Vacant North Adams Lot Being Transformed Into UNO Park

The empty lot next to UNO Center, at left, will have gardens, benches, basketball and bocce.

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The "UNO Park" sign was installed months ago above the grassy lot that once held a tire service center at the corner of Houghton and River streets.

The UNO Center next door opened last year; now the "park" part is finally coming to fruition.

Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art will help develop the vacant lot into a community park with five community gardens, a half-court basketball court, a badminton court and a bocce ball court.

"It's going to be amazing," said UNO founder Shirley Davis on Thursday. "I didn't want a fence so it's going to have shrubs around. It's going to have pear trees so we can make pies. It's going to be so nice to see."
 
Mass MoCA Deputy Director Larry Smallwood informed the Planning Board on Monday of the park plans. Berkshire Hills Development Co., which owns the Porches Inn, is transferring the property to the museum along with the capital to make the improvements.

It's the latest move by city philanthropist John "Jack" Wadsworth, a Berkshire Hills principal, who seems to have single-handedly improved the once problematic intersection next to his hotel and the museum.

Wadsworth made the UNO Center happen, and Davis said he has been involved with the planning for the new park.

Smallwood said any recreational equipment would be checked out through UNO and that Mass MoCA will take care of the maintenance.

"The hope is that the community will use the park in these ways and other ways that we don't know about yet, mostly through the UNO center that will be the liaison between the town and Mass MoCA, who will be the production back up," Smallwood said. "We want to do something that is great for the city and we want everybody to be involved."

He said there are plans to hold community movie nights on the field and he said it may be a great location for the farmers market.

Davis had expected work on the park to have started by now, but was confident it would start soon and be "amazing."  

"We're going to fix it up and it's going to be beautiful," she said. "The kids can play and people can just visit on the benches and chill. It should be real nice when it's done."

Staff writer Tammy Daniels contributed to this report.

BAAMS Students Compose Music Inspired By Clark Art

By Jack GuerinoiBerkshires Staff
08:17AM / Sunday, December 14, 2025

BAAMS students view 'West Point, Prout's Neck' at the Clark Art. The painting was an inspiration point for creating music.

 

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The Berkshires' Academy for Advanced Musical Studies (BAAMS) students found new inspiration at the Clark Art Institute through the "SEEING SOUND/HEARING ART" initiative, utilizing visual art as a springboard for young musicians to develop original compositions.

 

On Saturday, Dec. 6, museum faculty mentors guided BAAMS student musicians, ages 10 to 16, through the Williamstown museum, inviting students to respond directly to the artwork and the building itself.

 

"As they moved through the museum, students were invited to respond to paintings, sculptures, and the architecture itself — jotting notes, sketching, singing melodic ideas, and writing phrases that could become lyrics," BAAMS Director of Communications Jane Forrestal said. "These impressions became the foundation for new musical works created back in our BAAMS studios, transforming visual experiences into sound."

 

BAAMS founder and Creative Director Richard Boulger said this project was specifically designed to develop skills for young composers, requiring students to articulate emotional and intellectual responses to art, find musical equivalents for visual experiences, and collaborate in translating shared observations into cohesive compositions.

 

"Rather than starting with a musical concept or technique, students begin with visual and spatial experiences — color, form, light, the stories told in paintings, the feeling of moving through architectural space," said Boulger. "This cross-pollination between art forms pushes our students to think differently about how they translate emotion and observations, and experiences, into music."

 

This is a new program and represents a new partnership between BAAMS and the Clark.

 

"This partnership grew naturally from BAAMS' commitment to helping young musicians engage deeply with their community and find inspiration beyond the practice room. The Clark's world-class collection and their proven dedication to arts education made them an ideal partner," Boulger said. "We approached them with the idea of using their galleries as a creative laboratory for our students, and they were wonderfully receptive to supporting this kind of interdisciplinary exploration."