Boston and Pittsfield: the Distance Between Us

The Past Remembered Anew:

How Childhood Moments Reveal   

Who We Are Now

Bill

The two cities are not that far apart.  In the early 50's, before construction of the Massachusetts Turnpike, four or five driving hours separated Boston from Pittsfield, 138 miles.  There were a number of routes a driver could choose if they wished to transition from the urban areas of eastern Massachusetts to the more rural regions of western Massachusetts.

You could take Route 2 from Cambridge out to Concord and Lexington and then along to the central part of the state, past Fort Devins, the tiny communities of Westminster and Templeton, through Orange north of the Quabbin Reservoir, and then up to the Mohawk Trail, a lovely scenic ride even today.  The town of Florida is up there, and something called the hairpin turn which an overloaded truck, coming down the steep incline with smoking overheated brakes, would occasionally challenge. The turn always won. At Williamstown you'd head south along 7 until, eventually, there was Pittsfield.

Perhaps Route 20 would be the better alternative. The Old Post Road out of Boston meanders along an historic route, first in the more northern part of the state and then dilly dallies to a more southern approach, through Springfield and along the Westfield River gradually tracking north through the forests of Becket and the resort towns of Lee and Lenox, arriving in Pittsfield before drifting off into New York State.  

Route 9 takes you from Park Square Boston to Park Square Pittsfield, through Framingham, through Worcester, through the Brookfields, south of the Quabbin, up to Amherst, the town where Gin and I met, and then along a route basically unchanged in all the time I've been driving it, through towns like Goshen and Cummington and Dalton, and, the end of the line, Pittsfield. 

No car. Go by bus.  I used to take the Peter Pan bus from Park Square in Boston back to college in the early 60s.  I'd connect in Springfield to Umass/Amherst. There were times too when I'd continue west, taking a Bonanza bus from Springfield out along the Mass Pike to Pittsfield.

Passenger train was another mode.  Lots more trains back then. Pittsfield had a spectacular train station, ultimately a victim of urban renewal.  It was a mini Grand Central.  You could take a train there to Boston, an interesting reversal. Gin’s father and mother would use the station to travel to New York or up north to North Adams where Gin's grandparents lived. 

Pittsfield was anything but isolated.  Many connections were possible. My dearth of knowledge about Pittsfield was just another example of my ignorance of what existed beyond the limits of my vision. That ignorance was a result of a wealth of riches.  Living in Boston I had no incentive to particularly care about any other place. 

I lived in both Jamaica Plain and Hyde Park.  Both communities offered ample opportunities to explore on my own. There were corner stores and movie theaters, commercial centers known as squares, buses, an elevated train. There were woods, trees to climb, fields, sometimes with abandoned cars rusting in them, other kids' houses, school yards, places to walk, places to ride my bike, and, eventually, as my world began to expand, places to drive a car.  

Worcester and Springfield and Pittsfield wouldn't have held a candle to the Boston I knew as a kid. I had everything I wanted right in my own backyard. From a different perspective, I think Gin felt the same way.

Gin

Bill may not have heard of Pittsfield but I at least knew of Boston. I actually visited the city during high school.

Even though my parents were more focused on New York City, many of my friends and their parents were Red Sox fans.  Hearing them talk about the Sox was my main association with Boston during my childhood. To my father, however, following the Yankees was somehow more intellectual than rooting for the more blue collar Red Sox. I watched the Yankees because my parents did.

In my junior year the Pittsfield High School basketball team made it to the state finals which were held at Boston Garden. One of my friend's fathers offered to drive his daughter, another friend and me  to Boston to watch the game. On the way to the Garden, we parked somewhere near Boston Common to walk over to the Steinway music store on Boylston Street so my friend Jeanne could pick up some sheet music.  Funny to think that I may have walked by Bill that day as one of his familiar haunts, the Little Building, was right up the street.

The only other time I was in Boston before Bill and I met was with my college roommate who wanted me to have the experience of shopping at Filene's basement. I'm talking here of the original basement and not the commercial chain it later became. There were no dressing rooms; you just tried things on over your clothes, jostling for space in the aisles amidst all the seemingly crazy other women grabbing at bargains. 

I was so disoriented I wasn't able to focus on anything.  My roommate, who seemed to thrive on the chaos, found me four sweaters so I didn't go home empty-handed.  As if the shopping experience wasn't disconcerting enough, when we exited the store we weren't even on the same street as the one we were on to get into Filene's. I had no idea where we were. In Pittsfield when we went into a store you came out the same way.

Even though Pittsfield may have been a smaller city than Boston, it was very complete in its own way.  The stores on North Street offered all the variety I cared about.  Every neighborhood I lived in had it own playground and branch library. I could swim at the Girls' Club and joined the nature club at the Berkshire Museum. I was more than happy to call Pittsfield my home since I too had everything I wanted in my own backyard.