SALEM – The City of Salem is excited to announce several new preservation planning projects this fall as it prepares for its upcoming 400th anniversary in 2026.
Fort Lee sits mostly hidden from view within the treeline above Salem Willows. This historic fort dates to the Revolutionary War and is one of the only 18th century earthwork forts remaining in near original condition in Massachusetts. The four-pointed fort was constructed in 1776 with renovations undertaken during the Civil War. In 1927, the 2.3 acre site was deeded to the City of Salem for use as a public park. Today, the fort is suffering from erosion, vegetation overgrowth, inappropriate use and a lack of public awareness that is threatening the future of this historic site. With support from a Massachusetts Historical Commission grant and CPA funds, the City is documenting and assessing current conditions at the fort in order to develop a plan to preserve the historic site and improve its public accessibility and environmental sustainability. A consultant team led by Kyle Zick Landscape Architects together with an archaeologist, site surveyor and arborist will use state of the art technology to document the fort through 3D modeling, aerial photographs and illustrated renderings. Over the winter and spring of 2026, the City will engage with the public, including Friends of Fort Lee, park users, neighbors, City boards and preservation partners to identify prioritized preservation strategies including necessary improvements to stabilize and preserve the earthwork fort, conserve and rehabilitate the park’s landscape, improve pedestrian circulation and develop public interpretation at the site.
At Broad Street Cemetery, restoration work has begun on a deteriorated historic brick and marble box tomb marker that was in danger of collapse. The City hired a conservation team to carefully disassemble the structure, removing and cleaning the historic marble top and bricks walls. These historic materials will be used to reconstruct the marker to its original appearance.
These current projects join a list of recent preservation efforts in Salem including the Mack Park Neighborhood Historic Survey completed by the City last year. This effort resulted in the documentation of more than 100 properties in the historic Mack Park neighborhood in North Salem, uncovering original and past owners, builders, and occupants for each of the surveyed properties with descriptions of architectural styles represented in the neighborhood. This information, which is documented on individual inventory forms, provides a better understanding of the evolution of North Salem including subdivisions of large tracts of communal farmland for residential development, the impact of the leather industry, the evolution of the North River/Canal, the various ethnic groups that lived in the neighborhood and the hardships they faced, the effects of Salem’s 1914 fire on North Salem, and famous persons who lived in the neighborhood.
The Mack Park Neighborhood Survey represents a continuation of Salem’s city-wide historic resource inventory. Since 2015, the City has completed surveys in Salem’s historic downtown and in South Salem, documenting historic buildings, structures, objects and landscapes. These inventory forms as well as thousands of forms for historic resources throughout Salem can be viewed and downloaded on the Massachusetts Historical Commission statewide database at https://mhc-macris.net/.
“The City of Salem of today is built upon a long and important history,” remarked Mayor Pangallo, “As we prepare to commemorate our quadricentennial anniversary in 2026, it is important to reflect on that history and the legacies that it imparts to us, and to continue striving to learn from our past. I am grateful to City staff, local organizations, and community partners who are so dedicated to preservation efforts.”
For questions about these projects and other preservation efforts in Salem, please contact Patti Kelleher, Preservation Planner in the City’s Department of Planning and Community Development at 978-619-5685 or pkelleher@salem.com or visit the City’s preservation website: https://www.preservingsalem.com/
Funding for the Fort Lee Preservation Plan and the Mack Park Historic Neighborhood Survey came from the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, through the Survey and Planning Grant Program administered by the Massachusetts Historical Commission, Secretary of the Commonwealth William Francis Galvin, Chairman, and from the City of Salem.
