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North Adams Historians Would Like More Exposure to Local History

By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff
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Local historic sites and plaques, such as this one of where pig iron for the Monitor was smelted, are tucked away around the city. Local historian Paul Marino wants their stories to be more integrated into the school curriculum.
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The local keepers of history would like to see younger generations exposed more to their city's history.
 
"Well first of all, Jean Jarvie, in her book, wrote that an understanding of local history is the basis for patriotism," said Commissioner Paul Marino at the most recent meeting of the Historical Commission.
 
Jarvie was a Brayton School teacher whose history of the city, "Stories From Our Hills," was used widely in the school system around the turn of the last century.
 
Chairwoman Justyna Carlson noted the state guidelines recommend including local history the third grade.
 
"Which is why we always have every third grade from the area [at the North Adams Museum for Science and History] ... the Historical Society, we get money to bring all the third-graders to the museum," she said.
 
But Marino didn't think one class and a trip to the North Adams museum was enough. Rather, local history should be more integrated into the curriculum.
 
"I would like to see them learn more than a few things in third grade that they're going to forget," he said. "I would like when they're studying the Civil War to learn how North Adams contributed to the war with the Johnson Grays. The 10th Regiment's first regimental band."
 
For example, he said, pig iron for the plates on the USS Monitor came from North Adams. The leftover plates are in a museum in Tory, N.Y., Marino said, "when you're touching that plate, any part of your hand could be touching iron from North Adams. You could be touching iron from Richmond, from Ironville (N.Y.), from Troy."
 
The local historian said he's had conversations with the superintendent of schools about adding local history somehow into the regular curriculum. 
 
"These are things we need to teach our kids, so that when they graduate and leave North Adams, and people ask them where they're from, they won't say, Oh, I'm from the armpit of the universe," Marino said. "You know, they will be proud of where they're from."
 
He'd like to see this happen across the state and, he added, that city leaders should also have a good grasp of local history.
 
The discussion had come in relation to the problem of "invisible" monuments in the city. Many are small plaques situated around the city, like the monument for the Monitor at the back entrance to Massachusettss Museum of Contemporary Art on West Main Street, or the stacking of crates that's obscured the Fort Massachusetts monument.
 
Marino said he'd like to see a website and GPS walking trail and that he's started a list of monuments and historical sites. Carlson said there are members of the Historical Society doing "all kinds of things" and they should be careful of not "reinventing the wheel."
 
Member Joanne Hurlbut thought the society (many of the commissioners are also members of the society) could expand on its existing platforms and share those with residents, visitors and the schools.
 
"Everybody hits YouTube, everybody hits websites, and we have all of those so we could create a documentary of the map, where the sites are, where they're located, and the voiceover and run that on the [local access] station, on YouTube, so that it's available," she said. "That's certainly something within the realm of what we could do we have the materials and we have the knowledge. So it just really putting all the pieces together."
 
In other business, the commissioners:
 
Discussed the resurrection of the Local Historic District Study Committee. This committee was created some years ago but fell to the wayside as members left. 
 
• Formally signed off on a list of demolitions: 
  • 3-5-7 Edgewood Ave. (house)
  • 33 Edgewood Ave. (house)
  • (37 and 39 Edgewood Ave., done previously)
  • 11 Mill St. (house)
  • 1414 Massachusetts Ave. (barn only)
  • 198 State Road (garage)
  • 390 Walker St. (house and garage)
  • 472 Union St. (barn)
  • 133 Chantilly (garage)
  • 111 River St. (back)
• Signed off on the Ashland Street and Brayton Park projects.
 
• Reorganized with Carlson re-elected chair, Marino as vice chair, and Peter Siegenthaler as secretary. Siegenthaler and Alyssa Tomkowicz were welcomed as new members. This was the first time the commission had met in more than a year.

Tags: historical commission,   

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Airport Commission Drama Surfaces at North Adams Council Meeting

By Tammy Daniels iBerkshires Staff

Ashley Shade takes the president's seat after being sworn in again as vice president. Bryan Sapienza, who was attending remotely, was re-elected president. 
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The controversies stewing at the Airport Commission bubbled over to City Council on Tuesday night with a councilor demanding an investigation and the subject of a failed lease agreement claiming conflicts of interest and mayoral tampering.
 
The spark was an agenda item appointing Doug Herrick of Williamstown to fill the term of one of two commissioners who resigned after a vote to enter into a lease agreement with airport user Michael Milazzo and Brian Doyle for the Northeast Hangar back in October. That vote was rescinded in December after a letter from Mayor Jennifer Macksey called the process into question, particularly noting the recommendation by a subcommittee to reject Milazzo's proposal and concerns from the inspector general's office.  
 
Milazzo and Doyle are involved in civil lawsuits around the hangar going back to 2019 as both a plaintiffs and defendents with former hangar owners and Milazzo is accused of damaging the structure, to the point it was taken over by the city and restored at a cost of more than $750,000. 
 
City Councilor Peter Breen repeatedly called for an investigation into the commissioners' resignations, pointing to the reasons given by Michael McCarron in his email in November. Herrick would fill his term. 
 
"It says that it is the unexpired term of Mike McCarron, my understanding, after reading his email, that he said that he's resigning because the city official is telling him how to vote," he said. "I think we should send this to committee to investigate why we would have a commissioner be forced to make a vote."
 
Breen, the council's liaison to the commission, also referred to an email by Airport Manager Bruce Goff describing the situation and raised concerns about federal and state laws being broken. 
 
"There are two investigations going on now. And then there is a third one, because it's $750,000 worth of grant money from the federal government," he said. 
 
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