Green Street and Beyond
After reading Robert Tobey's article "Ghosts of Green Street" (May 10, 2007), I remembered that 66 Green Street was also a "really nice place to live" for hundreds of lesbians who originally moved here from around the U.S. and made Northampton into a "veritable lesbian Ellis Island," so dubbed by Rolling Stone (November 11, 1982).
In September 1975, the Green Street Tenants' Coop formed. The apartments on the floors above and behind the space that was Green Street Café were known in the vibrant but underground women's community of the 1970s and 1980s as "the Dyke Dorm." Green Street provided a cheap and charming place to live for women who preferred the company of other lesbian tenants. So popular was the space, there was often a waiting list for lesbian migrants when they arrived in town. Better-known LGBT places on Green Street were, of course, the Grotto and North Star bars—businesses that attracted queers by the thousands.
All gone now. Yet I have so many memories of friends and good times there. Sadly, an institution like Smith College has not recognized the role these historic places played in building the diverse city we enjoy today. Town fought the gown and the gown won.
Bet Power, Director
Sexual Minorities Archives
Northampton
It is my firm believe that the democratic process is a failure as demonstrated by the present Congress. It's all about the money and re-election. They have all been bought off and will not make any decisions that will infringe upon the bureaucratic nightmare that exists. The will of the people is no longer the guideline that our government lives by. Congress should be limited to only two terms in office, instead of the career-bound bloodsuckers we now have living off the taxpayer forever. In addition, they should fall under the present Social Security nightmare which faces all of their constituents. I believe government has failed completely and that it is only a matter of time until the empire rolls over and dies. The Libertarian Party, though it will never win, is the only answer to the Washington Juggernaut!
Jeff Bryan
Ludlow
I cannot find what point Dimitri Oram is making in "Look Back at Kosovo: The legacy of so-called humanitarian intervention" [June 7, 2007]. What will Oram debunk next, massacres in Sudan? How can he sleep at night after disparaging the evidence of Albanian victims of Serbian forces in Kosovo on the basis that "the bodies were buried in individual, not mass graves?" How can such callousness possibly help anyone who is "truly interested in taking a stand against war?"
Ian Stone
Northampton
