Among the many who responded to my EdgeWise column last week about “the uglification of Great Barrington,” there were a few who counseled patience and acceptance. Wait a few months and you’ll get used to the changes, they said. Things will be better once the trees are planted.
Others got creative in their suggestions. How about putting mosaic on the bases of the towers, they suggested. We could knit afghan covers for the tall cold pillars, like tea cozies! Or at least let’s paint the big steel light poles green or black, so they’ll be less noticeable.
None of these are bad ideas, and yet I find myself unwilling to accept them. I find it hard to believe that the people of historic Great Barrington would allow our town to lose its character and charm overnight — simply shrugging, blaming the MassDOT for “state regulations” that mandate ugliness, and moving on.
It’s not only aesthetics that are at stake here. There are also some pressing issues of safety. Even now, in the lovely autumn weather, some of the sidewalk renovations are hazardous. Several friends have complained to me that they’ve destroyed tires on the new granite curbs, which jut out unaccountably into what used to be clear parking spaces.
Others have tripped or scraped their shins against the walls of the new raised sidewalks. I’ve been told that the sidewalks were raised in order to level the street, but in practice it makes obstacles where none previously existed — and potential liability for the town.
What will happen when winter comes, and all the strange new contours of our Main Street become obscured by snow and ice? People parking between Castle and Railroad Streets will almost certainly prefer walking dangerously in the street to one of the corners rather than trying to climb icy, snowed-in stairways to the sidewalk.
I would like to hear from members of the town’s snowplowing team, who will be tasked with clearing what has practically become a slalom course of “bump-outs” and small parking spaces bordered by curbing. For example, the single parking space left in front of the Post Office is undoubtedly going to pose special challenges for plowing.
And then there’s the question of being forward-looking as we make major renovations to our Main Street. This is the 21st century and we’re all thinking about energy efficiency and reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. And yet no one thought of installing solar-powered streetlights? I understand that we don’t live in the sunniest of climes, but still, solar panels on the lights could generate at least some of their power.
Along the same lines, I recently heard that some towns are installing water pipes with turbines in them that generate power through the force of the municipal water flowing through them. Undoubtedly these pipes would cost more upfront, but like most renewable energy installations they would probably quickly pay for the investment in utility savings — and they’d earn us some welcome accolades as not only a charming town, but also a green one.
Even the simplest gestures towards progressive thinking were omitted from this plan. Anyone who has driven along our scenic roadways on weekends can tell you that there is a newfound and burgeoning interest in recreational biking these days. And yet no provision was made for bike lanes on Main Street? Wouldn’t it be nice if bikers could make downtown Great Barrington a stop on their route, instead of an obstacle to be avoided?
It’s especially disheartening to know that I am far from the first person to be asking such questions. Documents in the town archives show that concerned citizens were asking these questions and more for many years, during the development of the plan we are now seeing implemented. The responses at the time were condescending and dismissive, as you can read for yourself. Basically then-Town Manager Kevin O’Donnell told the citizens’ group that had prepared thoughtful challenges to various aspects of the renovation to go away and let the experts do their job.
I was one of those who trusted “the experts,” under the supervision of our town officials, to do the right thing. But clearly the state engineers who designed our new Main Street were thinking “state highway” rather than “historic district in a 200-year-old town” — a town that owes much of its contemporary claim to fame, as well as its income, to being a tourist attraction. And the town officials, who knew better, let it happen.
A group of concerned citizens will be showing up to the Planning Board meeting on Thursday, October 22, as well as to the Select Board meeting on Monday, October 26, both meetings taking place at 7 p.m. at the Town Hall. It may be late in the game, but there is nothing that has been done to our Main Street that can’t be undone. For example, the “cobra head” streetlights would be much less offensive if they didn’t tower over the buildings. Can shorter lights be installed?
There are a couple of other very important issues brewing that those of us who care about our town should be paying attention to now. For example, there’s the proposed 95-room hotel complex on Bridge Street, for which the historic Searles School would be razed. Are we going to stand by and allow town officials to ignore the town bylaw limiting downtown hotels to 45 rooms? Yes, it would be great to have additional tax income from this property, but not at the cost of destroying yet another historic corner of our town.
I find it hard to imagine finding enough parking on the Searles lot for a three-story hotel plus 100 cars, and I also shudder to think what this additional traffic would mean to little Bridge Street, as well as Main Street, during tourist season. Remember, people come to the Berkshires to get away from the traffic and the congestion of their own towns, in places like New Jersey and New York. If we want to remain a popular tourist destination, we must retain the country character and charm of our town.
There is also the bigger issue of the cleanup of the Housatonic River. This merits a whole column of its own, but suffice it to say here that GE is still hoping it will be allowed to dump the toxic sludge from the bottom of the river right here in Berkshire County. One of the sites GE proposed for dumping, in fact, was next to Rising Pond in Housatonic, in our flood plain and next to a densely populated hamlet of Great Barrington.
According to a recent article by Mary Douglas in The Berkshire Edge, there are very few sites in the United States that have been designated as toxic waste dumps secure enough to receive PCB-contaminated soil (the nearest are in Texas, Michigan and upstate New York). And yet GE has the gall to suggest that little Berkshire County should just roll over and accept that the toxic chemicals they released into the river should now be buried on our land? Pittsfield accepted this, and the health of its residents has suffered. This time we have to hold GE accountable and make sure that they do the right thing by our beautiful Housatonic River, as well as by the people living along it now and for generations to come.
We are the stewards of our community, and every decision we make matters. Letting our high school slide into disrepair…letting the character of our Main Street be lost…letting the safety and welfare of townspeople be sacrificed on the altar of fiscal conservatism…these are decisions that will ultimately boomerang back around to haunt us if not addressed thoughtfully now.
Join the newly formed Committee Concerned About Preserving the Safety and Character of Great Barrington at the upcoming town meetings. Let’s work proactively and productively with town officials and the state to see what we can do to make things right.
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The weekly EDGE WISE column is curated by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D., associate professor of comparative literature, gender studies and media studies at Bard College at Simon’s Rock and the Founding Director of the Berkshire Festival of Women Writers. Women writers interested in publishing in EDGE WISE can find writers’ guidelines on the Festival website, or may submit queries or columns to Jennifer@berkshirewomenwriters.org.
