The Benches are Coming, The Benches Are Coming!

Benches, benches, benches. Perhaps no other word has caused so much agitation and pontificating in North Adams over the past two decades.

It's a been a perfunctory question of City Council candidates (Are you now or have you ever been a supporter of benches?) and perennial topic at election time. And yet, no benches.

There were seats — rather ugly slatted things really — that were installed as part of (shudder) urban renewal. They were yanked from Main Street sometime in the not-too-distant past over concerns they were magnets for loitering teens and drug deals. While former Mayor John Barrett III occassionally opined that there was no law against benches, he wasn't a fan — so no benches.

Until now. The new Develop North Adams group ordered 10 benches on May 8; they're expected to arrive in the next week or so with the first to be installed at Veterans Memorial Park in time for Memorial Day.

"I'm excited about the benches," said former City Councilor Vincent Melito on Thursday. "I think a lot of people have wanted to have benches here. It's symbolic of a new age for the community. This is a new administration with whole new ideas."

Melito's been a longtime advocate for benches in the downtown, and even started a fund nearly 15 years ago to buy new ones. "I started the North Adams Bench Fund, it's in one of the banks, mostly small donations from around the Berkshires."

The relationship between Barrett and Melito was, at best, testy, and the funds were never used for a North Adams bench. One large donation was returned but some of the rest was spent on a bench that's at Plunkett School in Adams, in recognition of the many Adams donors. "Where was overwhelming support for the idea," said Melito.

The new mayor, Richard Alcombright, has been a proponent of benches, saying at a forum in February they would "bring a perception of the downtown as a vibrant, warm and receptive area."

The former councilor is reviving the North Adams Bench Fund, which now has about $500, to join in the new greenspace initiative being launched by Develop North Adams. The initial amount will be in honor of the North Berkshire residents who donated, the rest in recognition of a local family.  Develop North Adams has been taking donations for the benches, which cost about $1,000.

"It's really exciting and people will apprecitate having a place to sit," said Melito, reporting how store owner had told him of an elderly woman they'd taken inside to wait for a taxi because there was nowhere to sit on Main Street. "North Adams is one of the few cities that doesn't have any benches."