3 Jerome Smith Road

 
Lewis A. Young Post, No. 3152, Veterans of Foreign Wars

Look at those faces. These are just a few of the men who enlisted in the Navy in May 1917. Not the Portuguese Navy; the United States Navy. It’s a stirring testament that men with intimate ties to their seaside town but almost no cultural bonds to the nation in which they lived should have responded so quickly a month after President Woodrow Wilson declared war. (By the end of World War I, 319 residents of this small town had enlisted in the armed forces.) The ethnic composition also set the tenor of this post, which has long ranked among the more important Portuguese-American social institutions, though it is by no means exclusively so.

15 Jerome Smith Road

That’s real fishing gear out on the lawn. This is the home of a real fisherman, Capt. Fernando S. Lomba (b 1960) and his wife, Maria A. Lomba (b 1957). Captain Lomba, who was born in Vila Praia de Âncora, Portugal, was the last skipper of the beautiful wood-hulled dragger Ancora Praia while she was still operational. A fire on board in 2007 proved to be a mortal blow. She was given up for fishing in 2011. • Assessor’s Online Database ¶ Posted 2013-02-13

16 Jerome Smith Road

 
Provincetown Skate Park

This 10,000-square-foot corner of the municipal Jerome Smith parking lot was set aside in 2003 as a skate park, as Town Meeting approved a $50,000 budget. The parcel was fenced in and graded with smooth concrete. Ray Duarte and other highway workers assembled the ramps and obstacles, as did volunteers like Nathan Herrick, John Lambrou, E.J. Martinez and Wesley Medeiros. The park is run by the Recreation Department. • Assessor’s Online Database ¶ Posted 2013-02-13

† 16 Jerome Smith Road

 
Temporary Town Hall (2008-2010)

This was the seat of municipal government when Town Hall underwent its cellar-to-rooftop renovation. Or rather, these were the seats of municipal government, since the arrangement involved five trailers joined together in the Jerome Smith parking lot, opposite the Provincetown Skate Park. Roughly 40 town employees began reporting here for work in November 2008. The inside was no less Spartan. Quarters were almost ship-like in their compact economy. But somehow, the republic survived. ¶ Posted 2013-02-13