, a veterinarian and Bangor native, spoke each year of returning to the state.

“At first, we were just trying to get back to Maine,” said Carter, who met his wife in middle school. “But then we were trying to get back to Bangor. I love the Bangor Public Library. I’m interested in the architecture here, and the history is still exciting to me. But the biggest draw was to get my son near his grandparents. We feel very, very fortunate to be back in Bangor.”

Has he finished looking for the city of his dreams?

“I think so,” said Carter, whose wife recently purchased a veterinary practice here. “I think we’re done.”

One of his colleagues, Xenia Rofes, grinned puckishly about Bangor city life. She’s from Barcelona, Spain, but her husband is from Aroostook County, Maine’s northern-most region. “He used to tell me that for him, Bangor was Barcelona,” Rofes said comically raising her eyebrows.

Bangor may not invoke Barcelona for many, but, for just as many, that’s the point.

“We felt Bangor was good for us because we come from the urban environment and this doesn’t seem urban,” said Dan Sykes, who moved his software company, Maine Webmasters, to Bangor three years ago. “I don’t miss being in New York City, that’s for sure. We made our decision not to live in New York way before Sept. 11, but it was for those reasons. I didn’t see building our lives on a bull’s-eye.”

Sykes and his Russian wife, Elena, a partner in the business and in the raising of their 4-month-old son Nathan, are restoring an 18-room house built on Broadway during the lumber baron boom of the mid-19th century. Put that house down in the suburbs of New York and it would cost far beyond their budget, said Sykes, and you could also forget about saving for college. Even in Bangor, the three-year renovation project is pricey, but still affordable for a professional couple with a thriving cottage – or in their case mansion – industry. For them, the investment and pride in the house means they are building a future here.

Others who live in Bangor are less sure about long-term opportunities. Catherine LeClair, a 29-year-old actor, recently resigned as marketing director of the Bangor Symphony Orchestra to pursue big-city dreams. At the end of August, she will move to Brooklyn, N.Y., to look for work.

“It’s really a personal decision and not one that has to do with Bangor,” said LeClair, who grew up in Freeport and graduated from Wellesley College in Massachusetts. “I came here six years ago to perform in the Maine Shakespeare Festival. I never expected to stay but I fell in love with the place. I’m leaving now because it’s time to go. How do I explain that? There’s more to do here, but I think I’ve gone as far as I am interested in going.”

You can hear the split in the voice of John Patches, executive director of the Maine Center for the Arts, the University of Maine’s premier performing arts center in Orono, when he speaks of living in the area. His wife, Elizabeth, teaches in the music department at Colby College in Waterville. They moved here more than a decade ago from New York City.

“If I weren’t working for the MCA, I probably wouldn’t be here,” Patches said on the one hand. On the other hand, he said, “In our case, we made a decision to stay here. We made a commitment. Occasionally, I see something else of interest but I haven’t pushed moving somewhere else. Over the years in the work I do, we’ve made lots of friends. I guess you could say we are very happy.”

You’d be hard-pressed to find more civic staying power than in the Kuykendall household. Bill and Mary Kuykendall live in Winterport with their two sons, ages 22 and 30. They consider Winterport part of the Greater Bangor neighborhood.

“We deliberately came here,” said Bill Kuykendall, director of the UM New Media Program. “Maine was a destination calling to us for a long time. My wife and I are from a small town in West Virginia. We always imagined we would return to a rural setting at some point. And it has worked out great. We really love it. Every day we wake up and count our blessings.”

Kuykendall’s enthusiasm does not diminish when the topic of cultural life comes up. Some would argue that there is limited cultural life in the area. Others say they are content with local offerings, many of which are community-based.

“We don’t feel there’s a lack of culture in the area,” he said. “I have colleagues going off to Europe and New York and Boston all the time, and I think: Have you looked around at your own community?”

If they do, they find an orchestra, several theaters, a downtown art museum, galleries, restaurants, farmers markets, the mall, countless outdoor activities and sports events. And there’s always what Kuykendall, 58, calls the “culture of hard work, honesty and integrity.”

“There’s no posturing, no Joneses to keep up with,” said Kuykendall. “We’ve enjoyed folks we’ve met who have always lived here. They are the citizens of Maine who are smart, perceptive, and make their careers in farming or in mechanical industries. Taste, judgment and wisdom are common in that population.”

Joe Wilson, executive director of the National Council for the Traditional Arts, which produces the National Folk Festival, put it another way. He chose Bangor because he had a sense of the city’s romantic past, its lumber industry, Indian culture, French music roots and riverside beauty. Indeed, the authenticity and Yankee spirit of the city caught his eye while the landscape and riverfront underscored the city’s suitability for a major outdoor music event.

“We liked Bangor because of the enthusiasm of the people, their commitment to the city and their can-do attitude,” said Wilson. “As cities go, Bangor looked good. It looked organic, like real people lived here and did real things here.”

Wilson might consider Angie Carter to be one of those real people doing real things. And he’d be right. Sitting in the side yard of her neighbor’s house waiting for her 6-year-old daughter Michaela to get home from day camp, Carter was enjoying a few minutes in the sun. For now, she works as a teacher’s assistant at United Cerebral Palsy of Maine, but she hopes to go to college soon. She likes living in Bangor, and she also sees its limitations.

“There’s not a lot to do,” said Carter, who is 25, attractive, articulate, friendly and single. “There’s not much nightlife and it’s hard to meet people. I hate Bangor sometimes, and that’s why I visit other places. I’ve been to New York. I’ve been to Portland and Hawaii. But I like that I can have my daughter here. This is a good place to raise kids. And if I left now, my mother would kill me.”

Carter paused and smiled contentedly: “We’ve settled.”