Greenfield doesn’t get the same attention for being an arts and cultural center like Northampton, Amherst or Springfield, but we’d like to help change that perception. There’s a lot to love about this town and not just for its obvious attributes: Greenfield’s picturesque hiking or the annual Green River Music Festival. Below are some of the staff’s favorite things about Greenfield. Feel free to add your own in the comments below and on our Facebook page.
Good food: People often talk about going out to eat in Northampton, but Greenfield has a bounty of underappreciated restaurants. Hope and Olive serves simply delicious seasonal delights, and Magpie Woodfired Pizza bakes some of the best pies in the Valley. And there’s nothing like enjoying a burrito on one of the picnic benches outside Mesa Verde — I have to go now. But wait, there’s also sandwiches from the laid-back Brass Buckle cafe and $3 platters from the throwback diner counter at Brad’s Place. Yum! And we would be remiss if we didn’t give a hearty nod to Adams Donuts, whose glazed donut variety recently won the Advocate’s blind Taste-Off.
Good beer: Three of the Valley’s favorite drink HQs are in Greenfield: The People’s Pint, Lefty’s, and Green River Ambrosia. The People’s Pint makes good beer, good food, and serves it all up in a crazy-cool pub space with fun live music. And from honey browns to pale ales to the wonderfully rich Bean’s Brew Imperial Coffee Stout — Lefty’s, oh Lefty’s, we love you. Over at Green River Ambrosia, the flagship Ginger Libation is a godly mead-style nectar — the Valley simply wouldn’t be the same without it. And for those nights when you want to snuggle up with a good brew at home, Ryan & Casey Liquors has a astoundingly huge selection — strolling through their aisles is a craft beer lover’s dream.
The Nolumbeka Project: Greenfield is home base for this nonprofit, which seeks to preserve the history of Native Americans in New England through education, art, history, music, heritage seed preservation, and cultural events. You’ve got to love that. In the 1960s, the widening of Route 2 included digging up Native American burial grounds at White Ash Swamp, but some of the grounds that were undisturbed were purchased and preserved in 2001. In 2008, the Nolumbeka Project helped to save Turners Falls’ Sacred Hill Ceremonial Site from being torn up for an airport runway extension. Members provided records from the project’s archives, gave first-person accounts verifying the sacred nature of the area, and cleared brush. The project also helped with the passage of the town’s Native American Burial Ordinance in 2014. The hope is that this bylaw will stop future desecration of Native American burial sites.
Greenfield Community College: GCC is more than a place to get an education. The two-year college has turned itself into an integral part of the Greenfield community since it opened in 1962. In addition to credit-free workshops and great career programs in healthcare, art, technology, and environmental work, among others, GCC is also home to the Pioneer Valley Institute, which has examined local geology, agriculture, and industry since 1989. The college also runs a women’s resource center, a student veterans center, credit-free workshops, a food pantry, and a library open to the public throughout the workweek. GCC may be the only college in Franklin County, but the reasons why it ranks so highly among those seeking an education are too numerous to count.
The Arts Block: If Greenfield stands a chance of fostering an up-and-coming nightlife, the Arts Block performance venue at the corner of Main Street and Court Square will play a guiding role. The historic building now contains a recording studio as well as four venues, often programmed several nights a week with a wide variety of emerging artists and musical acts. Regularly-scheduled events include comedy, jazz, and Cuban music nights. When it comes to late-night fun, Rome wasn’t built in a day — artistic director Ed Wierzbowski told the Advocate in July that “there’s something in the water that makes Greenfield residents go to sleep around 8… The Arts Block is the only place in Greenfield you’ll find more than 100 people at a time after dinner on a Friday or Saturday.” But as popular new businesses start to pop up on that block — like Seymour Pub, which arrived in winter 2013 — the Arts Block seems more and more like the harbinger of good things to come.
An amazing tribute; it is good to know this worthy work is recognized. I will only add that this message will eventually carry all the way through: indigenous culture is alive and well, more relevant than ever, and, in fact, the grounded center upon which everything else turns. Congratulations Nolumbeka!
World Eye Bookshop
Amen.
Greenfield is also home to one of the oldest community symphony orchestras in the country, the Pioneer Valley Symphony Orchestra, which has since grown into a thriving organization that includes a Symphony Chorus, Youth Orchestra, Chamber Choir, and educational programs for Franklin County schoolchildren. The organization has won multiple awards for its programming, and will be performing the New England premiere of a Philip Glass symphony this Saturday at Greenfield High School!
We have John Doe, Jr Used Records at 269 main street – a lot of people come to town to eat at the Buckle and then buy records. We love Greenfield! xxoo JDJR
You can tell the person who wrote this does not live in Greenfield.
Hey Dwanen — I actually live in Greenfield and helped with this! Is there something in particular you don’t agree with?
Green Fields Market! Hattapon’s Thai Kitchen! Greenfield Coffee! Manna House! Real Pickles!
Maybe we should have done a 100 reasons to love Greenfield! 🙂 Would have been easy.
1. Not yet gentrified.
2. Located within two hours of a massive diversity of environments.
3. No huge box store stripping the life from it’s fragile Main Street quaintness–yet.
4. Not over-run by students every year, or tourists every day.
5. Several large grocery stores.
Silver Garden Daylilies has just moved to Pickett Lane in Greenfield. The nearly 15 acres of woodland has a nice walk to the lower daylily beds with nearly 1200 varieties of daylilies. There is also a “Daylily and Arts Festival” in early July. Check out Silver Garden Daylilies on Facebook.
poet’s seat, highland park, the annual harvest festival, affordable housing, parades for everything, walk to everything, cheap gas, rehab services for those in need, and my favorite thing of all? every kind of person will say hello to you on the street. i adore this town.
The best and most creative (and with lighter choices) Indian food in the Valley at The Clay Oven… the least expensive auto body repair shop (with wonderful work) at Ozzie’s on High St…. and did anyone mention the department store Wilsons which is like time-traveling back to the 1940’s… actually built in 1882!! Yes, I agree with the kindness that pervades the town!
Don’t forget about the community meals that go on just about every day! I used to live in greenfield for years and those soup kitchens really come in handy.
Well, I gotta mention it. The Garden Cinemas, Franklin County’s only first-run movie theater has been on Main St, nearly continuously, for 86 years. And still going stong…
One of my favorite places in Greenfield is Village Pizza. I come down from Maine and never miss stopping in for the world’s best pizza!
How do you talk about the beer scene without mentioning Seymour??
Wouldn’t miss it. They appear a little further down in the article when we talk about Court Square.
The Greenfield Farmers market, Terazza restorante, The Covered Bridge and the motivational message board of Tire Warehouse.
However, if you like rock music, hard rock, grunge, or even metal, the arts block can’t wait to turn you away. Not all are welcome, as a musician my band and I tried to play every venue in our home town. Only to be denied by the arts block every time we asked, our colleagues also. For years this continued till we stopped asking (their hopes and plan all along?). We have played the pint numerous times. Am I to assume to the arts block not all artists count, are created equal, or deserve exposure at all? We are talking about an entire genre! Sadly they continue to segregate artists and in doing so, take free expression out of art its self. I ask, “what is art without free expression?… If not propaganda.” Why are we as artists not allowed to enjoy and contribute to our home towns advancements in social life? It is not easy to be an artist, yet we fight everyday just to share what we created with others. The arts block should not take such a segregating stance towards musicians and artists. Conformity is not artistic expression.
Hello, This is a wake up call for all the residents and the tourists to Greenfield. I’ve been taking the train every Friday and Saturday to Greenfield to try to get the biggest night club in Greenfield going again. I walk by the Arts block for the last 16 weekends and collectively haven’t seen 100 people there yet. They feature Avante Garde musicians and events that are only frequented by patrons that are from the baby boom generation. They charge $10.00 or more per show and that’s too expensive. Club Allure on the other hand has no cover charge. We have had good R and B bands as well as great DJ’s. We even have had Bobby C. for the last 4 weekends. There seems to be a serious problem with musical taste of the residents who prefer Gangster rap and Hip Hop music. There is no culture in Greenfield. There is an Opiate problem that is evident in the people who I have to walk by and who hang in the park on Fiske Ave. on my corner. Was even threatened a couple of times. We have a No Tolerance drug policy in our club but the police still swarm us at closing time never to find anything nor anyone in the bathrooms. Try going across the street. If I can see it I’m sure you can also. It would be ashamed to close the largest dance and band venue in the city because of lack of interest which is where we are moving toward. In general there is just a bad attitude in Greenfield.
Why doesn’t the Advocate mention this.
9 Red Clay Public Tennis Courts!!!