By Mickey Friedman
August 27, 2015
The tweedysphere has been blowing up with hashtag wetoocanbeGB. Or as the kids tweed, #WE2BGB. You can’t go anywhere in Berkshire County without hearing about it. People gathering in clumps in Lenox and Lee, in Stockbridge and Sheffield, in the hinterlands of Monterey and New Marlborough, even in plush and lush Alford, all wishing a version of the GB Makeover. Dreaming their own stop-traffic, wear-all-white, celebratory Dig and Dine affair, tables and chairs and hors d’oeuvres spilling onto the street. Tweeding because our new Great Barrington can be theirs.
Yes, I know, Lenoxians and Leeans have had their minor redevelopments but nothing as grand as GB’s.
It’s fair to say the key to Great Barrington’s remarkable remake – we are now Greater Great Barrington – has been the town’s thorough commitment to public participation.
Many of us cherish those first inspiring Visionings. Packed like smiling sardines into Town Hall, calling out what we love most about our town, and seeing those words almost immediately white boarded. Proudly listed by the professional Visioning Team for all to see: yes, our words, our town.
And so the work began, machines big and small, tearing up streets and sidewalks, trees once tall, gone by morning.
Yes, some nervous nellies worried. But the work went on. Then, just like that, the multi-colored “Tell Us What You Think” flyers were posted everywhere. At Big Y and the Chopper, in the laundromat and Gorham and Norton’s and at SoCo. With the simple heartfelt request for feedback: “Now that the Downtown Redevelopment Project has accomplished so much, we want to take a moment to find out what you think of the work so far, and what suggestions you have to make our Downtown even better. So join us at The Dairy Queen and The Burger King for informal community conversations. You bring your feedback and we’ll bring the whiteboard.”
Public participation times two. To be held in some of our most popular gathering places, not the slightly stale confines of official government.
I’ve had a chance to talk to several people and here’s some of what they hope to say.
Donna Poppinjay of Dreary Lane says it’s such a relief to see the park benches face inward toward our stores, and no longer outward toward the oh so very distracting townscape and beyond. Her son Paulie wasted hours watching trees and clouds.
Marco the Musician knows firsthand that Tune Street sells the very best of everything. Marco used to be a cloud watcher, but now he spends an hour or two sitting on the Tune Street bench watching the Sennheiser headphones. He may not be able to prove it but he’s convinced they’re more than mere machines. He’s seen them move left then right, and swears they’re bopping to the sounds of Coltrane.
DeeDee Finster-Simpson of Moonglow Mindfulness raised money for our first generation of benches. She’s knows now we made a dreadful mistake. “In those days,” she told me, “you could actually move them a few feet this way or that, or turn them around from the storefronts out to the sky. Thank god, the new benches are bolted to the sidewalk. And we’ve now got a great view of Cyril and Dayne’s new line of eyeglasses.”
Now, as I’m sure you appreciate, I’m reluctant to acknowledge the anarchistic lawbreakers responsible for the Neighborhood Diner Action. Arthur Pasky of Churchill Street speculates it was the radicals at the Nature Conservatory who turned the Diner bench away from the eggs-over-easy window to face the hillside. But one of my most reliable informants swears it was the Citizens Revolutionary Army of Bench Switchers – those ratchet-wrench carrying crazy CRABS. It seems no bolted bench is safe these days.
Doris Drake of The Upper Hill worries they might go after the new gray recycling cubes. “God forbid we go back to that handmade artsy dragon-looking recycling bin or those much too-colorful craftsy sculptures that ate our bottles and cans. Kids have to learn recycling is unrelenting hard work, not fun!”
Alistair Wuncroppe, whose family came straight from the Mayflower to Maple Avenue, heads the Conservative Coalition. He hates Obamacare. “Until we get Trump, we have to pump up private medicine. I’m hoping it’ll be a good winter for our orthopedic surgeons. You know, as the old folks try to make it from their parked cars to the sidewalks. If they don’t break something on the sharp edges of the granite curbs, they’ll be flying off the slick new black-iced steps that lead from the street to Hildi B’s.”
Wuncroppe continued: “Doc Squeamish says he expects a record-breaking winter at the Emergency Room. Hats off to the Redevelopment Engineers for not adding namby-pamby hand rails for the elderly. And resisting the temptation to put those little blinking Obama safety lights the liberals love in our crosswalks. Conservatives know it shouldn’t be easy to cross the street.”
#WE2BGB.
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#WE2BGB appeared first in the August 20, 2015 issue of The Berkshire Record.