MORNINGS ON MAPLE STREET

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North Adams Articles, Page Three

More North Adams articles below. 

UPTOWN AND DOWNTOWN

"Even though we had a house on the hill, it was not like we were rolling in the dough," she told me passionately. "They had no idea, no idea at all. Everything my parents have is because they worked hard for it and put it away."

A SENSE OF BELONGING

"This kind of thing went on all the time, and it probably still does with the lifelong residents. Maybe it was just a byproduct of life in an isolated mill town, but we knew each other well, and that sense of belonging has stayed with many of us all our lives."

THEN & NOW, PART ONE

It was when I was standing in the middle of the road with my camera that I suddenly felt an eerie sense of history. On the pavement in front of me lay a loose-leaf notebook open to an 8 x 10 photo of North Adams, dated circa 1890. It was identified as, "South from Houghton Street."

THEN & NOW, PART TWO

He worked in the card room, where it was very hot, so the man was often shirtless. Carl explains: "With all the wool dust floating around, you could always tell what color wool they were manufacturing, because this guy would be the same color."

CELEBRATING OURSELVES

"I've never tried to block out the memories of the past, even though some are painful. I don't understand people who hide from their past. Everything you live through helps to make you the person you are now."

SITTING IN THE CIRCLE

The 50 or 60 participants sit in a circle, as they always do. It is a physical arrangement that reminds me of North Adams. Standing on Main Street in the city, one is surrounded by imperfect concentric circles of streets, all lined with houses and the unseen people who live in them.

MASS MOCA INTERNS HAVE "INCREDIBLE" EXPERIENCE

"My ancestors - I think it was my great-grandparents - ran Van Steemburg’s grocery store on River Street. And I’m working in the mill where my grandmother worked. It’s amazing."

MASS MOCA SECURITY GUARD EXPERIENCES MUSEUM WITH ALL THE SENSES

"One time, my sister and I went to pick her up, and I was parked near the door. The noise was so horrendous in the mill that I could barely hear my sister talking in the car. I can just imagine what the sound must have been like inside. That’s why all the workers stuffed cotton in their ears."

BEFORE THE QUIETNESS IS LAID TO REST

Yesterday, I got up at 5:30 and arrived at the Bean just as it opened. The streets were empty, except for an occasional driver speeding down Main on the way to work. The air was murky, and clouds hung low on the mountains.

IN PRAISE OF SMALL SPACES

As one approaches the city center from the south, the first thing that catches the eye is an especially wide Main Street split down the middle by a grassy, tree-lined divider. Cars are angle-parked on both sides of the street between curb extensions, most of which are decorated with small trees, grass, and benches.

RETHINKING THE TOURIST ECONOMY

A few years ago, I was headed toward the entrance to Mass MoCA when I passed two well-dressed women wearing the familiar museum stickers. They were apparently on their way out after visiting the galleries. One woman pointed to several of the buildings and exclaimed to her companion, "This place looks a little bit like a factory."

AFTER TEN YEARS: ONE OF THE REGULARS

It's been ten years (officially July 21) since I serendipitously wandered into North Adams, and it occurred to me recently that I have finally fulfilled that ambition. On the streets and in the cafés of a city I have never lived in, I am now one of the regulars.

"PORCH STORIES CAPTURES BEAUTY AND SPIRIT OF NORTH ADAMS

The first time I huffed and puffed up North Holden Street in North Adams, I looked at the retaining wall and the three nearly identical houses behind it and wondered if it would all tumble down at any moment, burying me in a mountain of rubble. Finally out of harm's way above them, I peered down at the vertiginous view and imagined a theme park, where visitors pay five bucks to run up and down the stairs, gaze out from the porches, and coast down the hill on bikes.

THE MAN WITH THE HAIRY CHEST

"Back in the early 1950s,” Carl says, “I used to work at the Strong-Hewat woolen mill in Clarksburg. There was this guy who worked in the carding room. He had a very hairy chest. The wool dust would always be flying around. When it was hot...

FROM DAVID BYRNE TO WILCO: 14 YEARS IN NORTH ADAMS

"On the drive up here, I was imagining what this place could be. I thought it would be a place that people would travel some distances to see. I'm just dreaming here. It's some years off, but it's nice to be in on the ground floor." -David Byrne

STRANDED ON THE PORCH IN THE GREAT FLOOD OF '27

"There were about three tenement blocks right after Harris Street. The water began to eat away at the first tenement block. All the people in the houses put planks from one tenement block to the other and crossed over to the center of the middle tenement. The fire department came over and..."

HENRY BROOKS: FIRST ARTIST AT THE ECLIPSE MILL

Do you know what you were doing on September 1st of last year? Or on that date five years ago? Maybe not, at least without some thought. But if someone had asked Henry Brooks what he was doing on September 1, 1923, he would have known right away, though he might have just smiled and said, "That's a secret." On that date, now more than 88 years ago, Henry was working for the Hoosac Cotton Company, located at the Eclipse Mill, on Union Street in North Adams. When the boss wasn't looking, he...

North Adams Articles, Page One

North Adams Articles, Page Two

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