NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Nope. A helicopter.

Residents have been hearing helicopters recently flying overhead while the National Guard does weekly training exercises at Harriman and West Airport. Though they have been doing the training for years, it took a hiatus while the airport was closed during the summer.

"They do training. The terrain around here is similar to what they see overseas," Airport General Manager Champney said. "They have been following proper procedure but I did have a noise complaint from a Williamstown resident last week."

According to Champney, the National Guard uses the public airport once or twice a week and has for the last four years. However, the summer silence is gone with the reopening and the helicopters loom in the air. Thursday afternoon saw the most recent.

Champney said the helicopters are not flying low nor with an increased frequency yet some residents have taken special notice to them recently.

"I'm surprised of all the hub-bub," Champney said. "They've been doing it the same frequency for four years."

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Shima, the downtown children and maternity store, has expanded.

The store is nearly double the size by moving down the street to 65 Main St. The new location opened Wednesday after six weeks of painting and building shelves in preparation with 500 additional square feet of floor space, according to owners Suzy Helme and Libbie Pike.

Expansion was a year away in the owners' minds until the duo received an offer to rent the former Sports Corner location at a "good price."

"We couldn't really pass it up," Helme said.

The space was renovated by the pair with material left behind in the space, supplies they had laying around and customer donations. The store has all new shelving and a new floor.

On Wednesday a few boxes were being unpacked and the sign for the Gallery 51 annex still hung over the storefront but customers still found their way in. A small chalkboard out front advertised the new location. By the afternoon, the old sign was removed and the owners said they will soon be moving the handcrafted sign from the old location as well as building another one.

"We reused a lot of stuff from Sports Corner," Pike said.

Shima was closed Sunday through Tuesday so the owners could move. There is still some inventory that needs to be moved down the street, the owners said.

A section of roof has fallen in on the NoAMA Mill (Hoosac Mill) and structural damage is apparent in other areas. The city has closed the building and the owner has engineers checking the building.

 

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The massive Hoosac Mill is the latest victim of the wave of roof collapses caused by this winter's record snowstorms. A section of the roof has fallen in and other areas are suspect.

It is unclear when the collapse occurred but Building Inspector William Meranti said the city "became aware of it on the 11th and posted the building as unsafe on the 11th."

The building, now known as NoAMA for North Adams, Mass., has been closed since Friday, Feb. 11, according to a message on the office phone. Attempts to contact owner Ariel Sutain have not yet been successful.

Meranti said the entire building was deemed unsafe because of its construction and another area that is in danger of collpase. Sutain has one or several engineers working on the problem, he said.

The 265,000 square-foot mill was being leased for storage and light manufacturing. An anonymous email received by iBerkshires on Thursday said "no one is allowed in the building, even those who have property stored there."

"We've been fielding a lot of question from tenants," said Meranti. "Until we get a report back saying we can use some portion of the building, we can't let anyone one in."

Sutain bought the building in 2007 and has been upgrading and repairing it, including replacing windows and repointing the brickwork, over the last few years. One section has become a gallery and another has hosted artists for the North Adams Open Studios.

The mill was built in 1906 as part of the sprawling textile empire of Arnold Print Works and then purchased by the Hoosac Cotton Co. in 1911. It was later occuped by Hunter Outdoor Products and was a mushroom factory, Delftree.

The "serrated" roof configuration was made to allow for east-facing windows that brought light into the building. The windows were covered over years ago.

Also over the weekend, an old barn/garage on River Road in Clarksburg collapsed. The last significant snowfall was last Monday and Tuesday, when up to 8 inches fell over the region. No major snowfall is expected in the next week.

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The Community Development Committee rejected on Tuesday a proposal to name a street for a famous former resident and, instead, find a better way to honor him.

"I don't think we should rename streets except for to address public safety issues," said Chairwoman Lisa Blackmer. "It's costly."

Local historian Paul W. Marino had approached the City Council last November to consider renaming the section of Summer Street between Ashland and Church streets for Lue Gim Gong, a horticulturist who bred the late-maturing orange often named for him.

Lue had lived for a time in the Burlingame house on the corner of Summer and Church that is now better known as the offices of chiropractor Peter May.

Blackmer acknowledged Lue's accomplishments, particularly the orange ("Which I guess is great for all mankind.") but didn't think changing street names was an option. Larry Murray, a resident of that section of Summer Street, said he, too, was opposed to the change because of the aggravation it would cause.

Fellow committee members David Lamarre and Michael Boland agreed that renaming the street should not be recommended to the council. Councilor Marie Harpin, also in attendance, thought her colleagues were right.

However, they were open to other possibilities of honoring Lue, who spent most of his life in the state of Florida but kept in contact with North Adams residents.

"I think something more in the spirit of his accomplishments," said Boland, who suggested renaming one of the planned pocket parks for him or possibly the greenhouse program at Drury High School. "Since his history is a horticulturist, maybe tie something into that."

Marino said, "monuments have a tendency to become invisible." He'd hoped for the street change and a marker at the private Burlingame house to reinforce name recognition.

Lamarre and Boland thought that might be accomplished at Western Gateway Heritage State Park — a path and/or garden area named for Lue and a display at the North Adams Museum of History and Science.

The committee voted to refer the matter to the Conservation Commission and the Historic Commission.