The North Adams Downtown Makeover re-envisioned the physical space of North Adams, currently a accumulation of ill-advised "urban renewal" decisions, as the ideal of a very small city. The show ran at Avalon Seafood Gallery from September 30 through October 24, 2010. It combined archival images of North Adams' history with novel suggestions for its future. A portion of the show later appeared at Bureau for Open Culture at Mass MoCA in July 2011. The photographs reproduced here were provided by the North Adams Historical Society, who generously lent hours of their time to support this project. Subsequent drawings and plans courtesy Andrew Davis.
Downtown North Adams, circa 1905: a prosperous mill town of over 22,000 people.
View of Main Street looking west. A classic late 19th- Century concept of the main street as outdoor room, an inviting, appropriately-scaled, harmonious space. Nearly all buildings on the right side of this photograph stand today. No building on the photo's left side still exists.
North Adams from the air, looking east, before any urban renewal had begun.
Proposed urban renewal, late 1950s. When people saw this astonishing photograph at the exhibition, many assumed I had altered it myself to make a humorous point. In fact, this is a concept photo, developed by engineers to explore options for improving traffic circulation and providing parking. This vision is what indeed came to pass in the first wave of North Adams' urban renewal. Specific details of new construction differ somwehat from the proposal, but all the sections erased by gray ink were, in fact, demolished and replaced by parking lots and roadways. Less that twenty years later, Main Street's south side, showin in the far right side of the photo, was also obliterated.
This image shows the 1970s wave of urban renewal that demolished the south side of Main Street and many blocks beyond it. Everything in the upper center of this photo is a parking lot today, and most of the other buildings have been replaced by one-story structures. The white building in the lower center of this photo is the old City Hall, which was replaced by a Burger King.
Aerial view of North Adams circa 1979, looking southeast, with urban renewal largely complete. The Sprague complex that would later become Mass MoCA stands at the photo's center. Above that, the original buildings of Main Street sit like an island surrounded by parking lots, strip malls, and two overpasses complete with partial cloverleaf ramps, which serve to direct all traffic away from what little downtown remains.
Early stages of Mass MoCA, late 1990s. Adaptive re-use of the mill facility abandoned by Sprague in the early 1980s, in architectural terms a clear alternative to wholesale demolition of existing real estate, it is also a new economic engine for the city.
This announcement for orignial exhibition of The North Adams Downtown Makeover at Avalon Seafood Gallery provoked a variety of responses from the public. Urban design suggestions courtesy of the artist. Erroneous business names courtesy of Google Maps.
A modest proposal to enlarge the chain-bedecked, traffic-thwarting median of North Adams' five-lane Main Street as a downtown park, where plantings, benches, and public sculpture would be just a few options. This iteration preserves street parking and a lane of traffic in each direction.
Immodest proposal to employ the Route 2 Overpass as park in the form of an urban pier.