When I moved to Amherst, the town center had about an even mix of businesses that served the residents of the town and businesses that served the students. In the decades since I purchased 143 Fearing Street, almost all of the businesses that served residents have closed and the Amherst town center has become a row of concession stands for University students. The small New England town of Amherst that I moved to is no longer there, if it were ever there at all.
I measure the dynamicity of a place by how well it serves the creative people who live there. Stores that sell materials to create with are more dynamic than stores that sell finished products. Stores that repair products are more dynamic than those that only sell new. And stores that sell durable goods have a more dynamic quality than stores that sell products that are immediately consumed. The center of Amherst has moved from a place that once served people who wanted to share their vision, to a venue for fast food. Amherst is now static and dead.
When I moved to Amherst, there was a grocery store in town. There was also a supermarket in the next town, but if I didn’t feel like it, I didn’t need to drive to the market for food. Mostly I could just put on my backpack and buy a day or two of meals right in the town center. The presence of a food market in Amherst was one of the justifications for the construction of the disabilities housing complex on Main Street. The idea was that people in wheelchairs could live independent lives without the need for a car. Now that the market is closed, there is less justification for that housing complex being there. An important part of that small New England town is gone for good. The presence of a viable downtown business district was one of the reasons that I purchased 143 Fearing Street. The Realtors still list the house as “walking distance to downtown,” but what is the point if there is no downtown to walk to?
When I moved to Amherst, there was a hardware store in town. When you own a home there is always maintenance to do, and for me walking into town and picking up something for the house was part of my daily routine. After the hardware store closed, the only option left became either driving or biking along the highway to get parts to fix the house. Over the years, keeping up with repairs at 143 Fearing Street became more difficult, and the lack of a hardware store in Amherst was just one of the reasons why.
When I moved to Amherst there was an art supply store in town. When I was a student I remember making stocking trips to the big art supply stores in New York City at the beginning of the semester, but it was still an essential part of my process to buy additional supplies during the semester when I needed them. When I studied painting, I remember the days when I went into town for a tube of cadmium red or bone white for paintings that still hang in my parents’ home. I remember touching the paper samples in the store for the work I did in charcoal. And I remember the owner of that shop cutting the mats for my final presentations at the end of the semesters. I know that mail-order took a large part of their business away, but there is an essential part of creating art that requires touching and handling the materials you will use, and that part was lost to Amherst when the art supply store closed.
When I moved to Amherst, there was a photography store in town. I remember taking classes there in how to operate my first camera with changeable lenses. I remember bringing film there to be developed, and I remember what I learned from the owner about film, exposure times, and filters. An essential part of the skills that I learned about framing art came from looking at the world through the lens of a camera, and my motivation to continue taking photographs came from the connections that I developed through photography at that store. Now that that store is closed I don’t know how current art students in Amherst train without this essential resource.
When I moved to Amherst, there was a music shop in town. I am not a musician, but my life partner is a performing artist. I remember buying sheet music for her at that little shop, and I remember going with her when she picked out a guitar small enough to fit her hands. Over the years there were several gifts that I purchased from that store for people who loved music. Now that the shop is closed, I do not know where I would go to get that same service and advice in Amherst.
When I lived in Amherst there was a shop that would fix electronics. Over the years, I brought my television, my stereo receiver, and my computer monitors there to be serviced. It felt better to me to pay for an hour of labor to repair a piece of equipment I owned rather than to add it to the landfill. I remember having my grandfather’s old tube radio repaired there, and I remember having a valuable amplifier fixed for a musician friend I knew. But more important to me than the money I saved or the value of continuing to use equipment that could not be replaced, was the relationship that I developed with that shop owner. It was the feeling of knowing everyone in town that was at the heart of why I moved to Amherst. This feeling is now gone.
The Ten Best Things About Amherst
There is a business on the Amherst common called Collective Copies. In this shop there is a rack of self published books. In the year that I left Amherst I picked up a book from this rack titled The Ten Best Things About Amherst. The book listed the author’s ten favorite things about the town of Amherst Massachusetts, a favorite tree, a favorite priest, a favorite activity. In some ways this book was a tragedy. When I left Amherst eight of these ten things were no longer there.
1) A historic tree on the Amherst Common. That particular tree was on the historic register as having been there at the time of the American Revolution. It used to stand in front of the Grace Episcopal Church rectory on the Town Common. By the time I left, that tree in had been cut down and the reason given had to do with safety. By having that tree removed it allowed for construction of a connector between the rectory and the main church building.
2) Movies on the Amherst Common. On warm summer nights Amherst Leisure Services would put up a large projection screen and I remember sitting on the grass and watching films with my neighbors. One summer evening at the movies on the Amherst Common I met a woman who went out with with me for several years before she finally left Amherst. With budget cuts these films haven’t been shown since before I left. This is an activity now missing from Amherst.
3) Reverend Joseph Quigley was the longtime director of the Newman Center at UMass Amherst. Even though I am Jewish, I had the opportunity to meet Reverend Quigley on two occasions through a mutual friend. What I can say is that this man had the ability to make deep and lasting connections with the people he met in only a very short time. Although he was one of the genuinely best things about Amherst, on June 9, 2005, Reverend Quigley died at the age of 81, a real loss to the town of Amherst.
4) Breakfast at the Lord Jeffery Inn. This might still be happening in Amherst. At the time that I left, the Lord Jeffery Inn was attempting to undergo an expansion. Apparently to be profitable, a hotel needs to have a critical number of rooms. Their plan for expansion was to tear down an old wooden building they owned next to the Inn and expand onto that lot in order to reach that critical size. What happened is that the Town of Amherst decided that that old building was historic and would not issue them a demolition permit to tear it down. That building needed to be moved to another lot in order to clear that land. The Lord Jeffery Inn is owned by Amherst College and had enough money to actually have that building moved. Unfortunately by the time the land was cleared and ready for construction, the depression of 2008 had happened and the Lord Jeffery Inn decided to postpone their expansion indefinitely. I do not know if breakfast is still be served at the Lord Jeffery Inn.
The list goes on like this, but suffice to say, it is best to verify anything good you hear about the town of Amherst. The town continues to collapse under years of mismanagement. The town meeting style government has shown to be ineffective for a community of now nearly 40,000 residents. Making management more complex is that as the university expands, it continues to draw more resources away from the town. The result of the lack of leadership in Amherst is that there is no clear vision of maintaining what Amherst is and shaping what Amherst is becoming. Without leadership, Amherst is currently being run by the town staff, each with their own agenda. The varying agendas of the town staff put the residents in the middle of a power struggle, and effectively reduce town services. Amherst is now a bad place to live and a bad to visit. Amherst used to be a nice place many years ago, but it hasn’t been in decades.