While I often write about the old days in Northampton, it is more from the perspective of an amateur historian than from a nostalgic longing for the past.
Things were different in the old days, but that doesn’t mean they were better. For instance, in the early and mid-1950s, polio scares were prevalent every summer. When you went to the movies, a short film from the Sister Kinney Foundation would often be shown in between the features. It depicted kids suffering from polio, including some who were being kept alive by means of an iron lung machine. Those scenes scared the life out of me. There would be articles in the newspapers and announcements on the radio to avoid crowds and stay away from swimming pools. Who would ever want to go back to those days?
Northampton, while always a great place to live, was not an exciting place in the ’50s and ’60s. Despite being the home of Smith College, Hamp was most famous locally for being the location of the state mental hospital. My father grew up in Ware and I recall accompanying my parents there for the wedding of a cousin. One of my father’s high school friends and his wife came up to him and asked, “Where are your folks these days?” He replied, “They live in Northampton now.” The friend looked sad and said, “That’s too bad.” Whereupon his wife kicked him under the table and hissed, “They live there. They’re not in the hospital.” Such was Northampton’s reputation back then.
My classmates at Amherst College frequently asked me what I did for fun in Hamp. They thought of our fair city as Dullsville and there is no doubt the town was in a bit of a slump at the time. That all turned around in the ’70s and ’80s and, suddenly, Hamp was a model for how a city could not only survive, but actually thrive, in the era of malls and big box stores. Unfortunately, now there has arisen the concern that we are on the verge of another downturn. There seem to be many folks determined not to let that happen but they have a lot of work to do.
Picture a stranger coming to town for the first time. She parks her car near the Hotel Northampton. There before her is the Calvin Theatre, one of our city’s centerpieces, with that missing “A” in the marquee. What a horrible impression for a first-time visitor. The Calvin existed as a movie theater for decades and there was never any problem with the marquee that I recall. Yet in recent years, first the “C” was missing and now the “A.” I just don’t get it.
Next, our visitor might notice the bust of Calvin Coolidge on the courthouse lawn. Wow, she would think, they had a president from here. Not many towns can say that. However, she would likely conclude that, with such a small monument, the locals can’t be very proud of him. Hopefully her initial impressions, despite the empty storefronts, will be negated as she strolls around Northampton and observes some of its vitality and diversity, but wouldn’t it have been nice if her original reactions had been totally positive.
I have said many times there should be a statue of Calvin Coolidge, and perhaps also one of first lady Grace Coolidge, too, in a prominent place in town. People just indulgently smile at me when I talk about it, but here is a story I read not so long ago. Remember the country-rock group The Eagles? They had a song called “Take it Easy” with a line about standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona. Winslow is a town of less than 10,000 people and the citizens there built a statue of a singer on a street corner and called it “The Troubadour.” They claim 100,000 tourists per year come to have their picture taken in front of the sculpture. That is likely an exaggeration but, even if only 10,000 come, it is still a significant number of visitors.
Wouldn’t a statue of a president bring a large number of visitors to our town? Millions of tourists pass through Massachusetts each year and we have to get more of them into the Valley. Many famous people have either lived or worked here and we should be proud to broadcast that fact. With all due humility, let me suggest a new slogan for our Chamber of Commerce. “Welcome to where New York meets Boston and becomes Northampton.” Let’s start banging the drum loudly for our area and the uniqueness of Northampton.
Rich Szlosek can be reached at richszlo@crocker.com.