This Just In ...

Forty years ago, the vast complex of mills that looms over the Merrimack River in Manchester, NH, went silent. What had been one of the great industrial cities of the East fell into an economic crisis that saw its downtown become shuttered. Today, Manchester is New Hampshire's Renaissance city and its cultural center. It is home to the Granite State Opera, the New Hampshire Philharmonic Orchestra, the Palace Theatre, and the Currier Museum of Art.

The mill district is alive again with new museums, restaurants, colleges, hotels, and even a baseball park. A new civic center in the form of the Verizon Wireless Area brings top billed shows to the center of town, not to mention professional ice hockey and arena football.

A gem in the middle of Manchester, the Currier Museum of Art is a cultural center that has been reborn much like the city around it. The Currier just added a landmark new wing with 33,000 square-feet. Designed by Ann Beha Architects of Boston, the modern addition increases the museum's footprint to nearly 90,000 square feet. The Currier's $21.4 million expansion offers new galleries to display 50% more of the world-class art collections.

Visitors arriving at the Currier will encounter two works that were selected specifically for the new building. Upon arrival, they will be greeted by "Origins", a 35-foot high sculpture by Mark di Suvero that stands as the centerpiece to the outdoor court. Inside the Winter Garden visitors will see a striking wall drawing commissioned by the Currier from Sol LeWitt to reflect the mosaics from the original 1929 building.

Inside, galleries host rotating special exhibitions several times per year while the museum's own collection boasts works by Monet, Picasso, O'Keeffe, and Wyeth, to name a few. Visitors can take a tour from the Currier to an original Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home in Manchester's residential area, while visiting families can have fun in the Currier's Discovery Gallery.

Manchester is less than one hour from Boston, the Seacoast, the Lakes Region and the White Mountains, and its airport is one of the easiest to navigate with almost 100 commercial flights a day.

Nicknamed the Queen City, Manchester straddles the famed Merrimack River, which helped it become a thriving area of textile mills in the late 1800s. The Amoskeag Manufacturing Company produced 5 million yards of cloth a week in what was then the world's largest single millyard. Though they met their demise during the 1900s, those mills shaped the character of Manchester that is still evident today—lively ethnic communities, vast cultural opportunities, and an energetic nightlife. The mill's former buildings have been transformed into trendy restaurants, a university, coffee shops, new businesses, and a museum that celebrates the town's multi-layered mill history, the new Millyard Museum.

Two venues stage first class entertainment. The Palace Theater offers professional dramas for children in the summer, plus Broadway theater, Nashville singers, and alternative music year-round. The New Hampshire Philharmonic Orchestra performs classical and pops here. The Verizon Arena, opened just in 2001, hosts a myriad of national touring shows including some of the top family acts in the country. It also is where the Manchester Monarchs, the state's professional hockey team, plays.

Manchester is entering a new golden age.