A great fire in May 1811 destroyed most of central Newburyport; what stands today was rebuilt in brick within the following decade, in a uniformly handsome Federal mercantile style. By the 1960s the blocks had decayed and the city flirted with bulldozing them; instead, in one of the first historic-district renewal projects in the country, the buildings were cleaned and the streets pedestrianised.
The result is the heart of the contemporary city: Inn Street, Pleasant Street, and Market Square hold most of the restaurants, the independent bookshop Jabberwocky, the Saturday farmers' market, and the Firehouse Center for the Arts in a converted 1823 firehouse on the square.