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Great option for meeting some locals, or for those visiting with children. You'll find plenty of swings, slides, and games scattered throughout these 30 acres. The stunning outdoor community pool opened in 2022 and provides sweeping vistas of the harbor. A 1930s era concrete slide remains ensconced in a hillside, perfect for those who really want to dislocate something. Parking for Pioneer Village is found here, see Do section for more.
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Created in 1930, this is America's first living-history museum. Based around a recreated Puritan village, it gives visitors the opportunity to observe how the lives of Salem's earliest English settlers might have been lived. Holds space for the Naumkeag and other Massachusett peoples. You'll get some amazing pictures, but overall it's quite small, you'd be hard pressed to spend 30 minutes here.
Derby Wharf Light
Reaching nearly half a mile by 1806, this wharf is Salem's longest. At the height of its power, over 20 buildings here stored goods imported from around the globe. Today it provides beautiful, if windy, views of the harbor and park itself. Visitors who make it to the end are rewarded with up close views of Derby Wharf Lighthouse, built 1871.
The Punto Urban Art Museum was founded as a social justice art program. Designed to promote and feature Dominican artists in an effort to reduce stigma against those who reside there. Over 75 large scale murals featuring a variety of global and New England-based artists. If your group has 15 or more people, sign up for an educational tour. Tours last about 90 minutes and cover topics like: the immigrant experience, street art, and local cultural highlights.
Take a tour of Salem harbor on a full-scale replica of the famous schooner. Framed and planked of white oak and trunnel-fastened in the traditional manner, this replica was launched in 2003. The original Fame was a fast Chebacco fishing schooner reborn as a privateer when war broke out in the summer of 1812. She was arguably the first American privateer to bring home a prize, and she made 20 more captures before being wrecked in the Bay of Fundy in 1814.
This replica ship usually functions as a floating museum; however, the vessel is fully functional and Coast Guard certified. She was designed after a model of the original (on display at PEM), and is occasionally taken out under full sail for crew trainings and tall ship events. The original was a three-masted trading ship built in Salem in 1797. After circumnavigating the world over a dozen times, she would eventually be taken by British forces during the War of 1812, then stripped and sold for parts.
Not great. Same owners as Salem Witch Village, just next door.