4 Responses to Cutting to the Chase

1. Richard Morchoe says:

   December 19, 2013 at 9:28 am

   I have been by that spot many times and have never been tempted to visit. The photo has not increased my curiosity. The Town of Palmer is made up of four villages. Thorndike to Three Rivers has a lovely main street.

   Bondsville is the downmarket village.

   Where did you get that picture. I would hope you would not know anyone who thinks Bondsville a chic tourist venue.

   A casino was pushed for the town. The people behind it spent oceans of cash. The opponents had zip, just signs at the turnpike exit that said, “You think the traffic is bad now.”

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2. Fenster says:

   December 19, 2013 at 9:44 am

   I went to UMass Amherst grad school long ago and the best back road route from the east takes you through Bondsville. I suspect this place was there then, too. My son now goes to UMass as an undergrad so it is back to Bondsville again. Funny how when hipness spread from UMass starting in the 70s the invasion went north and west, to the hill towns. South and east seems like it is same as it ever was.

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3. Callowman says:

   December 20, 2013 at 8:23 am

   Just took a Street View tour of Bondsville. How are those little western Mass towns holding up? Do they have the problems with meth and social decay you see in the rural west? The Gin Mill seems to be on the tacky side of town, but a lot of the rest of the town looks pretty and well-kept. I grew up in Boston, and used to fantasize about moving to rural New England, though as with your UMass classmates, it was more the Berkshire or Green Mountain places that appealed.

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   • fenster says:

     December 20, 2013 at 9:06 am

     I am only now getting back to the area with some regularity so I don’t know a ton first hand about how they are doing. But you can follow them to some extent through the media and word of mouth.

     The basic distinction in New England is between the old mill towns and the old farming villages. The farming villages have more Currier and Ives appeal and have been quicker to “come back”, if you can call it that. There are some exceptions: the tiny little mill village of Harrisville NH is totally charming.

     In Western Mass, the mill-farm distinction can be summed up in a rhyming way: mill towns or hill towns. The mill towns–like the Palmer/Bondsville SMSA–can be found to the south, near the Connecticut border. They are pretty hardscrabble still. Not desolate by any means (like, say, parts of Holyoke, near Springfield). But seen better times and no creative class interested in buying. Then there are the hill towns, the old farming villages to the north and west of Amherst and Northampton. These are doing a lot better, courtesy of the university pushing its sphere of influence in that direction. Interestingly, there are some mill towns to the north, too–Miller’s Falls and Greenfield. While they are hardly pristine, they also reflect the influence of the university spreading north.

     So you don’t have to go all the way to Vermont or the Berkshires miles and miles away if you graduate and want to maintain your collegiate/hip bona fides. You can head off to the hill towns . . . though there is not much there.

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