PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The first snow fell softly, dusting the tired old city with a sense of serenity. In the five downtown blocks that once housed theaters, restaurants and busy department stores, vacant buildings stood dark and doors were shut tight. There was little sign of life at Saturday nightfall.
Then suddenly, joyously, the artists burst onto North Street.
Laughing, working feverishly, they dragged sofas and chairs from their studios to the sidewalk. Someone brought a lamp and a coffee table. Out came trays of cookies and steaming mugs of hot cocoa. Eighteen painters, sculptors, photographers, musicians, poets and dancers set up their outdoor living room directly outside the storefront where Ven Voisey had just installed a work he called "flutter," a metallic moth circling a glowing bulb.
The snowy sidewalk celebration last month was completely unscripted, said painter Maggie Mailer: an occasion whose very spontaneity captured the spirit of Mailer's Storefront Artist Project.
An unusual collaboration involving city officials, business leaders and a group of hard-working artists is helping to transform this city in western Massachusetts. Over the last two years, Mailer persuaded many of Pittsfield's largest property owners to turn over empty storefronts on North Street to more than 30 artists. The artists pay no rent for street-level studio space that in many cases allows passersby to observe them as they work.
Though any economic payoff is not yet measurable, the artists' presence has enlivened downtown Pittsfield. Windows on North Street showcase the whimsical sculptures of Rachael Champion, the delicate brush paintings of Roppei Matsumoto and Mailer's own paintings, which focus on architecture and family. A few new restaurants have opened, bringing chefs from Boston. This summer, a company that sells designer resale clothing on the Internet located its headquarters on North Street, with Chanel shoes and Prada suits in the window.
Despite skepticism from some residents, the city is poised to create a cultural development department, and the mayor wants to designate a downtown arts district and provide incentives and other benefits for artists.
"This whole thing has just evolved, more or less organically. We have never, ever sat down and made any kind of plan," said Mailer, 33. "Everything is just bubbling up."
Mailer said her mission was to "make working artists a part of everyday life on the street."
Pittsfield, the blue-collar stepchild of bucolic Berkshire County, has been suffering since General Electric Co. closed a plant in 1989 and 13,000 people lost their jobs. A General Dynamics factory also shut down, putting another 1,000 out of work. Then a shopping mall opened 10 miles away. North Street became an urban commercial graveyard, anchored ingloriously by the courthouse and the bus station.
The plant closures drained Pittsfield of its skilled middle class, as well as its century-old image as a strong, successful community. The population declined to 42,000 from more than 50,000.
The remaining residents tend to be state and county workers, healthcare professionals who work here at the county's largest hospital and lawyers connected to the courthouse. Many former GE workers stayed, although they no longer had jobs. The depressed housing market attracted families and individuals on public assistance who used city services but paid few taxes.
On North Street, despair was everywhere. Proud old structures with Corinthian pillars fell empty. Businesses selling T-shirts or bridal wear moved out as fast as they moved in. Tattoo parlors, a Goodwill store and a shop that sells used videos took hold in brick buildings where elegant shops once thrived. The movie theater closed.
"When I came here 30 years ago, Thursday was payday at GE," said Robert Proskin, owner of an office furniture company, one of the few businesses that has remained on North Street. "The sidewalks were so full that everyone walked in the streets. They all went over to England Brothers, one of the department stores that had to close. That is all gone now."
For several years, committees and experts explored ways to reinvigorate this charmless city that claimed -- among other dubious distinctions -- the state's highest out-of-wedlock pregnancy rate. All agreed that Pittsfield's major hope for survival was its location in the center of a region that draws 2 million visitors a year.
But as tourists flocked to the performance centers and galleries of Lenox, on one side of Pittsfield, and the theaters and museums of Williamstown, on the other, they passed through Pittsfield as fast as possible, eyes straight ahead, said Peter LaFayette, director of the Berkshire Housing Development Corp. City leaders tried to woo new companies, promising easy access to New York and Boston -- each less than three hours away -- along with a lifestyle that many compare to a colder version of Northern California.
