By Michele Plourde Barker, Western MA Circuit Rider

On a snowy evening this past February, Lenox welcomed back its historic 1913 Westinghouse streetlights with a gala celebration. It was a Currier & Ives moment: women in feathered picture-frame hats and bustles and men in frock coats, stand-up collars, and cravats gathered in the village center, a gray winter day dissolving into a snow-frosted twilight. Someone stepped forward and flipped a switch, and the murky street was aglow with soft white light cast by a row of newly-installed streetlights. But the flashing cameras recorded the event on computer chips rather than glass-plate negatives, and the horsepower of the vehicles lining the street was definitely not the single-digit variety.

Listed on Preservation Massachusetts’ Most Endangered Resources list in 2003, the Westinghouse streetlights have a distinctive saucer-shaped reflector suspended from a scrolled bracket. Of the original set of 149 donated by George Westinghouse, only a couple dozen remained intact after the town replaced most of the fixtures with cobra lights in the 1980s. By 2003, only seven of those were still functional. According to the Berkshire Eagle, the PM designation was a turning point in the campaign to get the lights replaced. The new lamps are replicas of the originals, except for the globes, which have modern energy-efficient bulbs.

Lenox resident Marcia Brown fought to get the lights restored almost from the day they were removed, and speakers from State Representative Smitty Pignatelli to Selectboard Chair Linda Procopio Messana paid to tribute to Ms. Brown’s dedication. In costumes borrowed from Shakespeare and Company, members of the Historical Commission gave the illumination ceremony and reception a turn-of-the-century atmosphere.

At the reception that followed, ZBA Chair Pam Kueber also credited the Selectboard, Town Manager, and strong support from Lenox residents for bringing Ms. Brown’s dreams to fruition. Residents voted $100,000 in CPA funds to supplement $25,000 raised by the Historical Commission and $1.2 million in town funds for the project. The reproduced streetlamps will be added to several village center streets as part of an overall beautification program that will include landscaping, sidewalks, and other amenities.

Several storeowners expressed their hopes that the new lighting will make the town more welcoming to tourists and encourage visitors to stay later in the evenings for shopping and dining. Some felt that the push for the Westinghouse streetlamp restoration had given impetus to the other downtown improvement plans. The excitement of local merchants was testimony to the role that small details like streetlamps can play in reflecting a community’s character.

- On February 27, 2010 The Berkshire Eagle quoted Circuit Rider Michele Barker in an article by David Pepose titled “Illumination for Lenox.” Unfortunately, the article is no longer available through the Berkshire Eagle’s website, but it is available through ProQuest Database. Please contact your local library for information on how to access the database.

 
Preservation Massachusetts recently awarded the Waterfront Historic Area League of New Bedford a $2,500 Mini Grant for an engineering assessment of the Howland House, an 1830’s brick mansion in New Bedford. The following is an excerpt of an article in the Standard Times:

WHALE’s Purchase Paves Way for Historic Mansion’s Revival

By Charis Anderson | Standard Times | Apr. 13, 2010

NEW BEDFORD — Repair work on an 1830s brick mansion on South Sixth Street could begin within a month after the Waterfront Historic Area League closed on the property last week, saving it from demolition.

The house at 38 S. Sixth St., a two-story, brick mansion built in 1834 for members of the Howland family, was severely damaged in a fire in 2005, and water seeping in over the past five years has caused additional damage.

“Every day the building sits in this compromised condition, the building’s at risk,” said Lisa Bergson, WHALE’s executive director.

WHALE purchased the house from its prior owners, F&S Enterprises, a Rhode Island corporation, for $237,000.

F&S had applied to the city for permission to demolish the structure but withdrew the application when they accepted WHALE’s offer earlier this year.

For the full article, click here.

The image of the Baker-Robinson Oilworks was shot around 2002.

 

 

 

Time Runs Out for Old Whale Oil Refinery

By David Filipov | The Boston Globe | Apr. 12, 2010

NEW BEDFORD — In its prime, the Baker-Robinson whale oil refinery was a pillar of this port’s reputation as the whaling capital of the world. The factory excelled in using the products taken from sperm whales to produce the finest candles, the best lubricants, and the purest oil for lamps.

But the whaling industry left New Bedford in the 1920s, and the great cauldrons that refined oil in the Baker-Robinson plant never fired again. The hydraulic press that made candles out of spermaceti, a waxy substance taken from the whales’ heads, fell silent.

For the full article, click here.

Gateway to Hope and Heartache

By Andrew Ryan | The Boston Globe | Apr. 11, 2010

First a point of entry for immigrants, later a makeshift prison, this East Boston building is slated to be razed

Tunney Lee arrived in America on a dreary day in 1938, a 7-year-old at the railing of a steamship gazing up at the Custom House Tower, an ivory-colored beacon soaring above Boston.

If seeing the city’s tallest skyscraper filled Lee with hope, a low-slung building on an East Boston wharf reminded him who he was: a boy, just 3 feet 9 inches, emigrating from China, the target of America’s strictest immigration quotas. After a 59-question interrogation by immigration officers, he signed his name with an X.

For the full article, click here.

If there is a bulldozer looming in front of the historic office building at the Ames Shovel Shops is it not to demolish the buildings, but rather to preserve them. On Monday April 5th, 2010 after a long town meeting, the people of Easton voted 560-209 in favor of preserving and re-developing the Ames Shovel Shops Works.
In 2008, PM listed the complex on the Most Endangered list due to a large-scale housing development proposed that would demolish or severely compromise the historic integrity and character of the Shovel Shops and the center of North Easton.  The Shops were also included on the National Trust’s 11 Most Endangered list in 2009.

 
The new developer is Beacon Communities, a Boston based development firm with a long track record of successful historic rehabilitation projects across the state, including the Cordovan at Haverhill Station in Haverhill and the Wilbur School in Sharon.  Housing is still the planned use but at a scaled back level and more sensitive to the historic character of the building than what had previously been proposed. PM is very excited to see our involvement and advocacy on behalf of these buildings result in such a positive step forward for the Ames Shovel Complex and for Easton.

Easton Voters Support Shovel Shop Redevelopment

By Vicki-Ann Downing | Enterprise News | Apr. 06, 2010

EASTON — Voters at the special town meeting on Monday night supported the Beacon Communities Development plan to rescue the historic Ames shovel factory by a vote of 560-209.

An estimated 800 people turned out for the session, many of them waiting in long lines for entry into Oliver Ames High School. Processing the large crowd delayed the start of the meeting by 40 minutes.

Voters made it clear almost from the start that they favored the plan to give Beacon Communities Development a $3 million grant to pay for a historic preservation restriction on the shovel complex and a $4.5 million construction loan. The money will come from the town’s Community Preservation Act account, which has a balance of about $10 million.

For more information on this success story, click here