Photograph by Josh Monken
Meghan Williams and Josh Goheen, who purchased their Maplewood home in March 2010, represent a new segment of the neighborhood: late-twenties/early-thirties professionals who ride MetroLink, attend at least one neighborhood event per month, and frequent nearby restaurants and bars.
“Whenever I tell someone I live in Maplewood,” says Williams, “the reaction is always, ‘Oh, I love Maplewood’ or ‘That’s so cool.’”
Of course, it wasn’t that long ago that Maplewood wasn’t “cool.”
“When I started working here in 2005, we did one community fair—that’s it,” says Rachelle L’Ecuyer, Maplewood’s director of community development. “Now I’d say we’re doing at least one event each month.”
The transition seems to have crystallized in the past two years with the openings of The Red Lion, The Post Sports Bar & Grill, Nosh, Vom Fass, and Kakao Chocolate.
Philip Manaois, pianist and co-owner of the The Jive & Wail, recalls the surge of night life when the piano bar opened there in fall 2007. “It was crazy busy from the beginning,” he says. The recession has since slowed that progress; The Jive & Wail in Maplewood shuttered late last year. Such vacancies are a setback for the area, but the potential remains. “The economy stalled the momentum a bit,” L’Ecuyer says. “But it
didn’t kill it.”
