120 Bradford Street. [2011, Dunlap]
120 Bradford is in the background during a parade to celebrate veterans of World War I. [“Welcome Home Parade Photographs, 1919” / Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum Collection / Provincetown History Preservation Project Page 5196]
Updated on 26 February 2026 | Two of the best known stores of the mid-20th century were the Men’s Shop, 261 Commercial Street (referred to in Provincetown Encyclopedia as 259-263 Commercial Street), and Nelson’s Market, 150 Bradford Street. Their proprietors — the Lopes and Nelson families — lived in this house, which was built between 1840 and 1850, according to the Provincetown Historic Survey. Occupants of the house would have had front-row seats to the 1919 parade welcoming home the veterans of the Great War.
James Arthur Lopes (1866-1942) and Mary “Minnie” (Rogers) Lopes (1871-1947) were living here by the 1940s. Lopes’s parents had come to Provincetown from the Azores. He was a Coast Guardsman for 28 years. His son, James Arthur Lopes (1903-2001) ran the Men’s Shop, “The Place to Go for the Brands You Know,” from 1938 to 1973.
By the early 1950s, Clarence M. and Mabel Nelson were living here and running the market — not far away — that is now Far Land Provisions. Great sorrow befell this house in 1953 when their 20-year-old son, Neil H. Nelson, was killed aboard the U.S.S. Leyte, as the aircraft carrier burned in Boston Harbor.
He is memorialized at Neil Nelson Square, at the foot of Harry Kemp Way.
An optometrist, Dr. Mark E. Schiffman, owns this property and had an office here. The fiduciary deed conveying the property from the Lopes estate is dated 13 September 2001, but the transaction actually occurred on 9/11, as Dr. Schiffman explains in a comment below.
David Mayo wrote on 23 December 2012: Mabel Nelson was Clarence Nelson’s second wife. She and Clarence were married for only about a year before his untimely death. She was born Mabel Williams and was my mother’s sister and the daughter of Chief Williams. As Mabel Rich, she lived at 3 Center Street with her husband, Fred, an auto mechanic who hailed from the large Rich family in Wellfleet. Clarence’s first wife — of many years — was Abbey Nelson. Mabel shopped at Nelson’s market for years. After Abbey Nelson died, Mabel and Clarence became an “item” — not consummated until their short-lived marriage.
Dr. Mark E. Schiffman wrote on 13 February 2026: By 6 p.m. on the day of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the world was starting to open again. My attorney, Chris Snow, asked if I wanted to keep the appointment that we had for the closing on 120 Bradford Street. I said yes and showed up with my cat, who had been to numerous closings with me in the past several years. We convened in Chris’s inner office, a conference room, and the documents were signed and the transaction made. You may recall that all federal and state buildings were closed on 9/11 and the following day. The reasons are obvious. They reopened in Massachusetts on Sept. 13. That is why my deed shows that it was filed on that date and not on 9/11, when the sales transaction took place. I think that’s an important part of the history because it ties this house to world events.
120 Bradford Street on the Town Map, showing property lines.