Greylock Works in North Adams Approved for New Year's Event

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Greylock Mill is reintroducing itself to the Berkshires with a bang this New Year's Eve.

The License Board on Thursday approved a one-day liquor and entertainment license for a dinner and dance party in what will be the Greylock Works portion of the century-old mill that is currently being renovated.

The mill's owner, Salvatore Perry of Latent Productions, is keeping mum on the entertainment part of the dance party. Tickets are expected to go on sale this week, with separate tickets available for just the dance party.

The dinner and cash bar will be served by Nancy Thomas and the Mezze Catering, part of the restaurant group that operates the well-known Mezze in Williamstown and Allium in Great Barrington. Both restaurants are known for their use of locally grown fare, something that will be a component of Greylock Works.

The Planning Board in October approved the mill's 34,000-square-foot Weave Shed for use as an events location. Perry and his partner, Karla Rothstein, are envisioning an artisanal food crafting facility that will include a small restaurant and space for large gatherings.

The 10,000 square feet dedicated to that portion could seat 150 for meals or accommodate 950 for a dance party.

"We're not expecting that many people," Perry told the License Board. "We'll see when we start selling tickets."

The board's focus was on alcohol sales, parking and noise, since it also approved an entertainment license for the facility for 2016.

Perry said no one under age 21 would be allowed into the party, and that IDs would be checked at the door. The event is also working with social groups, such as Berkshire Shenanigans, to consider charter buses to reduce traffic and parking, and to keep everyone safe.
 

Overconsumption of alcohol was issue Chairman Jeffrey Polucci wanted Perry and the Mezze staff to keep in mind.

"You've got a great project here," he said. "You don't want someone getting into a car accident.

Amphibious Toads Procreate in Perplexing Amplexus

By Tor HanseniBerkshires columnist
08:09PM / Sunday, May 05, 2024

 

Toads lay their eggs in the spring along the edges of waterways. Photos by Tor Hansen.

My first impressions of toads came about when my father Len Hansen rented a seaside house high on a sand dune in North Truro, Cape Cod back in 1954. 

 

With Cape Cod Bay stretching out to the west, and Twinefield so abundant in wildflowers to the east, North Truro became a naturalist's dream, where I could search for sea shells at the seashore, or chase beetles and butterflies with my trusty green butterfly net. 

 

Twinefield was a treasure trove for wildlife — a vast glacial rolling sandplain shaped by successive glaciers, its sandy soil rich in silicon, thus able to stimulate growth for a diverse biota. A place where in successive years I would expand my insect collection to fill cigar boxes with every order of insects abounding in beach plum, ox-eye daisy and milkweed. During our brief summer vacation there, we boys would exclaim in our excitement, "Oh here is another hoppy toad," one of many Fowler's toads (Bufo woodhousei fowleri ) that inhabited the moist surroundings, at home in the Ammophyla beach grass, thickets of beach plum, bayberry, and black cherry bushes. 

 

They sparkled in rich colors of green amber on beige and reddish tinted warts. Most anurans have those glistening eyes, gold on black irises so beguiling around the dark pupils. Today I reflect on a favorite analogy, the riveting eye suggests a solar eclipse in pictorial aura.

 

In the distinct toad majority in the Outer Cape, Fowler's toads turned up in the most unusual of places. When we Hansens first moved in to rent Riding Lights, we would wash the sand and salt from our feet in the outdoor shower where toads would be drinking and basking in the moisture near my feet. As dusk fades into darkness, the happy surprise would gather under the night lights where moths were fluttering about the front door and the toads would snatch bugs with outstretched tongue.

 

In later years, mother Eleanor added much needed color and variety to Grace's original garden. Our smallest and perhaps most acrobatic butterflies are the skippers, flitting and somersaulting to alight and drink heartily the nectar abounding at yellow sickle-leaved coreopsis and succulent pink live forever sedums of autumn. These hearty late bloomers signaled oases for many fall migrants including painted ladies, red admirals and of course monarchs on there odyssey to over-winter in Mexico. 

 

Our newly found next-door neighbors, the Bergmarks, added a lot to share our zeal for this undiscovered country, and while still in our teens, Billy Atwood, who today is a nuclear physicist in California, suggested we should include the Baltimore checkerspot in our survey, as he too had a keen interest in insects. Still unfamiliar to me then, in later years I would come across a thriving colony in Twinefield, that yielded a rare phenotype checkerspot (Euphydryas phaeton p. superba) that I wrote about featured in The Cape Naturalist ( Museum of Natural History, Brewster Cape Cod 1991).