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Film, discussion on Saturday about football scholastic head injury -- Williams summarizes review process

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- Amid evidence that head-impact sports may cause lasting brain damage to players even in secondary school and college, a retired physician is staging a free feature-film showing and discussion on Saturday at the Milne Public Library in town.  Sports officials from both Williams College and Mount Greylock Regional High School say they can't attend. The reason -- prior engagements. 

However, Williams provided a statement explain its research into the head-injury question. 

"Concussion," a 2015 feature film which chronicles the discovery of chronic traumatic encephalopathy in the brain of the late Pittsburgh Steeler lineman Mike Webster -- and the National Football League's efforts to downplay its significance -- will be show at 1 p.m. on Saturday at the library free and open to the public, says Nicholas Wright, M.D., an epidemiologist and Williams College graduate. 

Wright has been working for several years since his retirement from New Jersey to Williamstown to alert Williams trustees, sports administrators and school board members at Mount Greylock to the possibility that repeated sub-concussive blows to the head common in tackle football programs may have a compounding effect on the brains of youth.  Wright wrote about his concerns in a Berkshire Eagle op-end last fall, has spoken about it to the Mount Greylock school board, and written to Williams trustees.

But so far, he has had little reaction -- appending to the bottom of another op-ed, """Williams College has denied two requests to provide a representative for interview on these issues." So he decided to show the film.  Already, some students at Williams screened it on campus. 

More than a month ago, Wright emailed and then spoke with Lindsey von Holtz, athletic coordinator at Mount Greylock, and Lisa Melendy, athletic director at Williams. But as of this writing, both had declined Wright's offer to be part of a discussion. Melendy said she has a family engagement. von Holtz is coaching a long-scheduled lacrosse game on Saturday as the film is showing.  Also, Melendy said Williams sports-medicine staff would be covering games at that time.

In an email to Greylock News, von Holtz said: "I hope the event is a success and the turnout is large." 

Williams' media-relations director Mary S. Dettloff, responded for the college on Thursday:

"The college has voluntarily participated and provided data for outside concussion studies. NESCAC has formed a Medical Aspects in Sport Committee that is gathering data, following research, and making recommendations for best practices.  This work is on-going and under constant review at every level.  (coach, sport medicine, athletic directors, and presidents, and medical directors)  The college relies most heavily upon the NCAA Sport Science Institute and the NCAA Medical Safeguards Committee to provide us with cutting-edge research and guidance."

RELATED LINKS:

• Background on the history of the National Football League's handling of brain injury
• Berkshire Eagle story on Dr. Wright's planned testimony
• iBerkshires story on Dr. Wright's testimony and school-board reaction
• WNYT-Channel 13 (Albany, N.Y.,) report on Wright's testimony
• March 1, 2017 op-ed in Berkshire Eagle by Dr. Wright 
• Earlier op/ed in Greylock Independent by Dr. Wright: 
  ""Williams College has denied two requests to provide a representative for interview on these issues.""
  
  Photo of Nick Wright, (to right) courtesy of WNYT-TV, Channel 13

 

Williams College seeks soil samples from Water Street site -- part of museum location study?

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. --  Williams College  is conducting four days worth of soil sampling at a potential Water Street site for a $65-million art-museum complex. However the town, which gave permission for the drilling, says it is not a precursor for any particular project. 

Dustin Humphrey, a geo-technical engineer for a Springfield, Mass.-based speciality geoenvironmental engineering firm said on Wednesday that his firm had been retained by Williams to do the work.  They were on site with a drill rig that has an eight-inch, hole-drilling auger that can take soil samples above bedrock.  He said work by O'Reilly, Talbot & Okun would continue for two more days.

Town Manager Jason Hoch said the town gave permission for the college to hire the sampling work on the town's property. "There more we all know about what is underneath the better," he said, adding that the town has had other testing and work done over the years at the site, and Williams has agreed to share with the town what it learns from the new borings.

"There are a handful of things in play now so I can't say this is a precursor for a particular project," added Hoch. "We've talked about a variety of potential uses on that site, obviously there has been talk in the past about buildings."  The college also has in mind some possible stormwater improvements, Hoch said.

The truck is at the former site of the town's municipal-equipment garage, which was razed and the site is now a gravel parking lot, owned by the town, which abuts Williams property on two sides, including the Spencer Art Building.  The town has permitted various uses on the site since the building was removed.  

A year ago, some 300 people signed petitions opposed to an initial location the college was reviewing as a possibility for the museum building -- at Southworth and Main streets.  That site was subsequently abandoned by the college, after it held a community discussion. The college said it was look at other possible locations. Those have included the site of the current Williams Inn at Field Park. The college owns the inn land and operation and has said it isn't sure what it would do with the property once it completes planned construction of a new hotel at the south end of Spring Street.  In January, a Williams official said the idea of putting the museum at the town garage site was "an interesting scenario." 

Williams College has been invited to comment on this post.

Williamstown to host hundreds of Appalachian Trial lovers Oct. 7-9

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- Hundreds of veteran long-distance hikers of the Appalachian Trail -- from all over the country -- will converge on Williams College over the Columbus Day weekend, Oct. 7-9, for workshops, camping and companionship.  It's the 35th-annual gathering of the Appalachian Long Distance Hikers Association (ALDHA).  The group's annual meeting rotates among venues and this year it returns to Williamstown.

Events will run from 5 p.m. on Friday through Sunday afternoon and the trekkers pay $20 each to participate. Retired physican Dr. Eric White will be providing fields for camping and the family barn for gathering on Oblong Road.  Most of the workshops will run from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, and until 1:30 p.m. on Sunday at Williams.  On Monday, Columbus Day, a crew of ALDHA member volunteers will set off for Cheshire, where they will perform A.T. corridor/boundary maintenance. 

Presentations include a Saturday night talk by Niki Rellon, the first female amputee to complete an A.T. through-hike.   Sunday night's speaker will be Tom Gathman, who has hiked the entire A.T. three times.  Some of the presentations will take place in the '62 Center at Williams.  A sponsor of the gathering is the Williams College Outling Club, headed by director Scott Lewis. Other gathering coordinators are Jim Niedbalski and Betsy Kane.  Cosmos Catalano, longtime theatre production manager and technical supervisor at the '62 Center, is also helping locally. 

ALDHA is based in West Lebanon, N.H. and can be reached by emailing [email protected], or at hits website: http://www.aldha.org. 

 

Ex-Williams Inn owner sees problems with Spring Street hotel site, prefers Waubeeka or current site; says at least 100 rooms needed for viability

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- It makes more sense to build a hotel in South Williamstown at Waubeeka Golf Links than on the end of Spring Street, and a hotel needs to be about 100 rooms or larger to be economically viable, says Carl ​J​. Faulkner, the former longtime owner-operator of the Williams Inn.

​"In Williamstown, the best location for a new inn is the present site of the Williams Inn, even if the inn needs to be closed for about two years in order to accomplish this," Faulkner said in a interview and written comments to GreylockNews.com. "Otherwise, the Waubeeka site would be the next-best site. Spring Street/Latham Street, I feel is less desirable. It's location, location, location."

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The problem with a Spring Street site proposed by Williams College for a "new" 60-room Williams Inn is that it is not on a major route ​traveled by ​the ​tourists who are the main source of economic viability for any non-resort hotel, said Faulkner. Faulkner noted that the intersections of U.S. Route 7 and state Route 43 at South Williamstown was once the location of the Idlewild Inn. While not familiar with developer Michael Deep's proposals for a "New England-style country inn" resort at Waubeeka, Faulkner expressed doubt any tourist- and event-venue hotel could be viable with less than about 100 rooms.

"To me,​ ​​with 60 rooms, you can't make money," he said. "The college is proposing a building that is too small -- 60 rooms will not satisfy the needs," said Faulkner. "We found that in order to get conventions you need at least 100 rooms. Also, I think the college is thinking they are the sole generator of rooms. They are not. They are a substantial generator of rooms, but hopefully most the rooms will come from tourists driving through the area."

If Williams builds only 60 rooms, Faulkner believes the facility will be a perpetual money loser, subsidized by Williams. ​"In my opinion, 100-120 rooms is the most profitable size for an inn," said Faulkner. "Above that size you need more staff and under that size you still need the same staff that a 100-room inn would need. Also, in order to attract regional conferences, reunions, antique-auto groups and other conventions, you need over 100 rooms."​

In a "Q&A on the Williams Inn Project" release last week by Williams, spokesman James Kolesar asserts that putting a hotel at the intersection of two major roads -- as would be the case at Waubeeka or at the current Williams Inn site -- may have been a good place "before the invention of the Internet." However, Kolesar wrote:"Few travelers any more head out without knowing where they intend to stay."

Faulkner commented during an interview last week with GreylockNews.com, which sought figures from him about tax payments by the Williams Inn. He co-owned the Williams Inn with his wife, Marilyn, for more than ​35​ years, ground leasing six acres of land from Williams. Faulkner says he supports Williams College's effort to build a new Williams Inn, but not at a Spring Street location.

"I'm in favor of a New Inn, he said. I'm just not in favor of Spring Street . . . personally, I think the Waubeeka site is a better site for a hotel than where the college wants to build," said Faulkner. "It is a more traveled road. There is precedent for it, where the Idlewild was and that was in the area of 100 to 120 rooms. The college-chosen site is a poor one." In the interview, Faulkner made the following points:

• ​​No matter which location, Faulkner cautioned about hotel over building in Berkshire County. He said three new inns are open or under construction this year in Lenox or Pittsfield, ad a time when hundreds of SABIC workers in Pittsfield are losing jobs or relocating to Texas. Two new inns -- the Redwood and the Greylock Mill -- are in building or planning stages in North Adams.
  
  
• ​An inn at the end of Spring Street can be expect​ed​ to generate "a minimum of s​everal​ tractor-trailer trucks weekdays making deliveries." In addition, multiple intercity buses​ and Berkshire Regional Transit Authority buses​ stop daily at The Williams Inn, Faulkner said. These buses will have to either find another stop or negotiate the bottom of Spring Street.
• The mix of retail on Spring Street -- many restaurants and few "browsable shops" was of diminishing interest to Williams Inn lodgers and the college may be exacerbating that by adding public dining at The Log and in a proposed new bookstore building. The short walk to Spring Street from the Williams Inn wa​s​ not a detere​nt, Faulkner said.
  
  
• ​​Faulkner ​discounted Kolesar's assertion that​ the current Williams Inn building is not "very energy inefficient". ​ To the contrary, Faulkner said. Five or six years ago, it received the government's best Energy Star efficiency rating in New England he said. Also, the Inn's $3-million, 24-room addition completed in 2001 was completed to the then-latest energy standards, he said. In 2012, Yankee Magazine named the hotel "New England inn of the year.
  
  
• Speculating about options other than a Spring Street location, Faulkner said he believes there ​may be enough space on the current Williams Inn site to build a new inn while keeping the current building in operation. In a worst-case scenario, the current inn could be razed and a new one built on a fast-development schedule. The 2001 addition was completed in nine months, he said. Asked if the town could get buy without the Williams Inn for nine months, Fa​u​lkner replied: "I'd ave to say yes."
  
  
• Asked if the current site could fit both a new inn building and a new Williams College Museum of Art, Faulkner ​he had no knowledge of the art museum's site requirements. Faulkner said that at the time the college was concluding its relationship with them as operators, he was told the college was thinking of using the inn building as a temporary dormitory. However, the college now says it will tear down the building if a new inn is build and "greenfield" the land until a new use is determined.

The Faulkners are experienced innkeepers with decades of experience​. ​After working in accounting and management in Boston hotels, the Faulkner's in 1968 gradually acquiried or managed hotels in Plymouth, Mass., Rochester, N.Y. ,​ ​​ Southbury, Conn., ​​and Williamstown, ​ranging in size between 104 and 200 rooms. ​​In Williamstown, their business relied upon a collaborative relationship with Williams College. ​ ​ ​In 2013, as Faulkner tells the story, Williams abru​ptly acquired the building mortgage from Faulkner's bank, then told the couple ​Williams was taking over the hotel with new management, ​easing their May 1, 2014, r​etirement. Faulkner now calls himself a "fruit farmer" and says he has  ​​not ​entered the hotel in months.​ ​​ "All this is not my problem," he said. "I'm retired."

RELATED LINKS:

• Document archive
• Earlier blog posts 

"REwind" multimedia exhibit at Williams invites 'uncomfortable' inquiries about apartheid and U.S. race relations

 
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- For almost two weeks, through April 17, students, faculty and visitors to the Williams College campus are invited to confront the uncomfortable, to disrupt their daily routines to go to a place they don't want to be -- considering, for example, apartheid, and Black Lives Matter.

"We are wanting to disrupt peoples' everyday lives," says Lois Banta, a Williams biology professor who holds the Gaudino Scholar chair. "It's easy to just bob along," she adds, "to think, 'People are dying out there, and I'm worried because I have a paper due tomorrow' . . . but these things are happening. I want these things to intrude in people's lives." 

The "interruption" is a multimedia art-and-music installation in the Williams College Chapel -- seven video monitors looping 3-to-7-minute excerpts from the choral work, REwind: A Cantata for Voice, Tape & Testimony.  The are based on testimonies from South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation project. (VIDEO) In addition, each of the seven clips is reproduced in one other open-to-the-public location on campus and town.

The seven video monitors are in Sawyer Library, Hollander Hall, WCMA, '62 Center, Schow, Davis Center and the town's Milne Public Library. 

REwind is not new. It was commissioned  in a 2007 collaboration between two professors at Williams -- Brad Wells and David Eppel -- and artists in South Africa, including husband-and-wife team Gerhard and Maja Marx. This week, the Marx' were on campus, overseeing the Williams installation and lecturing to classes at the invitation of the Gaudino program.

Gerhard, who is a theater director and designer and visual artist in South Africa, says he sees some parallels -- or at least some opportunities for learning -- between his native country's addressing of statutory racial discrimination -- apartheid -- and today's ongoing institutional racism in the United States. "The African National Congress is not the same liberation party that it was," he says. "We are disappointed that things haven't translated on the ground, even though we now have a great constitution." 

Robert Gaudino was a Williams political-science professor in the 1960s and 1970s who challenged his students to go to uncomfortable places and situations that challenged what he called the "borgeoise" upbringng -- living India, Appalachia or predominantly black neighborhoods in Detroit as a semester-long learning experience. The goal of the college's Gaudino Fund is to perpetuate his "emphasis on reflection, confronting our own biases through immersive engagement with otherness and, through that experience, learning to know ourselves more deeply and differently." 

While visiting Williams with a serious purpose, Gerhard Marx took some time to do a favor for the couple's children, ages 3 and 6, back home. Early on Tuesday morning, Marx was observed building a snowman on the edge of Westlawn Cemetery -- it was about 6 degrees Farenheit and there were several inches of snow on the ground, a both extremely rare for April in Williamstown. 

For REwind building locations on the Williams campus,  consult the map outside the driveway entrance to the Security Office located in Hopkins Hall on Main Street (Rte. 2), next to the Thompson Memorial Chapel, or call the Office of Communications (413) 597-4277. The map can also be found on the web at www.williams.edu/map

 

Town manager Hoch's comments to Williams about proposed 100-room inn on Spring Street -- Problem with Option B seen; concern about Main / Water streets intersection congestion

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- Major changes in parking at the bottom of Spring Street, and more traffic congestion at Main and Water streets, could occur if a plan by Williams College to erect a 100-room hotel is approved by Town Meeting voters in May, according to an analysis by Town Manager Jason Hoch.

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UPDATE: In a presentation to the town's planning board on Tuesday, March 15, Williams said it is currently considering submitting "Option A" (image at right).  The planning board voted, 5-0, to recommend that the town's voters approve, at May town meeting, a zoning change to allow Williams to proceed with formal planning of the hotel project.

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 In a Nov. 13, 2015, email to James Kolesar, a college official, Hoch commented on a "pre-regulatory" filing of plans for the hotel as drawn for the college by its architects, Cambridge Seven Associates, Inc. -- the same firm which has designed a new bookstore building for which construction is about to begin.

The "town lot" at the bottom of Spring Street is actually on land owned by Williams College. Hoch suggest the relocation of Walden Street if a hotel is built in order to create a single, four-way intersection at the bottom of Spring Street.  "Option B seems very problematic from a traffic perspective with congested drop off and bus loading areas," he writes.

 There is no suggestion in the "pre-regulatory" filing that Cambridge Seven consider any other locations for an inn in town other than the two sites at the end of Spring Street. Williams has said that it would close and raze the current Williams Inn if it gets voter permission for a zoning change to build an inn on Spring Street.

 Here is a text of the email. To view the details "pre-regulatory" filing submitted last year by the college to the town, click HERE.

 Town Review Comments – 13 November 2015

From: Jason Hoch
Date: Fri, Nov 13, 2015 at 9:18 AM
Subject: FW: Inn site study
To: Jim Kolesar

im –

Thank you for the opportunity to review the site study for the Inn. Our staff has reviewed the report with an intent of offering general observations about findings and potential areas for further study before finalizing. We did not review it as a full pre-regulatory type filing as we understand this is a draft and there is ample time for formal review later.

The most notable issue of concern is the further deterioration of service at the Water/Main intersection.

I am happy to discuss the items noted below in greater detail with the project team or to provide additional clarification. Further, please feel free to attribute any of these comments and subsequent analysis that may be added to the report as resulting from the Town of Williamstown’s informal review if it is helpful to differentiate from the College’s initial plans.

Land Use

One of the key recommendations of the 2002 Master Plan is that the Village Business District needs to be gradually expanded to accommodate more business space as this is lacking in town. Additionally, tourism should be pursued as a major avenue of economic development. Option A seems to accomplish these goals more effectively than Option B as it preserves the Town Parking Lot as a future site for mixed use development once the parking situation is addressed by using another site in the future for parking. A mixed use building at the Option A hotel site would be less ideal than on the Town Parking lot site as a mixed use building would more heavily rely on pedestrian traffic. A hotel on the other hand is an ideal anchor institution and generates its own pedestrian traffic and is ideal for the Option A site as long as steps noted in the report to ensure pedestrian connectivity are taken into account.

Both Police and Fire Departments expressed concern about fully restricting the existing Denison Park Drive such that the hotel has only one main access in Option A. They would prefer having a secondary access. This can be a bollard protected emergency only lane similar to the installation at Weston Field. The same observation holds for the Annex as shown in Option B.

The Fire Department notes that access to two sides of the buildings is necessary for appropriate fire protection. In both options, the annex shows little to no accessibility for fire lanes.

Traffic

Placing the hotel at the Option A site preserves more of the existing traffic pattern and does not force as any vehicles towards the Hoxsey Street intersection which will be difficult to improve from a LOS perspective.  ased on the report, one can surmise that the proposed Walden Street extension to South Street could  enhance LOS at all area intersections.

The Town needs to consider methods of improving upper Water Street due to the serious LOS at this area.  itigation might have to be considered during a hotel permitting process, as this LOS will decrease further.

A roundabout could be a major improvement to the Water Street intersection. Traffic volumes at this  ntersection however, are near the upper limit for capacity of a single lane urban compact roundabout on a  eak hour basis. This should be studied further. From a design perspective, a significant amount of pavement  lready exists at the Water/Main/Waterman intersection and could likely be reconfigured without significant  oss of additional land or existing parking on Water Street.

Option B seems very problematic from a traffic perspective with congested drop off and bus loading areas.

The report notes that the existing Latham / Denison/ Spring / Parking lot intersection is problematic, and  angerous for pedestrians. Serious design attention must be paid to this site in the development process. If site A is selected the College could consider relocating Walden Street during the process of reconstructing and expanding the Town parking lot to create a 4 way intersection with significantly improved site lines. This approach, when combined with the separate Walden Street Extension could provide one continuous through street from Water Street to South Street which could offer an overall reduction of volume on Main Street.

Wetlands & Site Technical Analysis

Guntlow’s wetlands report is excellent and captures the concerns shared by the Community Development ffice and he Conservation Commission when the project was discussed last year.

We have no comments on the geotechnical work.

Williams abandons controversial museum site; still looking "on campus," Town Garage site would be "interesting scenario," Puddester says

LISTEN TO AN AUDIO PODCAST OF PUDDESTER’S TALK

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- Williams College has abandoned a controversial idea to locate a new, 60,000-square foot art museum at the corner of Southworth and Main streets, a college official said on Wednesday night. Frederick Puddester, the college’s vice president for finance & administration and treasurer, also said a college committee is now looking at other sites “on the campus.”

Puddester also said it would be “an interesting scenario” if the town’s voters were to encourage Williams to purchase for museum use the site of the old town municipal-equipment garage on Water Street.

Puddester’s disclosure came during an hour-long discussion with about 15 people at a meeting of the Williamstown Democratic Town Committee which was held in a conference room at town hall. The No. 2 non-academic administrator at the college took many questions about the college’s building boom, and also quipped briefly about national politics.

“Some folks in town didn’t like that site,” said Puddester. “We met with them as we would have done eventually anyhow, they accelerated that part of the process,   and based on community input, we decided we’re not going to build on that site. That site is no longer being considered for the museum.” But study of other college-owned sites is continuing.   “They are looking at lots of sites,” he said of the campus committee. One audience member asked whether the college would consider seeking to acquire the present site of the Williamstown Savings Bank. Puddester replied that he had no reason to believe it was available.

In a wide-ranging summary of Williams construction plans, Puddester made these points:

• $200-MILLION SCIENCE PROJECT -- Construction will begin soon on a $200-million, two-building science center that will take four years to complete and will include the demolition and replacement of the 52-year-old Bronfman Science Center. At its peak, more than 200 construction workers will be on site. To alleviate public-parking congestion, the college is requiring the contract to provide satellite parking and a shuttle service for the workers.
• SPRING STREET BOOKSTORE -- Ground will be broken this summer on a three-story commercial building at the corner of Spring and Walden streets which will house a new textbook and retail trade bookstore on two stories and office space on the third story. The college will continue to contract with Follett and existing staff to run the bookstore, replacing the Water Street location. The move is part of the college's "continuing efforts to revitalize Spring Street," Puddester said. An in-store café will be run by one of three local restauranteurs to be selected and announced soon. The new store will carry Williams clothing and paraphernalia in competition with Goff’s Sports.
• ZONING CHANGE SOUGHT -- Williams will seek a zoning change by a two-thirds vote of Town Meeting in May before it begins definitive designing for a 100-room hotel at the bottom of Spring Street to replace the current 125-room Williams Inn. Puddester said the college “has no Plan B” should the zoning-change request fail to win voter approval
  .
• ENROLLMENT STEADY -- The college has no plans to expand enrollment. A new 60-bed residence hall nearing completion on Stetson Court is intended to provide “swing space” so the college can more easily manage cyclical renovation of its 37 dormitories and student residence houses.
• NEW ROAD -- Williams perceives town support for construction of a road connecting Walden Street with South Street and would consider donating to the town some of the cost of doing so. Much of the road would be carved out of college-owned land.       Building it now would eliminate the need for tractor-trailers carrying steel beams for the science project to negotiate Spring Street or Hoxsey Street.
• LICKETY SPLIT RELOCATION -- The college hopes to facilitate relocation of the Lickety Split ice-cream parlor in the Denison Gatehouse building elsewhere on Spring Street, because that house would be razed to make room for a new hotel. Puddester observed that all three constituencies served by Spring Street (where he said about 40% of the business are in college-owned buildings) – students, tourists and townsfolk – patronize the Lickety Split.
• MERCHANTS LIKE INN ON SPRING -- Puddester took a number of skeptical questions about the need to construct a hotel at the base of Spring Street. He said Spring Street merchants generally support the location, and the current Williams Inn location, in his view, is too far from Spring Street. He said experts have advised him that the present hotel at Field Park – which the college owns – is not capable of being rebuilt and operated at the same time. During graduation and parents’ weekends, he said, “we need an inn, the college does, and I think the town does at all times.”
• WILLIAMS INN A PARK? -- If a new inn is completed in 2019 or 2020 on Spring Street, said Puddester, the college will thereafter tear down the current Williams Inn. “Our intention, right now, is we’re going to build a park there,” he said in answer to a question about what would be next for that site.
• B&G MOVE 'VERY LONG TERM' -- The college’s Towne Field House is being structurally assessed this year to assist in deciding its future, Puddester said, and it is no longer judged acceptable for holding track meets.       In the long term, Puddester said the college will likely consider replacing it and possibly – “in the very long term” – moving the college’s adjacent facilities building. But by that time, in Puddester’s plan, decisions about a new inn and art museum will already have been made and the buildings, hopefully from his point of view, completed.

MORE DISCUSSION ABOUT MUSEUM SITES

During the discussion, this writer asked if the college would consider the site of the old town municipal equipment garage on Water Street, should Town Meeting voters in May direct that the town undertake negotiations with the college to put the museum there.

Q: “If there were a petition at Town Meeting this year that called on the town to enter into negotiations with Williams to sell the town garage site for use for an art museum or maybe a parking lot to help with all the parking problems, then it would be a site that you would have a reason to pay attention to. What’s your thought about that site?”

A: That is a true statement. It’s kind of a hypothetical. I’m a little leery to answer frankly a hypothetical, but that would be an interesting scenario.” He added shortly thereafter: “People talking about the town garage site, we don’t own it, but as Bill mentions there might be a way we could own it. But believe it or not something important goes on there. It is filled with busses a lot of weekends and a lot of weekdays and I don’t know where those buses go, other than sit on town streets. So, even that, again, for a museum, I don’t want to prejudge the museum project, but that town garage site has beautiful views of our oil tanks, and our smokestack.”

Another questioner asked if the campus committee had considered as a possible museum location the former site of the Williams College children’s day-care center on Park Street (the so-called “1937 House”), a 300-by-120 foot parcel bordered on the south by the St. John’s Church rectory and parish hall and the college’s development office to the north. Puddester said it had not. A museum located there could front on a circular drive and parking lot built to serve the ’62 Center for Theater and Dance.

Williams study panel gets appreciation, and a critical earful on shrinking $65M museum proposal, and says it has sent architects back to drawing boards

(EARLIER STORY) 

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- Williams College asked on Tuesday for public comment about ideas for a $65-million, 102,000-square-foot art museum at the corner of Southworth and Main Streets – and got earfuls of criticism about the proposal -- as well as appreciation for holding the meeting. 

“You tell us what we have to do to convince you to pick another site,” pleaded Wendy Martin, who lives one street adjacent to the parcel.

At least 130 people showed up for two, hour-long listening sessions called by the college art department and museum program and space planning committee. By the end of the second   gathering in Griffin Hall, committee members were acknowledging they had told architectural advisors to get back to their drawing boards and consider smaller ideas for the parcel in the order of 60,000 square feet.

“We’re really at a phase where we can use input and suggestions,” said committee co-chair William Dudley, who, as provost, is a top Williams’ academic officer. Consultants   Steven Holl Architects have been told “to see if they can come up with a way to still make this a viable possibility.”

Criticism of Williams went beyond the museum location to encompass general concern about the colleges lack of planning – or at least lack of public-facing planning – concerning building projects that affect town roads, traffic and environment. “When will the college share plans for the overall expansion that’s in the works,” asked one commentator.

The panel heard neighbors of the plot – most of whom disclosed affiliations of one sort or another with Williams – encourage consideration of other locations, particularly the site of the current Williams Inn, as well as the town-own dirt parking lot on Water Street which used to be the site of the municipal-equipment garage.

The former town-garage site was neither identified by nor suggested to architects who prepared a site analyses, said the other committee co-chair, Dean of Faculty Denise Buell.   By far the loudest applause at either of the two meetings took place when Williams Prof. Richard Deveaux, whose home is nearly across Southworth Street from the considered site, said:

“It doesn’t seem to be a way of making this into something that the whole community could be joyful about which would be to develop a site that needs to be [developed.]. Like the Williams Inn site where we have a building we don’t know what to do with, or the town garage. You guys are a smart, clever group. Can’t you think of a creative way to make that whole part between Water Street and Spring Street an integrated, semi-urban environment that would connect all these things in a way that would make the town happy.”

In the evening session, when the town-garage site was mentioned again, Dudley commented: “The challenge to that town garage site is the programmatic challenge.”

On the town garage site, “you could build an arbitrarily large building and nobody would much object,” predicted Williams Math Prof. Duane Bailey.   “We could build a nice and large space . . . you have an opportunity to build a community that will draw more people.”

Points made by college officials

College officials made these points:

• There is, as yet, no donor backing the new art and art history building project. Once and if a definite site is and building plans drawn, the college will seek “new money” from a donor or donors for at least 50 percent of the cost, according to committee co-chair and college Provost Will Dudley said.
• While the committee itself in meetings so far over 15 months, reached consensus that the Southworth site was its peference over at least four other choices, and while architects did concept drawings and cost estimates for a museum at that site, deliberations are not at the point where that site is a definitive choice.
• At the moment, the architects are only re-designing their thinking about the Southworth site, rather than being asked to look elsewhere. The committee members described this as a reasonable planning strategy – follow a path until it appears to have hit a roadblock, and then drop back and take another route – rather than try to pursue multiple routes simultaneously.

• To the college committee, what’s appealing about the Southworth site its relative proximity to the humanities and social-science quad,       while still a short walk across Main Street from the Spencer Studio Art Building and a short walk from Lawrence Hall, where WCMA is now based. The runner-up location – the Williams Inn parcel already owned by Williams College at Field Park, is seen by the committee as distant from the rest of the art and art-history facilities, thus elongating walking time for students in the scheduled 10-minute breaks between class periods. “I had that tough time getting from class to class and figured it out,” responded Williams alum Kevin J. Ellingwood, who grew up on Moreland Street, next to Southworth.
• Over 20 years, the number of objects in the Williams College Museum of Art College has grown to 14,000 from 6,000, including an apparently recent gift of thousands of objects from one donor. The vast majority are in storage for lack of exhibition space.

Some comments summarized

Among comments from declared opponents, or mere commentators, on the Southworth were the following:

• Considering the college’s academic programming needs for faculty and students without regard for their impact on the town’s changing character risks may make Williamstown a less attractive place for families.
• It’s difficult for the larger community to envision the impact of the college’s sustaining building binge given that there is no evidence – at least in public -- of a coherent long-term plan       For example, when will the college relocate it’s Buildings & Grounds facilities to less prime real-estate? “I don’t think anybody likes B&G where it is,” noted Dudley, the provost.
• When will the college announced to the community at large plans to relocate Water Street Books, which it owns, from Water to a new building to be built on Spring Street, and the likely relocation of The College retail store, both in the old Grundy’s Garage building on Water Street next to the fire station? What, then will happen in Grundy’s Garage?

Specific comments during the two sessions:

“I think the college is showing a tendency to be very tunnel vision and not taking into consideration the needs of the community,” argued Elizabeth Williams who said she and her husband had recently moved from the house directly across from the Southworth site. “There is also considerable concern about the type of buildings the college has been constructing,” she added.

“I don’t see this site here as the right choice,” said Selectwoman Anne O’Connor, saying she was speaking as an individual. “We risk losing that thing that makes this town so appealing for families with children to move here,” she said, adding: “The town needs its residential neighborhoods and it seems like the college just keeps picking away at them.”

Nancy J. McIntire, retired executive assistant to several Williams presidents, said in remarks read aloud by a friend, that she hoped “an alternative location can be found.” She said she as worried about traffic-safety issues.

Patrick J. Quinn, who grew up in Williamstown said the Southworth site might be good for art teaching but, “In terms of the town, it’s really not.” By contrast, he said, the Williams Inn site “would be great and has plenty of room for parking.”

At the earlier of the two meetings, Williams professor and economist Stephen Shepard, who has written about and studied the impact of museums on communities, said new museums generally raised property values in Kenosha, Wis., Toledo, Ohio, Beacon, N.Y., and North Adams. At the second meeting, site neighbor Williams Prof. Tom Murtagh said he had reviewed Shepard’s research during supper. He said that was because in each of those places, museum builders “saw an area in need of assistance, of development, and were taking a part in it.” He added: “They looked at it as an opportunity . . . their donors wanted an opportunity to do good.”

Karen Shepard, who teaches English at Williams, argued for the Williams Inn site, urged the planning committee to embrace the idea of spreading resources and disciplines across the campus rather than in programmatic ghettos.   The convenience of faculty or students in having a short walk should not be a defining consideration, she said.

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This blog post was written by Bill Densmore ([email protected])

Neighbors get big turnout at Williams' meetings to discuss $65M museum idea for Southworth Street location

(READ LATER POST)

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- Neighbors got a big turnout Dec. 16 when Williams College is holding two public briefings about concepts for possible construction of a new art museum. The college said Friday there is no design, proposal or site picked out yet, but various documents and postings have pegged the cost of the proposed facility at $65 million, that it would be 102,000 square feet and would, from a program point of view only at this point, be ideally located at the corner of Main and Southworth streets.

Thomas Krens, former director of the current Williams College Museum of Art, disclosed last week that architect Steven Holl had been selected to design the museum and that construction would begin in 2017.  However, a college spokesperson, Mary Dettloff, told this blog that Steven Holl Associates "was hired to do a space-utilization and program study only, and not a design." She added: "We have no design."

The public forums ran from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. and from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. in Griffin hall, room 3, on the college campus. They wer announced in an  email circulated five days earlier by Williams Dean of Faculty Denise Buell, Provost Will Dudley and signed by eight other members of an “arts facilities committee.”

The college facilities committee has looked at a half-dozen sites and liked Southworth the best, Dettloff told iBerkshires in a report posted Dec. 1. She said traffic, parking, geology and cost studies remain to be done and will take months and the project has not yet received trustee approval. Some documents circulated about the proposal have included drawings of a 50-car parking lot. Dettoff said there is no firm plan yet for parking and other considerations, including traffic, geology and cost. These would factor into any proposal which might ultimately be made for a Main/Southworth site, if one is made, she said.

The mentioned site is the subject of an iPetitions campaign signed by more than 300 people, many of them Williams faculty and staff, expressing concerns about the Southworth site. Various posts on the iPetition website assert that other locations have been considered and rejected, including the site of the current Williams Inn, the First Congregational Church and the Williamstown Savings Bank.

"There is no site picked out . . . I can't comment on all the rumors on the iPetition site," said Dettloff. "I would say 90 percent are rumors . . . we don't have a building schedule for a building being built in 2017 . . . there was a very early conceptual drawing, but it was immediately rejected by the building committee as being too big. We still don't have a replacement concept for that. There is no concept."

One site not included in deliberations to date, apparently, is the former town garage site on Water Street, a vacant dirt parking lot that abuts the college’s main studio-art building.

The name of the architect selected to design the facility, Steven Holl, was provided last week at a public meeting by Krens, MassMoCA originator and former head of the Guggenheim museums. Krens also said that construction would begin in 2017. Coll’s philosophy yields designs that appear cubist and stark. 

WCMA is known to be working on a name change, which has given rise to speculation that the college may have secured a major gift for the museum expansion. However, Dettloff said "since we have no design, we have not begun fundraising for a new museum."  Some documents in circulation have shown drawings of a four-story museum structure at the Southworth site.

Holl has designed dozens of international works, one of which is an eight-building, Linked Hybrid, a 220,000-square foot mixed used complex in Beijing, China, which includes soaring, multiuse, skybridges similar to what could be used to link his four-story design to the Spencer Studio Art Building and to Spring Street if it were built on the town garage site. The idea of skybridges at the town garage cite to create connection between the college, Spring and Water streets was first suggested years ago by former Town Manager Peter Folin.

There are pictures on the web of Holl-designed skybridges in Copenhagen and Beijing. The New York-based architect’s other commissions include an addition to the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and a new art museum at Princeton University, both under construction.

RELATED LINKS:

• Anonymous comment on the unofficial "EphBlog"
• The Williams College Museum of Art 2014 strategic plan

More than 300 signatories join seven residents opposing possible location of new, $64M Williams art museum building

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- More than 300 online "petitioners" have joined seven town residents using Facebook and iPetition to raise awareness of reports that Williams College is considering building a $64-million, 200,000-square-foot facility for its art museum at the corner of Southworth and Main streets. The petition opposes the location.

On Nov. 27, at 8:06 p.m., Stephanie Boyd posted this to her Facebook page: 

Perhaps you are interested in this issue. Williams College is exploring the possibility of building a new college arts complex to house the WCMA art collection and galleries, faculty offices, administrative offices, meeting spaces, viewing rooms, a potential café, and other associated spaces.

The site currently under consideration for this project is located at the northwest corner of Southworth St. and Main St. in Williamstown which is zoned General Residence 2. The project will necessitate the removal of historic properties and greatly diminish the quiet people-friendly nature of Southworth St.

We hope you will read the background material and petition here: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/save-southworth-street

Please feel free to forward this email to your friends and colleagues.Thank you,Henry Art, Williamstown resident and Williams College, Rosenburg Professor of Environmental Studies and Biology; Stephanie Boyd, Williamstown resident and former director of the Williams College Zilkha Center for Environmental Initiatives;  Betsy Burris, Williamstown resident; Richard D. De Veaux, Williamstown resident and Williams College, C. Carlisle and Margaret Tippit Class of ’42 Professor of Statistics; Sylvia Logan, Williamstown resident; Anne O’Connor, Williamstown resident (and selectwoman); and Catherine McKeen, Williamstown resident.