It was about two years ago. I was headed home to Florence. As I turned left off East Road in Adams, I noticed that elm tree, the one which stands alone on the hill above Bucklin Road. I always notice it, but this time, I could see a strange low cloud moving toward the top of the … [Read more...]

"I don't think I'm beautiful. When I look in the mirror, I just see me — and I'm pretty used to me." -actress Melanie Griffith There’s an old story in my family that my mother often tells. She’s always been dissatisfied with the way she looks in photographs, and this used to … [Read more...]

When you drive down the Mohawk Trail into North Adams and come around the turn past the entrance to Beaver Street, it pops up suddenly - that forever startling scene - the two long brick mills, the narrow passage between, and Notre Dame church in the distance. Just across the … [Read more...]

When city native James Martin opened his North Adams Co-op Shoe Store at 113 Main Street on March 2, 1902, he wouldn’t have even dreamed that it would last into the next century. When Eileen Clark, 41, routinely opened Martin’s Shoe Store on a Saturday morning exactly 100 years … [Read more...]

On Thursday, October 4, I watched with sadness as the familiar J.J. Newberry’s sign was retired. It did not go easily, stubbornly hanging on for a full eight years after the closing of the last five and dime in North Adams. Almost a month later, as I drove over Route 9 from … [Read more...]

Steep Roads, poem by Joe Manning Life is all struggle and triumph, triumph and struggle. That is why I love to walk the steep roads of North Adams: Prospect up to Franklin, Meadow up to East Quincy, East Quincy up to Kemp, Hathaway up to North, Cliff up to … [Read more...]

"Why should it be loved as a city? It’s never the same city for a dozen years all together. A man born forty years ago finds nothing, absolutely nothing of the New York he knew. If he chances to stumble upon a few old houses not yet leveled, he is fortunate. But the landmarks, … [Read more...]

The Golden Cross, poem by Joe Manning Gramma used to tell me about the floods. She said that when she saw the store floatin' down the river, it was time to get out. So she moved to Rand Street, 'cause it was way up on the hill. My parents lived on Front … [Read more...]

"They kept the wood around the mirrors. The wainscoting is still there. But they took all the memories out. I wanted it to stay like it was." Several months after the Porches Inn opened in the summer of 2001, 69-year-old Mary (Cardinal) Gaudreau went over with her son to take … [Read more...]

In early 1999, these Victorian mill houses, filled with the humble memories of working-class families, appeared destined for demolition. In less than a century, River Street people had witnessed the prosperous years of Arnold Print Works and its decline during the Great … [Read more...]

The following article appeared in the North Adams Transcript on May 25, 2001. Used by permission. In a row of Victorian houses on River Street, a new standard of industrial comfort is coming to life. Early in the past century, mill workers rested in these structures after … [Read more...]

A few months ago, I was taking some photographs of the building facades along the downtown block of Eagle Street, when one of the storekeepers came out and asked me what I was doing. When I told him, he said: "There’s nothing here worth looking at. In fact, there’s nothing in … [Read more...]

"I’m looking so hard for a place to land/I almost forgot how to fly." -from "Lopin’ Along Thru The Cosmos," a song by the late singer/songwriter Judee Sill Most of us remember our first taste of ice cream, the first time we drove a new car home from the dealer, that first … [Read more...]

"I’ve been getting my haircut by the same barber for 50 years. No matter what I tell him to do, it always comes out the same." -Tony Talarico "There are two great rules of life: the one general and the other particular. The first is that everyone can, in the end, get what he … [Read more...]

I was talking with my friend Eric Buddington the other day at the Bean. The subject turned to what is often called street art. Eric said he likes to create spontaneous art in public places. For example, on a recent trip out west, he gathered some leaves under a tree and put them … [Read more...]

"All big men are dreamers. They see things in the soft haze of a spring day or in the red fire of a long winter's evening." -Woodrow Wilson Winter brings its special gifts, though we must sometimes look thoughtfully to realize and appreciate them. One of those special gifts is … [Read more...]

Some people think that big money is all a community needs to grow and prosper. Unfortunately, big money without good ideas serves to enrich only those who already have big money. When you have good ideas first, big money follows them. When North Adams began to experience the … [Read more...]

"Success can be a dangerous thing. Fortunately, I haven’t had to deal with it." -Kaare Bolgen In the past year, North Adams and the entire North County area have experienced a sudden growth in jobs and tourism mostly as a result of Mass MoCA, the explosion of Internet … [Read more...]

  "Four weeks into my job (January 1991), we got a fax from Governor Weld. Joe and Jennifer were out of town. It basically said that Mass MoCA was finished, and we could pack our bags. I was really scared. I was sure that I could find another job, so I wasn’t worried … [Read more...]