North Adams Transcript Merging With Berkshire Eagle

Staff Reports02:49PM / Thursday, January 02, 2014Print Story | Email Story

The North Adams Transcript's name will be retired after more than 100 years; the weekly Advocate will fold.

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The North Adams Transcript's name will disappear after the paper has served North County and beyond for more than 170 years.

The Advocate, long a Williamstown weekly staple, will fold.

Kevin Corrado, president and publisher of NENI, and Kevin Moran, vice president, announced Thursday afternoon that the Transcript will be fully merged into The Berkshire Eagle, NENI's flagship paper.

In the post on both papers' websites, the papers were described as having "been engaged for a number of years, and now we're making the marriage official."

The former family-owned dailies were purchased by MediaNews Group in the 1990s, along with the Bennington (Vt.) Banner and Brattleboro (Vt.) Reformer. The Advocate was acquired from Boxcar Media, iBerkshires' parent company, in 2005.

The Transcript's staff has slowly been reduced over the past few years as The Eagle has taken over more of its business and production sides, including printing. It has not had a separate publisher or editor for some months.

The building was sold several years ago and the paper's offices moved to Main Street. The paper says it expects to keep the downtown office open.

According to the announcement, the Transcript's current staff will join The Eagle's news department:

"These journalists will continue to do what they do best — and that is cover Northern Berkshire County. With this, The Eagle renews its commitment to serving the communities of Northern Berkshire County, while carrying on the longstanding tradition of being the voice for the region."

The post lists the paper's news staff as three news and sports reporters, a digital news specialist/senior reporter and a visual journalist. The Eagle plans to continue covering North County and expand Berkshires Week, its arts and entertainment insert, to 52 weeks from its current summer run.

Mayor Richard Alcombright said he was saddened to learn the local staple would be no more.

"It's an amenity that has been around forever and synonymous with North Adams, it will be sorry to see it leave," he said. "From the background I came from, I understand the business decisions, I fully understand that things have to change."

Alcombright said he was assured by principals at The Eagle, including Moran, a former editor at the Transcript, that the regional newspaper would continue strong coverage of the region. The mayor has frequently mentioned the Transcript and its local coverage as one of the resources of the city.

"I've been assured equal or greater than coverage ... we should have a good presence there [in The Eagle]," he said, adding that based on those comments "I would still stand by my statement that we have a local paper."

Transcript subscribers will begin getting The Eagle on Jan. 20. The Advocate weekly will publish its last edition on Jan. 16.

According to "History of North Adams, Mass., 1749-1885, Reminiscences of Early Settlers," the Transcript was established Sept. 7, 1843, by John R. Briggs as the Adams Transcript. The paper went through a number of names and publishers, but has been published as the North Adams Transcript for more than a 100 years. The Hardman family ran it from 1896 until selling to The Boston Globe in 1976.

Updated with comments from Mayor Alcombright at 4 p.m.

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Williamstown Studying Major Overhaul for Main Street

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
05:14AM / Wednesday, July 29, 2026

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The town is working with a Worcester civil engineering firm to redesign Main Street with an eye toward a major project sometime in the next decade.

Community Development Director Andrew Groff was before the Select Board on Monday night to talk about Town Hall's use of a $500,000 state grant to do preliminary design on major improvements to that portion of Route 2 that runs from Water Street west to the Field Park rotary, through the middle of Williams College's campus.

Groff introduced the elected officials to Amanda Bazinet of Worcester's Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, who is helping the town to develop a plan for Main Street that would align with the commonwealth's Complete Streets Program.

"Our project goals, in addition to the increased pedestrian and bicycle accommodations, is just, in general, improving the sightlines and improving the intersection geometry," Bazinet said.

"Complete Streets … has a lot of different facets to it. As Andrew had mentioned, the goal is to improve the safety for all of the roadway users — not just the motorists. We're looking at improving it for pedestrians, bicyclists, anyone using a mobility device. We want to create streets that are safe for all ages and abilities to use. So, while bicyclists will still be allowed, legally, to use the roadway, we want to look at providing a separate bicycle accommodation along the corridor, whether it's a shared use path along both sides of the streets that is a little more accessible to young children or older people with disabilities to look at all transportation options."

One goal is to encourage "active transportation." The Massachusetts Department of Transportation, who the town hopes one day might fund the construction, has a "healthy transportation policy," Bazinet said.

That MassDOT funding would come through the Transportation Improvement Program, which is managed locally by the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission. The design work underway now is being done with an eye toward going after TIP funding years down the road.

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