Bytes from the Bean by Joe Manning 3-1-0112:00AM / Thursday, March 01, 2001
“When I was a sophomore at Drury, our Spanish Club went to Spain for ten days. When we got back, all of one side of Main Street was gone. It looked like the Civil War hit it. I remember saying to myself, ‘There goes my history.’”
-Nanette Schmidt, from “Disappearing Into North Adams”
Last October, I told you a little about my new book, “Disappearing Into North Adams,” and that I planned to include some excerpts in the upcoming months. Below, you will find a few samples from a number of the nearly seventy interviews that appear in the book. At this point, “Disappearing Into North Adams” has been written and designed and will be headed to the printer in a couple of weeks.
I have learned a lot in the course of writing this book over the last three years. Through the examination of the records from the south side urban renewal project that took place in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, and from the people I have talked to, I believe I have gained a better understanding of why the project took place and why it ultimately failed to fulfill its promise of major redevelopment.
I interviewed many of the persons who made the decisions and carried out the project, including the late Joe Bianco, who was elected mayor just after most of the demolition had taken place. He continued to lead the city until 1978, when he decided not to run for re-election. During his final two-year term, the Redevelopment Authority considered the plan that resulted in the Kmart and the L-shaped shopping center. It was not what residents had been hoping for, but it may have been the best the city could do, given the economic conditions at the time. Joe explained it this way in my interview with him on August 29, 1998:
“Urban renewal started under (Mayor Francis) Florini. I wasn’t responsible for the beginning of all that. I was left with a bunch of rubble from torn-down buildings. Everything was a blank. But I supported it. I thought it was going to improve North Adams.
People had ideas of having a Macy’s or some big store coming into the center of town. When I finally decided after so many years that we couldn’t have a vacant lot there anymore, I got Kmart interested, and I also got the stores on the corner built. Otherwise, I think it would still be empty. I just felt something had to be done. We were asking for the impossible. Of course, anyone would be disappointed to get Kmart instead of Macy’s. As much as people would have liked to see Filene’s or some high-class outfit, it just wasn’t to be.
One Boston businessman made a proposal. He didn’t have a dime, even though he tried to make people think he did. He played around with the city till I stepped in. He said he was going to bring in developers. He talked about Jordan Marsh, Macy’s, and things like that, which we knew was an impossibility if you use your sense. I’m not sure now whether we should’ve had the urban renewal. It’s hard to tell. I think people anticipated a lot more than they got.”
Gene Breda, who was the city engineer back then, told me in July of 1999:
“In the early sixties, the philosophy of the times was, ‘The country’s getting old. Let’s tear it all down and build it all over again.’ I thought urban renewal was a good idea at the time. The streets were too narrow. Bank Street was a one-way street. There was a grain mill right next to City Hall, which was at least a hundred years old. City Hall was a renovated horse barn. The engineering department was in the boiler room in the basement.
There were all sorts of plans to redevelop the area. One was to build a huge four-story building that would cover the area from the corner of Main Street and American Legion Drive, and go south down to the fire station, and east on Main all the way up to the bank. The plan was to put a parking garage on the top two floors, a shopping mall on the first floor, and business offices on the second floor. I didn’t speak against it, but I chuckled when I saw it. I thought, ‘How are they going to finance it? How strong are the floors going to have to be with all those people underneath?’ ”
Still, the late Lou Sinclitico, who served many years on the Redevelopment Authority, told me three years ago:
“I have no regrets about it. The city has done very well. Urban renewal was the best thing that ever happened to North Adams. Every time something new was built on that property, the city got more back in taxes than all the old owners ever paid.”
Others took a different view, like Fran Sebastino:
“When they started the urban renewal, I don’t think anybody thought they were going to rip down half of the city. I wrote letters to the editor. I went around with a petition house to house. I think I was the only one doing it. I was like the Lone Ranger, but I didn’t have the silver bullet.
People just said, ‘Urban renewal is great. It’s new, and we’re getting all this government money. They’re gonna do this and they’re gonna do that.’ Look what they did. You got half a street. You got nothing on one side. I don’t think it was a case of people really supporting it. I think people just went with the flow. Joe Bianco was running the city, and he said this was what we were gonna do, and he did it. What could you do? The people who owned the buildings wanted to unload them.
I said to everybody, ‘Don’t you see that if we keep our city the way it is; in time, we will be unique? We have a beautiful Main Street. Why are we doing this?’ When they tore those buildings down, I couldn’t watch. It made me sick. I’m still mad about it.”
Whether or not urban renewal was the cause, North Adams took an awful beating in the next few years. Gradually, the decline of Sprague Electric was responsible for fewer people on the streets and fewer customers in the stores. When Sprague finally abandoned the mill on Marshall Street in 1987, many people left the city, houses and neighborhoods began to deteriorate, and there was little reason for optimism.
However, North Adams has been through many tough times over the years, and somehow, people always manage to pull together and find ways to renew their community. Shirley Davis, who helped to start UNO (United Neighborhood Organization) in 1990, remembers:
“I got married in ’53 and lived on Bracewell Avenue and had all my children there. All those years, it was a beautiful well-kept neighborhood. The streets were clean. You knew your neighbors. Kids played with kids. Parents visited. It was wonderful, until the 1980s. Then houses were sold. Absentee landlords bought them up real cheap and just collected the rent and didn’t care what people did. The riffraff moved in, because they figured no one cared what they did. The houses got rundown.
Kids were running on the street. There was drugs and alcohol. We’d call the police, and they would never come on time. All the crime and police calls; it was like a nightmare. In ‘88, we put our house on the market, but we couldn’t sell it. When I said it was on Bracewell Avenue, people who called would just hang up.
Al Bashevkin of the Northern Berkshire Health and Human Services Coalition held a meeting at the Salvation Army on October 1, 1990. Sixty people came, including social service people and the police department and the public safety commissioner. Al ran the meeting. We sat around in a circle. There were a lot of angry people there. In two minutes, everybody was all talking at once. Somehow, everyone got their chance to say what was bothering them. The officials that were there tried to listen to the concerns and agree to do something.
When it was over, I had some hope. For a long time, I had been thinking that I was the only one feeling that way. Nobody was doing anything about it. After that first meeting, some of the people took their houses off the market. I took my sign down. Good things started happening one after another.
The second meeting, we decided to call ourselves UNO or the United Neighborhood Organization. We started Crime Watch and put the Crime Watch signs up. The police started coming more often. Nobody could do anything bad without us reporting it.
We built a playground. Mayor Barrett donated the empty lot at the end of the street and gave us all the equipment from other playgrounds that had closed. He put in new sidewalks and fixed the streets. The Community Development Corporation got involved. They bought some of the houses and fixed them up. Little by little, the bad people in the neighborhood just left, because we kept reporting them. People started taking pride in the neighborhood again.
Everybody was so happy to see that things were turning around. We marched in the Centennial Parade in ’95. The kids went out and sold candy bars, and we got T-shirts for them all. The whole city was cheering us on. It was so fantastic. It was like a baby had been born; it was like a new beginning.”
In 1995, MASS MoCA finally got the necessary funding to build their huge contemporary art museum in the empty Sprague buildings. People like Shirley Davis, who had hung around to help save her community, had already laid the foundation for what has become an economic and spiritual rebirth. MASS MoCA would not have succeeded without the valiant efforts of these North Adams natives.
As Shirley says:
“North Adams is a wonderful, caring place. Families that grew up here stay here. Kids that go away come back. The mountains are beautiful; the people are beautiful. My neighborhood is even better than it was before.”
Mike Boland is one of those kids who moved back. He has been involved with Friends of the Mohawk from the very beginning. Three months before MASS MoCA had its grand opening, Mike offered these hopeful comments:
“I foresee the Mohawk as a community-based performing arts center with some non-traditional films and lots of live entertainment. Young people today have no idea what good live entertainment is like. They were brought up on MTV. There’s no place to see a really great show here. We need to get the schools involved. Most of the teachers went to the Mohawk, so they are vested in the success of it. You walk down that long corridor, and you see this massive space that was built in 1937. We want to preserve what was unique about it. It’s symbolic of our heritage.
Like most people my age, I am starting to become more prone to nostalgia and longing. But I’m not looking backward. I’m working with Downtown Development, Inc. in the planning of the city. I’m involved in selling this city to other people. I want to be part of the crest that North Adams is riding right now.”
Another person who moved back is Eileen Gloster. She and Karen Kane opened Papyri Books in November of 1997. With its eclectic array of used and new books, along with its many music and poetry events that have graced Main Street, Papyri Books has been one of the key players in the revitalization of the downtown. Last May, Eileen reflected on her efforts to make a difference in the community and on the many assets she sees in her hometown:
“I wanted to make it work in North Adams. Karen was leaning toward doing it in Williamstown, where there was a lot more happening. When I did my market research, I found out that there was a lot more street traffic there and people with more money; so I began to think she was right. But Karen was getting tired of Williamstown, and she told me she was excited about being part of the new community that was emerging here. So she started pushing for North Adams. In my heart, I wanted to do it here; so I kept looking at the numbers to find a way to make it work.
We opened on November 20, 1997. When we started having poetry readings, we bought cheese and crackers and bottles of wine, because we wanted people to have fun and feel welcome. That got expensive, so we called and asked some of the local restaurants if they would supply the food free as a promotion, and that’s worked great. In return, we give them as much recognition as we can. Some of them do it just to be nice and to support their community.
Our WordPlay series has been very successful, both in drawing people to the readings and bringing poetry to the city. Some of the people attending have told me that they didn’t like poetry until they came to one of our readings. One person started writing poetry after coming several times. There’s a great amount of talent in Berkshire County. We provide a space for them. People come, they like the atmosphere, and they hear great poetry. Karen has organized a music series twice a month on Friday, where musicians at any level can come and have a song swap. That fits into our idea of people reaching out and making connections and also making music.
Sometimes I wonder, ‘What am I doing here?’ Then I tell myself I’m spending time with friends and family. It’s nice be able to do that. There’s great pleasure I take in people coming in the store and saying, ‘Oh, you’re Mary’s daughter,’ or, ‘You’re George’s girl.’ I can go over and have coffee with my mom, get an ice cream at the Mocha Shop, or go down the street, see my uncle, give him a kiss, and get a kiss.
I like the small town life. Even when I was growing up here, there was never a sense that North Adams was a bustling community. There wasn’t a whole lot to do if you compare it to the big city, but there was a lot in terms of getting together with your family and friends. Those things don’t require a bustling city to happen; they require good people. This city is rich with that.”
The most important thing I have learned in writing this book is that the people of North Adams have the spirit and the strength to rise above any crisis and to meet any obstacle head on. After all, as MASS MoCA Director Joe Thompson says in my interview with him:
“North Adams is a real city. It’s not any kind of wimpy railroad city where they went around the mountains. Here, they went THROUGH the mountains. People here were not bashful about the placement of houses on steep hills. They simply smacked them up there. It’s a great American city.”
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