MCLA: Panel of Drag Performers to Celebrate Queer Identities and Performance Art

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NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA) invites the community to an evening of discussion and insight featuring a panel of local drag performers as part of the annual Lavender Lecture.  
 
Panelists Vuronika Baked, Gemini DaBarbay, and Jackie Leggs will take the stage on Wednesday, Oct. 16 at 5 p.m. in Venable Theater to share their personal experiences with drag and their journeys in exploring their queer identities. 
 
This panel, presented in a moderated Q&A format, offers an opportunity to hear from the performers about the role of drag in their lives, the challenges and triumphs they've faced, and how the art form has shaped their self-expression and activism. 
 
The event is sponsored by the MCLA Foundation Lavender Fund Donors, whose contributions continue to enrich campus life for LGBTQIA+ students. The Lavender Fund, launched in 2019, plays a critical role in bringing LGBTQIA+ speakers to campus, sending students to LGBTQIA+ conferences, and sponsoring trips to historic sites tied to the LGBTQIA+ civil rights movement. This initiative aims to foster a campus culture where LGBTQIA+ students feel supported and empowered. 
 
This event is free and open to the public. 
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Study Recommends 'Removal' for North Adams' Veterans Bridge

By Tammy Daniels iBerkshires Staff

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Nearly a year of study and community input about the deteriorating Veterans Memorial Bridge has resulted in one recommendation: Take it down. 
 
The results of the feasibility study by Stoss Landscape Urbanism weren't really a surprise. The options of "repair, replace and remove" kept pointing to the same conclusion as early as last April
 
"I was the biggest skeptic on the team going into this project," said Commissioner of Public Services Timothy Lescarbeau. "And in our very last meeting, I got up and said, 'I think we should tear this damn bridge down.'"
 
Lescarbeau's statement was greeted with loud applause on Friday afternoon as dozens of residents and officials gathered at Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art to hear the final recommendations of the study, funded through a $750,000 federal Reconnecting Communities grant
 
The Central Artery Project had slashed through the heart of the city back in the 1960s, with the promise of an "urban renewal" that never came. It left North Adams with an aging four-lane highway that bisected the city and created a physical and psychological barrier.
 
How to connect Mass MoCA with the downtown has been an ongoing debate since its opening in 1999. Once thousands of Sprague Electric workers had spilled out of the mills toward Main Street; now it was a question of how to get day-trippers to walk through the parking lots and daunting traffic lanes. 
 
The grant application was the joint effort of Mass MoCA and the city; Mayor Jennifer Macksey pointed to Carrie Burnett, the city's grants officer, and Jennifer Wright, now executive director of the North Adams Partnership, for shepherding the grant through. 
 
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