Watertown's Arsenal Mall prepares for historic exhibit

Photo courtesy of Bob Erickson
This undated postcard shows the way the Watertown Arsenal used to look.

By Jeremy C. Fox
Wicked Local Watertown
Posted Aug 29, 2010 @ 03:41 PM
Last update Aug 29, 2010 @ 11:30 PM
WATERTOWN —
The Arsenal Mall will soon be offering a dose of history along with its shopping experience, as it opens its “Watertown Arsenal Through the Years” exhibit.

The project, a collaboration between the mall, the Historical Society of Watertown and the Arsenal Center for the Arts, will incorporate historic photographs and artifacts from the arsenal, displayed in a series of glass cases throughout the mall.

The objects and photos have been compiled from the Historical Society, the Watertown Public Library, the National Archives, the Library of Congress and other sources.

Lauren Higginson, marketing director for the Arsenal Mall, said the exhibit will trace the changes that the arsenal area has seen over its long history.

“It’s going to be a then-and-now type of exhibit where you’ll be able to see images and information from the Civil War era, when it was originally built, through today,” Higginson said.

The exhibit will officially open with a walking tour at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 11. The tour will begin at the mall, continue through the Harvard Vanguard and Arsenal on the Charles areas and conclude at the Arsenal Center for the Arts.