Letter: Support Lynette Bond for the Future of North Adams

To the Editor:

I moved to North Adams in 2014. I fell in love with its community spirit, its welcoming attitude, and its impressive collection of cultural venues, from Mass MoCA to small local music shows. I have stayed for those reasons and many more — I owe a lot to North Adams and the Berkshires. I have a beautiful community of friends and colleagues here. My daughter, born in May, will get to grow up surrounded by and supported by that beautiful community. She'll go to North Adams schools, run around with her friends at North Adams summer camps, learn about art and science and history at North Adams and Berkshire cultural outposts.

In 2014, the city looked a little different — Colegrove's renovation was underway, the downtown was a little quieter. As a professional adult in my late 20s, I got to enjoy the opening of Bright Ideas, the Mohawk bar renovation, eating at new restaurants like Grazie and A-OK. In my early 30s, I had the opportunity to watch projects like Greylock Works and the UNO Center and the skate park develop, then fill with people excited to have new things to do and new community spaces to enjoy. What an exciting time for our community, no matter who we are or where we come from!

Francesca Olsen
North Adams, Mass. 

North Adams Hopes to Transform Y Into Community Recreation Center

By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff
05:19AM / Thursday, May 02, 2024

Mayor Jennifer Macksey updates members of the former YMCA on the status of the roof project and plans for reopening. 

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The city has plans to keep the former YMCA as a community center.

 

"The city of North Adams is very committed to having a recreation center not only for our youth but our young at heart," Mayor Jennifer Macksey said to the applause of some 50 or more YMCA members on Wednesday. "So we are really working hard and making sure we can have all those touch points."

 

The fate of the facility attached to Brayton School has been in limbo since the closure of the pool last year because of structural issues and the departure of the Berkshire Family YMCA in March.

 

The mayor said the city will run some programming over the summer until an operator can be found to take over the facility. It will also need a new name. 

 

"The YMCA, as you know, has departed from our facilities and will not return to our facility in the form that we had," she said to the crowd in Council Chambers. "And that's been mostly a decision on their part. The city of North Adams wanted to really keep our relationship with the Y, certainly, but they wanted to be a Y without borders, and we're going a different direction."

 

The pool was closed in March 2023 after the roof failed a structural inspection. Kyle Lamb, owner of Geary Builders, the contractor on the roof project, said the condition of the laminated beams was far worse than expected. 

 

"When we first went into the Y to do an inspection, we certainly found a lot more than we anticipated. The beams were actually rotted themselves on the bottom where they have to sit on the walls structurally," he said. "The beams actually, from the weight of snow and other things, actually crushed themselves eight to 11 inches. They were actually falling apart. ...