1,000 Great Places From St. Stan's to ... the Elf Parlor?

The diocese may want to shutter St. Stanislaus' Church but the state says it's a "Great Place." The century-old Polish church was listed among the 1,000 Great Places in Massachusetts along with four other spots in Adams — Mount Greylock and the War Memorial, the Quaker Meetinghouse and the Susan B. Anthony Birthplace.

Nominations for the best cultural, historical and natural sites were solicited from across the state with the final list formulated in May. The full list was released then but announced in the State House on Monday, July 12.

We assume that St. Stan's had a lot of fans nominating it; more than 200 people have been participating in a vigil to keep the Diocese of Springfield from locking the doors and stripping the building of its stained glass, statues and paintings.

So what else in the Berkshires made the 1,000 Great Places? The usual suspects are there — Red Lion Inn, Tanglewood, Hoosic Tunnel, The Mount, Windsor Lake, Mass MoCA, Natural Bridge, Arrowhead, Hancock Shaker Village — along with the not-so suspected like North Adams' now legendary Jack's Hot Dog, Lee's Main Street and Williamstown's Field Farm.

But how did the year-old Elf Parlor, a coffeehouse in North Adams, wind up on a list that includes Faneuil Hall and the Clark Art Institute? We're guessing the same way St. Stan's did — lots of passionate fans willing to vote.

Find the full list of Great Places here.