Pittsfield's 'Call Me Melville' Concludes Columbus Day

By Andy McKeeveriBerkshires Staff
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PHS students kicked off the summer-long celebration with a "flash mob" on May 25.
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Call Me Melville will conclude on Columbus Day after 135 days of literary-themed events.

The summerlong celebration of Pittsfield's own Herman Melville featured an array of events based around Melville's life and his literary masterpiece "Moby-Dick." The conclusion features a series of events including the ribbon cutting for a new downtown bench from which passages of the book are played out loud when anyone sits on it.

"I think it is a good thing for Pittsfield to celebrate and be proud of his legacy," Cultural Director Megan Whilden said on Wednesday, after the dedication of a plaque at Pontoosuc Lake for a newly created self-guided Melville trail had to be postponed because of rain. "It's made people more aware of his life. It's humanized Herman Melville."

The 19th-century writer lived in Pittsfield and area sites have been credited for inspirations in his novels and stories. His historic home on Holmes Road, Arrowhead, has been turned into a museum and is the home of the Berkshire Historical Society.

"They've [Arrowhead] seen a very big increase in visitors and gift shop sales," Whilden said.

The celebration was a "hybrid" of previous celebrations the city has put on — such as the Art of the Game or Sheeptacular — and community book initiative. Cultural Pittsfield organized music, plays, art shows, lectures and readings to promote both the book and the author. Residents were asked to read a chapter a day — 135 chapters — and sculptures were were installed in various city locations.

"I feel like he's happy," Whilden said. "It's kind of like welcoming him back to the community."

The community book events will go back to only one a month and will not be nearly as large in the next year. However, Whilden said another large city celebration is in the works for 2014.

"Call Me Melville was an exception to the rule," said Whilden of the merging of two projects. "This was more than a community book read."

The project kicked off on Memorial Day with a "flash mob" of PHS students filling the outline of a white whale. It was funded at an estimated $15,000 from the state Cultural Council, the Friends of the Berkshire Athenaeum, the New England Foundation for the Arts and sponsorships from Berkshire Gas and Greylock Federal Credit Union.

"Doing these kind of collaborative cultural projects bring people together," Whilden said. "It is making history and great art accessible and approachable."

The concluding weekend, which will also be the last weekend Arrowhead's open for the season, will feature a "crowd-scribing" of the short story "Bartleby the Scrivener," the dedication of the bench and the annual "Melville Haunted" performance at Arrowhead. Leading up to the final chapter there will be theater performances at the Colonial Theatre's Garage and Berkshire Museum. The interpretive plaque will be dedicated at Pontoosuc Lake park on Thursday, Oct. 4, at 11:30.

Tags: arrowhead,   community event,   Melville,   ribbon cutting,   

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North Adams Regional Reopens With Ribbon-Cutting Celebration

By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff

BHS President and CEO Darlene Rodowicz welcomes the gathering to the celebration of the hospital's reopening 10 years to the day it closed. 
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The joyful celebration on Thursday at North Adams Regional Hospital was a far cry from the scene 10 years ago when protests and tears marked the facility's closing
 
Hospital officials, local leaders, medical staff, residents and elected officials gathered under a tent on the campus to mark the efforts over the past decade to restore NARH and cut the ribbon officially reopening the 136-year-old medical center. 
 
"This hospital under previous ownership closed its doors. It was a day that was full of tears, anger and fear in the Northern Berkshire community about where and how residents would be able to receive what should be a fundamental right for everyone — access to health care," said Darlene Rodowicz, president and CEO of Berkshire Health Systems. 
 
"Today the historic opportunity to enhance the health and wellness of Northern Berkshire community is here. And we've been waiting for this moment for 10 years. It is the key to keeping in line with our strategic plan which is to increase access and support coordinated county wide system of care." 
 
Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield, under the BHS umbrella, purchased the campus and affiliated systems when Northern Berkshire Healthcare declared bankruptcy and closed on March 28, 2014. NBH had been beset by falling admissions, reductions in Medicare and Medicaid payments, and investments that had gone sour leaving it more than $30 million in debt. 
 
BMC was able to reopen the ER as an emergency satellite facility and slowly restored and enhanced medical services including outpatient surgery, imaging, dialysis, pharmacy and physician services. 
 
But it would take a slight tweak in the U.S. Health and Human Services' regulations — thank to U.S. Rep. Richie Neal — to bring back inpatient beds and resurrect North Adams Regional Hospital 
 
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