Williamstown Garage Site Cleanup Pegged at $15K

By Stephen DravisWilliamstown Correspondent
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The Affordable Housing Trust heard an update on additional cleanup at the old town garage site.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Affordable Housing Trust Fund's Board of Trustees on Wednesday evening heard an update on the status of cleaning up soil contamination at the former site of the town garage.

The chairman of the Affordable Housing Committee, who also serves as a trustee for the trust, told her colleagues that the committee has received an estimate of $15,000 for additional cleanup at 59 Water St., a parcel that is being eyed for developing subsidized housing.

"This is work that has been ongoing since last summer that the Affordable Housing Committee has paid for," Catherine Yamamoto said. "Tests were done on the site that determined it had contamination from underground storage tanks."

Yamamoto said her committee has a proposal in hand from environmental engineering firm O'Reilly, Talbot and Okun of Springfield. The proposal, which will be taken up at the AHC's Feb. 12 meeting, says the contaminated earth could be removed and the surrounding areas tested within six weeks of the committee's decision to approve the expenditure.

The trustees decided to let the Affordable Housing Committee continue to deal with the issue, but trust Chairman Stanley Parese noted that if for some reason the committee decides not to authorize the expenditure, the trustees would revisit the issue.


Tuesday's meeting of the housing committee promises to be eventful. Yamamoto also told the trustees that the Feb. 12 session will include a face-to-face meeting with John Ryan, the consultant hired jointly by the trust and committee to assess the town's affordable housing needs.

He plans to share preliminary data and further discuss with the committee what questions to address in a final report that is expected at the end of March, Yamamoto said.

Otherwise, it was a fairly uneventful meeting of the trustees, who took the opportunity to thank the town's Community Preservation Committee for recommending the town approve a $200,000 grant to the trust at May's town meeting. Town meeting OK'd a grant in the same amount in 2012, moments after it authorized creation of the trust.

"We're very pleased and appreciative that the Community Preservation Committee saw fit to recommend that the Affordable Housing Trust again receive $200,000," Parese said. "It's certainly generous relative to their funding capabilities but modest relative to our task at hand.

"Ultimately, town meeting makes the funding decisions."


Tags: affordable housing,   affordable housing trust,   

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WCMA: 'Cracking the Code on Numerology'

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) opens a new exhibition, "Cracking the Cosmic Code: Numerology in Medieval Art."
 
The exhibit opened on March 22.
 
According to a press release: 
 
The idea that numbers emanate sacred significance, and connect the past with the future, is prehistoric and global. Rooted in the Babylonian science of astrology, medieval Christian numerology taught that God created a well-ordered universe. Deciphering the universe's numerical patterns would reveal the Creator's grand plan for humanity, including individual fates. 
 
This unquestioned concept deeply pervaded European cultures through centuries. Theologians and lay people alike fervently interpreted the Bible literally and figuratively via number theory, because as King Solomon told God, "Thou hast ordered all things in measure, and number, and weight" (Wisdom 11:22). 
 
"Cracking the Cosmic Code" explores medieval relationships among numbers, events, and works of art. The medieval and Renaissance art on display in this exhibition from the 5th to 17th centuries—including a 15th-century birth platter by Lippo d'Andrea from Florence; a 14th-century panel fragment with courtly scenes from Palace Curiel de los Ajos, Valladolid, Spain; and a 12th-century wall capital from the Monastery at Moutiers-Saint-Jean—reveal numerical patterns as they relate to architecture, literature, gender, and timekeeping. 
 
"There was no realm of thought that was not influenced by the all-consuming belief that all things were celestially ordered, from human life to stones, herbs, and metals," said WCMA Assistant Curator Elizabeth Sandoval, who curated the exhibition. "As Vincent Foster Hopper expounds, numbers were 'fundamental realities, alive with memories and eloquent with meaning.' These artworks tease out numerical patterns and their multiple possible meanings, in relation to gender, literature, and the celestial sphere. 
 
"The exhibition looks back while moving forward: It relies on the collection's strengths in Western medieval Christianity, but points to the future with goals of acquiring works from the global Middle Ages. It also nods to the history of the gallery as a medieval period room at this pivotal time in WCMA's history before the momentous move to a new building," Sandoval said.
 
Cracking the Cosmic Code runs through Dec. 22.
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