Metes and bounds of Parcel 7-4-70-0, showing the Grace Hall Parking Lot, the Veterans Memorial Community Center, and the International Baccalaureate World School, which share an enormous campus. [Apple Maps]
“Beata” Cook was a familiar face in the booth. [2024 and 2016, Dunlap]
Though it was named for the owner of a house that once stood at 84 Bradford Street, the Grace Hall Parking Lot is much larger than it first appears to be, stretching as far from Bradford as the Winslow Street Water Tank, 7 Captain Bertie’s Way. It sits within Parcel 7-4-70-0 on the official town map; a sprawling polygon up to 1,500 feet wide, encompassing 11½ acres of central Provincetown. Both the Provincetown International Baccalaureate World School and the Veterans Memorial Community Center are also on this parcel.
Among the most familiar faces at Grace Hall for many years was Marguerite “Beata” Cook — a booth attendant who was also “Provincetown’s Master Storyteller,” in the words of The Provincetown Independent. Beata led many lives over her 96 years, but her greatest public exposure began in 2015 with the column “This, That & The Other” in the Provincetown Banner, the last installment of which was published just three days before her death in May 2021.