MANCHESTER, NH – On Wednesday, May 8, a small crowd of privileged guests filled the exhibit hall of the Millyard Museum to get a sneak preview of an exhibit that tells the story of the Manchester Housing and Redevelopment Authority; a story eight decades in the making, which Kathy Naczas, Executive Director of MHRA, describes as “a cornerstone of Manchester’s history.”

The MHRA, along with thousands of other Housing Authorities in the country, have been fighting since 1937, after the passing of the US Housing Act, to provide affordable public housing in cities and towns. The fruits of this fight have touched “all but one of Manchester’s boroughs,” Naczas said. 

“There’s just so many things that [the MHRA] were involved with and a lot of folks in the city don’t even know that,” Naczas said. 

It took until 1941 for MHRA to be confirmed by Manchester citizens, raising it up as the first housing authority in the state. Just three years later they completed their first project, an 85-unit “emergency temporary war housing development known as Grenier Heights off South Willow Street,” according to History of the Manchester Housing & Redevelopment Authority, by Lisa Mausolf, a packet distributed at the exhibit preview. The development created housing for “indisposable in-migrant civilian war workers,” according to Mausolf.

Postwar, The MHRA hit the ground running completing several housing projects for returning veteran families at what was Barry Playground on Pine Street. 

The MHRA met the need for low-income housing post-war as well by building The Rimmon Heights Housing Project, “the first state-assisted housing project constructed in NH,” according to Mausolf. 

Construction went from 48, opening in October of 49 and was praised as “one of the most modern and substations subsidized high-cost, low rent apartment projects in the country,” by Manchester Sunday News. Rimmon Heights is still around, now known as Kelly Falls after being renamed in 1988.

The MHRA would continue for another two decades building and renewing housing projects all over Manchester until 1961, when they began its most ambitious and influential undertaking, The Amoskeag Millyard Urban Renewal Project in, the project that Naczas calls “the centerpiece,” of MHRA’s legacy.

According to Mausolf and Naczas, “The Amoskeag Millyard Project was the first industrial rehabilitation project in the nation undertaken under federal urban renewal legislation…and was considered the most ambitious industrial urban renewal project ever done in our nation (at the time).” The project cost 24 million dollars and took twelve years to complete.

The Millyard at the time was a commercial space that represented nearly a quarter of Manchester’s workforce, according to Mausolf. If the Millyard was to keep its economic momentum it needed desperate adaptations to coincide with modern industry. Parking and shipping lanes were dismal, the canal and its sewer systems were becoming a health hazard, buildings were stacked on top of each other, too narrow for modern manufacturing and many were in disrepair, infested by blight or worse, anthrax.

Photo Gallery/Stacy Harrison

All in all it was determined that one-third of the Millyard and its components had to go. The canal was filled in, buildings were refurbished or torn down and by the end of 1979 the Millyard we know today was complete.

What Naczas finds the most special about this exhibit is how well-documented the MHRA’s work was and all the hurdles it cleared on the path toward its completion. 

The idea for the exhibit took shape after Naczas was shown a “historians’ treasure trove” that had been quietly fermenting in the attic of the MHRA’s office. “It had 3-D models, original architectural drawings, it had field books…it was an amazing collection…it needed to be preserved,” she said

Naczas promptly contacted the then-director of the Manchester Historical Association, John Clayton, who she said, was just as thrilled to come across the cache.

Then along came Covid, which put the project on a seemingly permanent hiatus. Years passed until the project could resurface, when local artist Dave Hady was commissioned to create a mural on one of the pillars of the Bridge Street bridge outside Arms Park. 

“It was Dave’s Mural that reminded me of all the history that (the MHRA) had and that we needed to revisit preserving all of the stuff that was in that attic,” Naczas said.

 And Naczas is right; the mural is a powerful metaphor honoring those hidden civil servants who, in regards to the mural at least, quite literally hold up the infrastructure of cities all around the country. 

As the project officially got underway Naczas and her colleagues, faced with the sheer amount of historical records and data, realized the need for a historic intern.

“We knew this project was going to be time-consuming and if we had to catalog and painstakingly go through everything, trying to decide what needed to be preserved and what we could discard…I could not possibly fathom doing this project,” Naczas said. 

Aurora Levesque from Rivier University came recommended by Dan Naczas, Academic and Career advisor for Rivier University and relative of Kathy Naczas. 

“She is and was the absolute perfect intern, Dan was one hundred percent right, but she is also the most remarkable young person I have met in a long time,” Naczas said.

Levesque was described as the lynch pin of the whole exhibit. “Without her this story would have never been told and this exhibit would never have happened,” Naczas said.

“Aurora worked tirelessly for ten months in a large dusty attic, with very old files and artifacts, in extreme heat and extreme cold. And I will forever have the image of Aurora sitting in an attic with two space heaters, gloves and a winter coat, painstakingly going through every file, every article, every deed, every picture and dusting things off…it was an amazing effort. I could not have asked for a better person who would appreciate the story that needed to be told,” Naczas said.

Naczas’ appreciation was even higher because she was somewhat part of the story herself. Her father Kenny Harlen worked for the MHRA. 

“I attended every grand opening of every high-rise building, the center of New Hampshire. There are pictures of me as an elf handing out Christmas gifts to the seniors in our properties…I also had a front-row seat to the Millyard Project…Joe Nelson was my Uncle.” Naczas said. “So this is as much my legacy exhibit as it is the Housing Authority’s.” 

MHRA commissioner, Andrew Papanicolaou came to the podium for closing remarks before letting attendees view the exhibit. He highlighted the history of the Housing Authority and why its mission is still as important, if not more important today as it was back then.

Papanicolaou grew up in Manchester running around his grandfather’s hotel, The Shadelock. The hotel stood where The Center of New Hampshire, which was an MHRA project, is now.

“I have been involved with the MHRA since 2016…but I guess I was first introduced to the Housing Authority when they took down my grandfather’s hotel,” Papanicolaou said.

Papanicolaou described his grandfather’s hotel as a rooming house. “It helped out a lot of the unfortunate, a lot of the veterans were there…There were 31 rooms and it was an integral part of the city because it was subsidized so people would have a place to live,” Papanicolaou said.

Papanicolaou said bringing those types of support to the city back is one of the biggest goals for the MHRA. 

“I wish there were similar types of facilities today because we wouldn’t have some of the issues we have in the city if we still had them,” Papanicolaou said.   

Looking to the future, Papanicolau highlighted the fact that the MHRA is fighting the same fight as so many citizens of New Hampshire are fighting; the pursuit of affordable housing. He said the MHRA is getting back to its redevelopment roots, just finishing the Upland Heights project, a 132-unit apartment complex on the west side, which Papanicolau says is “truly affordable housing for the city; it’s what the city needs.” 

Papanicolau describes the work of the MHRA as integral to Manchester’s future. 

“The city needs more of our involvement to get people into this type of housing,” Papanicolau said. 

“If you’ve grown up [in Manchester] you know the demographics of this city. The housing that is being built in this city right now is not for those demographics, it never will be. ” Papanicolau said. 

Papanicolau would like to be optimistic and hope that outside citizens will invest in Manchester, but he knows deep down he can only for certain count on the institution he represents. “The housing authority and its developments is that critical part we need to keep going in the city,” he said. 

At the end of the day Papanicolau recognizes that the work the MHRA does in the present is just as important as it was in the past, speaking of the Upland Heights project.

“It was really amazing to see the reaction of all the employees when they started to fill those units…it really hit home that what we do as employees [at the MHRA] affects lives, because so many people were happy to be in those homes. That’s what’s amazing about what we do as a whole and what we bring to the city, which I’m going to try to be a part of for as long as I can,” Papanicolau said. 

And with those words the attendees departed for the exhibit. We flooded into the adjacent room to inspect the records and the story they told for ourselves. If you would like to learn more of the story of the MHRA or see the exhibit for yourself make your way to the Manchester Millyard Museum at 200 Bedford Street.