It’d be hard to find a more stirring urban renewal story than North Adams, a depressed mill town that hit rock bottom in the 1990s when its main employer, Sprague Electric, took its marbles and went home. Back then, someone had the hare-brained idea to create a modern art museum in some of the old mill buildings.
Fast forward a decade, and not only is the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art [1]a wild success, but its opening started a chain reaction leading to dozens of art studios, fine restaurants, and even a boutique hotel that has made this once-downtrodden town the hippest place in 100 miles.
Despite its success, the town hasn’t given up its working-class roots, making it a fascinating combination of opposites, with lunch-pail conservatives and blue-haired hipsters doing a daily dance of discovery with one another.
Links:
[1] http://www.moon.com/destinations/new-england/massachusetts/western-massachusetts/northern-berkshires/north-adams/massmoca