Signs of Amherst

 

You would think that a wealthy community like Amherst (sometimes called The Academic Longmeadow) would have a less tattered welcoming sign. 

 

 

This sign outside an Amherst church usually has a message of peace and love. 

 

It would have more credibility if they didn't also have a sign supporting a racist hate group. They had to put it up high on the wall because good citizens kept tearing it down.

 

Looks like some kind of seafood restaurant is moving into the old Judie's space. Ain't it about time to take down your Christmas decorations, Amherst?

I never cared much for Judie's. Their food was good but their prices were high and their portions small. 

Even the trash alleyways in Amherst are arty. 

The renovation of the parking space across from Town Hall came out nice enough. However, that was a lot of valuable downtown parking that was lost for a public space that can't be used more than half the year. It also seats very few people. 

 

Amherst ice dragon. 

 

 

Amherst College Professor Robert Frost needn't have worried about his town being bullied into silence since the town motto is "Amherst - where only the H is silent."

 

 

Unfortunately, they tend to be loud on all the wrong issues. 

 

Got any favorite old clothes you can't wear anymore because they are falling apart? Then meet Max, who hangs out in Northampton's Masonic Street Laundromat and is ready to try to bring your old duds back to life for a negotiable price.

 

He's only been there for a little more than a month and has already had over 150 customers. So don't throw that beloved, perfectly fitting pair of old jeans in the trash just yet - instead let Max take a look at them on Saturdays from 9am-1pm and Tuesdays from 1:30-5:30pm.

 

Here's an interesting event coming up next week in the state capitol. As you can see in the insert, there is also a demonstration planned for the same day and time by those who want to keep Boston a sanctuary city. Should be an interesting one on one encounter of opposing views!

 

Boston at peace. 

Snows

 

Sunset over the Bridge Street Cemetery in Northampton. 

 

Snowpiles in front of the Tunic Cafe make it so you can't even see across the street.

I'm intrigued by these pay phone images someone has been putting up on the UMass campus. 

 

 

Most college students today are too young to have ever used a pay phone. So what's the point? To confuse them with an incomprehensible image?

 

The frozen solid campus pond at UMass leaves the small number of ducks who failed to fly south last fall trapped in this small unfrozen section.

Because people bring their kids to feed the ducks every day in warmer weather, some of the ducks become completely dependent upon the free food and forget their natural self-supporting ways. 

Call them the welfare ducks. 

 

Legendary photographer Paul Shoul captured this image of the embarrassingly large crowd that showed up at Northampton's First Church last weekend to hear congress-critter Jim McGovern whine about Trump and Musk. 

 

 

Know what's even more embarrassing? The number of audience members wearing masks. 

 

Summer Street

 

The Forbes Library in Northampton has a shelf with local history books on display. Although I've lived most of my life in Springfield, I have lived in Hamp on and off over the decades for years at a time, beginning in the late 1970's when I lived in a pre-gentrified Harrison Avenue hippie-house whose rent I paid by selling dollar joints in Pulaski Park. Yet I don't really know that much about Hamp history, so I decided to borrow the book shown below.

 

The Forbes Library itself has this to say about the book. 

Published as part of Northampton’s 350^th Anniversary Chapbook Series, Lu Stone’s remarkable history of the house and street she called home is a fascinating portrait of the many interwoven stories which make up our neighborhoods. Finely illustrated and impeccably researched, the book is a rich tapestry of the many lives whose fates crossed in the neighborhood in the 110+ years before she purchased the house in 1983. 

The subjects range from working class families and Olympic athletes to Lewis Warner, the President of the Hampshire County National Bank who suddenly absconded with hundreds of thousands of dollars from the bank in 1898. The book remains one of the finest examples of a ‘people’s history’ we have in the region, of dusty stories forgotten through the ages but rediscovered through neighbor’s anecdotes, dusty old newspapers, library microfilm and aging photographs cherished by relatives. 

It is indeed a very good local history book covering the history of Summer Street, which today is best known as a short-cut to King Street and the street with Dunkin Donuts and Cumberland Farms on its corners. 

 

According to this book, impressive Victorian structures once stood at those locations. Was it really an improvement to tear down those historic architectural treasures to replace them with a convenience store and a donut shop?

Here is the smartly painted 17 Summer Street as it looked this morning - not in bad shape for being 153 years old! 

It was originally built as part of a cluster of homes put up to accommodate lower middle class downtown office and factory workers. Today the house is appraised at $554,100 so I guess not too many everyday workers could afford to live there now. 

I was especially intrigued by this sentence discussing the death of one of the last early members of the neighborhood:

The Dibrindisi era on Summer Street sadly came to an end when Mary died in 1992. Indicative of the growth of social service programs throughout the city, Hairston House converted her two-family into a house for recovering substance abusers. 

During my tour of institutions, I once stayed for a time at Hairston House as an alcoholic junkie crackhead who had just gotten out of Ward Five. 

Ward Five is the psych ward at Cooley-Dick. 

However, at the time I was there Hairston House was on Graves Avenue, not Summer. We flew a flag from the porch to try to make the place look more respectable.

 

I guess that Hairston House was originally on Summer, but later moved to Graves. Hey, anybody can know the history of their house, but how many people know the history of their half-way house?

I strongly recommend The Story of 17 Summer, which also features a section suggesting how you can research the history of your own house. Alas, the book is out of print and unavailable anywhere online.  However, along with the Forbes copy, there is also one at the Lilly Library in Florence. Check it out on your next library visit.  

 

Rusty Stealie near Resinate on Pleasant Street. 

 

 

While waiting at a bus stop by Amherst College, I grokked to this sunset. 

 

 

I'll bet this lecture in Greenfield was worth a lot more than 30 cents. 

 

 

Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead was seated at the Grammy's last week with Springfield homeboy Taj Mahal. 

Paul Shoul captured these silly people in Springfield last week. My experience has been that most of the attendees at these types of downtown protests are actually slumming it from the north Valley.

 

 

It's hard to give a White House press conference when you have to babysit the kid.