Noho Bridge Art: Second Time Around
For the city to begin a new search for proposals for the Route 9 railroad bridge artwork project is a slap in the face to the artists who already made the effort the first time around and are now being told to resubmit their work. Perhaps instead we should dump the seven volunteer judges and replace them with people who actually know what the process entails.
Were the appropriate questions asked of the artists: What other projects have the artists done? Were those completed on time and within budget? Are the artists (and the volunteer judges, for that matter) familiar with the qualifications for this project? This proposal is like any other business deal and should be treated accordingly—professionally.
When the five final proposals were on display in city hall, I took the time to view them. One artist’s project stood out with a degree of professionalism that was just over the top: the metal collage of the Northampton skyline by Sam Ostroff of Salmon Studios in Florence.
Sam’s work is all over the city and the quality of the work is second to none. Sam would have done this project on time and within budget. When you pick a professional, you get a top-quality job and it gets completed on time.
Just because J. Seth Hoffman, the original chosen artist, couldn’t complete his project (he withdrew because of “technical challenges”) doesn’t mean that the other 15 artists who submitted their work should be penalized by having to resubmit. Why not do what every other competition would: award the prize to one of the other finalists?
Robert E. McGovern, Jr.
Owner, Packard’s Restaurant
Northampton
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In Defense of Clear-Cutting
Though the practice of forest clear-cutting may be less aesthetically desirable for the public, it creates preferred habitat for many species. Young and regenerating forest habitats created through forest management, including clear-cutting, provide food, shelter and breeding habitat and contain a greater diversity of wildlife species than any other forest age class.
Over 90 percent of Massachusetts forest is now mature forest cover which shelters certain wildlife, but most is also wholly or partially dependent on early successional (young) forest habitat. If the thick canopy is not opened soon by environmentally sound harvesting (logging), we may soon witness further decline and eventual extinction of a number of species.
Early successional habitat is absolutely essential for birds such as grouse and woodcock. It is also essential for other species that, although not officially listed as rare, are experiencing sharp population declines due, in part, to habitat loss—birds such as prairie warbler, brown thrasher and whip-poor-wills, to name a few.
It is for this reason that I believe Amendment #106 to the Massachusetts House budget must be defeated. It would ban clear-cutting in state forests, including Department of Fisheries and Wildlife lands, where vitally needed habitat is established and protected.
Today less than 5 percent of the Massachusetts forest is early successional. Though small forest openings allow certain songbirds to perch and sing, they cannot mate, and need additional acreage if they are to survive and thrive. Clear-cut areas are critically needed despite public opposition. Please contact your legislators to defeat budget amendment #106.
Genevieve Fraser
Orange
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Mild Abandon for Masochists
When I was eight years old, I was horsing around in the bathroom when I suddenly slipped onto my mother’s steaming hot rollers. I shrieked as I was scratched and burned on my little face, but was surprised to find that the experience was actually quite exhilarating. It was the moment I can pinpoint as the discovery that I was a masochist.
Despite my countless investments of money and time over the years, there is one method alone that gives me that fix like nothing else. Reading Mild Abandon is worse than sticking bamboo under my fingernails while listening to REO Speedwagon. The double whammy is that it also replaced the intelligent and well loved This Modern World, and the fact that I choose to read it every week even though I despise it! What is wrong with me? I am a dirty, dirty boy.
Joel Kaemmerlen
Greenfield
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How Green Is This Market?
I am a bit perplexed at River Valley Market being voted the “Best Local Green Business” (in the Advocate’s 2011 Best of the Valley readers’ poll). This is a business, after all, that blasted through rock to build a facility. What is green about that?
There is plenty of unused real estate in the city and surrounding areas. What is green about blasting through rock that cannot be put back? This goes against the very nature of a green, earth-friendly type of business.
Typically, green/earth-friendly (what some would consider earthy-crunchy) businesses are against sprawl, are they not? When some people learn that I live in Northampton, they ask “Have you ever shopped at River Valley Market?” My answer is an emphatic “No.” I never will.
Peter K. Sullivan
Northampton
Editor’s note: River Valley Market makes this general statement about the store’s siting: “Opened April 30, 2008, our co-op was built into a bowl-shaped site carved from the granite hillside between 1900-1934. Stone from this hill was used to build King St. and Routes 5 & 10. The quarry operations left the site with a flat plateau surrounded by granite cliffs rising on three sides.” When we asked RVM’s general manager Michelle Prunty if the hillside was blasted to create the site, she said, “This was the city’s rock quarry. That’s where the hillside went. We did do some blasting into the ground— there were some rocky places—to bring in the utilities.”
Corrections: We made a few errors in last week’s Best of the Valley edition. The phone number for Easthampton Travel, which placed second in our Best Travel Agency category, is (413) 529-9599, not the number we published. And the owner of The Healing Zone, voted Best Place for Therapeutic Massage, is Nanci (not Nancy) Newton.
