The word “party” in a headline has a troubled history in Amherst, but not on Thursday. When many hundreds gather that day for the Celebrate Amherst Block Party, we expect peace to break out all over.
And at 6 p.m., officials will take to one of two stages in the Kendrick Park area to note that Amherst center holds a new status as a cultural district. Given the music pumping from 5 to 9 p.m. and other arts events, there will be no doubt the community deserves this distinction, approved in May by the Massachusetts Cultural Commission.
They organized, and now they’ll mourn: Just for fun, some will gather at Emily Dickinson’s West Cemetery gravesite for “Death & Donuts,” a reading of her most depressing poems. There, there kids. Did we mention there will be face-painting? And food, music, games and the ability to do something your parents never allow: stroll about in the middle of North Pleasant Street, since it will be closed, as of late afternoon, from Amity to Pray streets. The Amherst Regional High School Marching Band will be cutting loose with “impromptu marches.”
Now that rings a bell in Amherst.
Amid the partying, Amherst does have cause to celebrate. It is one of three dozen state communities that can use a critical mass of culture to drive economic activity. That recipe is working in Easthampton, with its Cottage Street Cultural District, and in Northampton, with its Paradise City Cultural District. Amherst’s zone includes, among other attractions, the Dickinson museum, Amherst Cinema, Strong House Museum, along with galleries and public art installations. Signs and marketing efforts will encourage stepped-up tourism.
Many people and groups propelled creation of the district, including the Public Art Commission, town museums and the Amherst Business Improvement District, which is serving as its management agent. When the designation was OK’d in May, Senate President Stanley C. Rosenberg predicted it will help ensure Amherst’s “long-term artistic, cultural and economic vitality.”
Over at West Cemetery on Thursday, they might share Dickinson’s “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,” which continues from that first line: “And Mourners to and fro / Kept treading – treading – till it seemed / That Sense was breaking through -”
Dickinson might not have imagined it, but even her most morose takes on life now help keep the lights on in Amherst.