LATEST NEWS
Brookside Road Bridge closed until further notice
According to a statement from the Great Barrington Police Department, the bridge on Brookside Road will be closed until further notice. The Massachusetts Department of Transportation will announce when the bridge is reopened.
Remembering the days before homelessness in Berkshire County
At the turn of the century, I returned to Berkshire County, where I had grown up. I had been gone a score of years, starting just after high school. It is hard to impress how halcyon Pittsfield was in the 1960s through 1980. Crime was virtually unheard of. I remember a big “news story” in The Berkshire Eagle about teenagers drinking beer in the woods by fires. During the ’90s, when Pittsfield was in the very beginning of its economic downturn brought on by General Electric downsizing, there was little crime in Pittsfield. Historians generally agree that the 1990s represented a national high-water mark from crime, but the Berkshires by and large ducked it.
Bear Butter shop opens up in Great Barrington, Mass.
A Bear Butter shop opened last month in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Bear butter is fortified almond butter. It’s a mix of almonds, vegan vanilla protein, cacao, goji berries, golden flax seeds, hemp and coconut flakes. The owner started selling bear butter out of The Spot in Pittsfield. It took...
Berkshire County activist attempting to support Palestinian family trapped in Gaza with fundraiser ahead of further Israeli military action
A Berkshire County woman has personal ties to a fundraising effort to help a Palestinian family trapped in the Southern Gaza city Rafah evacuate to neighboring Egypt. Lillian Volat of Great Barrington, Massachusetts is promoting a $67,000 effort to help her friend Aya Al-Ghazzawi and her 14-member family escape the Israeli military campaign that has killed around 35,000 since the October 7th Hamas attacks. Volat, who has worked to organize Pro-Palestinian demonstrations through the Anti-Imperialist Solidarity group, knows Al-Ghazzawi through her time working with the International Centre for Water Management Services in the Middle East. She spoke with WAMC.
It’s town meeting season in Berkshire County, with a handful set for Monday evening
Great Barrington residents will gather to debate a more than $16 million general fund and $21 million school budget at Monument Mountain Regional High School at 6. Dalton voters will congregate at Wahconah Regional High School at 7 to address a 22-item warrant including the annual town budget and a citizen’s petition revising sidewalk ordinances. Sheffielders will meet at Mount Everett Regional High School at 6 to tackle issues ranging from an almost $8 million share of the Southern Berkshire Regional School District Operating and Transportation budget to zoning bylaw amendments. West Stockbridge voters will meet in the town hall gym to discuss their 47-item warrant at 6.
Ceremony in Sheffield unveils headstone for Black Civil War soldier, celebrating his service
Jocelyn Jones Arnold, unveiled a new gravestone for her great-great-granduncle, William D. Jones, a Civil War veteran from Sheffield, Massachusetts. Massachusetts State Rep. Smitty Pignatelli, Laurence Jones, the great-great-grandnephew of William D. Jones, and Brigadier General Paul L. Minor, from the Massachusetts National Guard, stand behind her at the Center Cemetery.
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