Berkshire Mall Closes to Shoppers - Again

A hand-lettered sign on the door of the Berkshire Mall on Thursday afternoon.

LANESBOROUGH, Mass. — The latest in a series of intermittent closures had the Berkshire Mall closed to commerce on Thursday.

The Regal Cinema remained open for its regular schedule of shows. A barricade consisting of a fence and upturned tables from the food court prevented people entering to go to the movies from venturing into the food court and beyond.

At Target, the large gate was down over the department store’s mall entrance.

The manager on duty at Target just after 4 p.m. on Thursday said he did not know when the store received word that the mall would be closing for the day, and he did not know whether that status would change on Friday. He referred all questions to the manager who would be on duty Friday morning.

Both Target and Regal own their own sections of the building and are therefore not affected by any mall closure.

The holding company that owns the mall has been the subject of litigation, power outages and tax disputes with the town since it acquired the property in September of 2016.

Lanesborough's King Elmer Treated for Broken Limbs

By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff
12:45PM / Friday, August 07, 2020

The break can be seen in the center, where a hole in the trunk allowed a family of raccoons to take up residence last year. 

LANESBOROUGH, Mass. — King Elmer lost part of his crown this week.

 

Once the tallest elm in Massachusetts, the more than 250-year-old tree is now missing at least 10 foot section from his topmost branches from a combination of a weak trunk and winds from Tropical Storm Isaias that blew through the region Tuesday.

 

"It is 107 feet and I think that was part of the highest section," said James Neureuther, chairman of the Lanesborough Tree and Forest Committee. "It's probably a little shorter than it was now. It'd be hard to know but we may have lost 10 feet."

 

That, he noted, was like losing a whole tree.