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When the government shut down threatened Halloween bathrooms, a town rallied

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

When you think government shutdown, Halloween might not be the next word that comes to mind unless you live in Salem, Massachusetts. When local leaders there learned a National Park Service visitor center and its bathrooms would be closed during their busiest tourist season, they took action. WBUR's Andrea Shea reports.

(LAUGHTER)

ANDREA SHEA, BYLINE: Every October, tourists to the Witch City go on ghost tours, get their tarot cards read and visit sites from the historic Salem witch trials. But when nature calls, Annie Harris says a lot of them head down the cobblestone pedestrian mall to the National Park Service Armory Visitor Center.

ANNIE HARRIS: The visitor center has some of the best bathrooms in Salem, so it's very popular. It's one of the few places that you could have a real bathroom and not have to go to a porta-potty.

SHEA: Harris is CEO of Essex Heritage, a nonprofit that promotes local history and helps staff the visitor center. Salem's year-round population is about 45,000, but organizations and businesses band together to welcome 1 million Halloween tourists and their dollars to their month-long Haunted Happenings festival. Harris says the ghosts of government shutdowns past motivated her to try to save this hub of accessible toilets and tourist information.

HARRIS: This is the third shutdown that's happened in October of the visitor center. The second time, about halfway through, I realized that actually maybe there would have been a way to keep it open.

SHEA: So Harris called the local Park Service superintendent, who said the Washington headquarters might allow Salem to reopen the visitor center if the community covered costs, including staff to clean the bathrooms, a park ranger and utilities. The $18,000 needed was daunting for Harris, so she emailed Salem's mayor, Dominick Pangallo.

HARRIS: I think we could maybe keep it open. Are you interested?

DOMINICK PANGALLO: This being an option, it was exciting and encouraging, and so we jumped on it right away.

SHEA: They just needed the cash. So the mayor reached out to community partners, including Ashley Judge, executive director of the city's marketing organization, Destination Salem. She was thrilled because, in October, stakes are high.

ASHLEY JUDGE: And so it was really important that this not become the crummy year, the year without bathrooms. It was a problem we needed to solve.

SHEA: Judge sent out her own emails. The Salem Witch Museum was the first to respond.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Do you believe in witches?

SHEA: The Witch Museum attracts about 60,000 visitors in October. According to executive director Tina Jordan, she called museum CEO Biff Michaud.

TINA JORDAN: I said, Biff, what do you want to do? He said, Tina, give them half. I said, oh, my gosh.

SHEA: Other nonprofits and businesses got on board. About $18,000 later, the National Park Service visitor center was able to reopen. Jordan is amazed that it came together in just 48 hours.

JORDAN: This is an amazing community. It's very diverse. It's very inclusive. It's a no-place-for-hate community, and everybody rallies together when push comes to shove.

SHEA: But the funding expires November 2. If there's still a shutdown, the visitor center will close its doors again.

JORDAN: People's jobs are at stake. There are so many people who live in Salem who work for the National Park Service. So please, please, let's get them back to work. Let's open everything up. Let's do it the right way.

SHEA: For NPR News, I'm Andrea Shea.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MONSTER MASH")

BOBBY PICKETT: (Singing) And suddenly, to my surprise...

UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTISTS: (Singing) He did the mash.

PICKETT: (Singing) ...He did the monster mash.

UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTISTS: (Singing) The monster mash. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Andrea Shea
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