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A bit of background: I
was born and raised in
the village of
Willimansett, part of
the
City of Chicopee, in
Western Massachusetts.
The City of Chicopee, at
that time, had a
population that was
primarily comprised of
the descendants of
relatively recent waves
of Polish, French
Canadian, and Irish
immigrants. Chicopee
itself was historically
noted as the birthplace
and home of
Edward Bellamy
(author of “Looking
Backward”) and
General Arthur MacArthur
(father of the even more
famous son who followed
in his military
footsteps.) Early
industries were the Ames
Manufacturing Company
(which made the Union
Army’s bayonets during
the Civil War) and the
Stevens Arms (makers
of firearms.) Chicopee
was also the home of the
Duryea Motor Wagon
Company, who all
locals will claim
invented and built the
first automobile. Back
in the 1960’s, the
largest manufacturers
were the F.W. Sickles
Company (which at this
time was a division of
General Instrument
Corporation and
manufactured radio
electronic devices), the
Fisk Tire and Rubber
Company (which
evolved into Uniroyal
and then Bridgestone
Tire before closing),
and the world
headquarters of the
A.G. Spalding Company
(one of the country’s
leading manufacturers of
sporting goods.)
Together, these
companies employed a
workforce of thousands.
Today, only the former
Spalding plant survives,
a shadow of its earlier
life, now manufacturing
golf balls under the
Top Flite name. In
addition to these major
manufacturers, Chicopee
was the home of
Westover Air Force Base,
one of the country’s
leading military
installations in the
Cold War years, closed
down under the Nixon
Administration …
according to local
conjecture as a response
to the state’s vote for
George McGovern in the
1972 presidential
election. Today, the
main runway at Westover
(now an air reserve base
and an air industrial
park) is an emergency
landing site for NASA’s
space shuttles.
The City of Chicopee was
always the somewhat
neglected sibling of the
larger adjacent cities
of
Springfield and
Holyoke, all of
which developed as a
manufacturing center
during the industrial
revolution as a result
of their location along
the banks of the
Connecticut River.
Springfield and Holyoke
seemed to offer
everything that Chicopee
may have been lacking.
Chicopee’s public
transportation services
were provided by either
the Springfield Street
Railway or the Holyoke
Street Railway Company,
one with the green buses
that served Chicopee
Center and Chicopee
Falls, and the other
with the red buses that
served Willimansett.
(Both have long since
been combined into part
of the
Pioneer Valley Transit
Authority.)
Springfield and Holyoke
also had larger
populations, far more
manufacturing,
hospitals, newspapers,
and far larger and more
fashionable downtown
business districts.
Springfield was (and
remains) the seat of
Hampden County, and
Holyoke was known at the
time as “Paper City,
USA”.
Willimansett was a small
village within the
smallest component of
the Tri-City area. At
the time, Willimansett
(along with its sister
village of Aldenville,
at the top of the
Willimansett bluffs) was
primarily comprised of
French Canadian
immigrants who worked in
the mills of Holyoke and
Chicopee. The closest
thing to a “shopping
district” that existed
in Willimansett was the
“Y”, where Chicopee
Street and Meadow Street
merged on their way to
the Willimansett Bridge
into Holyoke. It should
be noted that, back in
the 1930’s, the “Y” in
Willimansett was the
location of a small
“cash market” that would
later move to busier
locations and grow into
the
Big Y Supermarkets,
today one of the
region’s largest
employers, still
family-owned, and one of
the leading supermarket
chains in Western
Massachusetts, Central
Massachusetts, and
Northern Connecticut.
So, yes, it has been
proven that at least one
small business could
start within our
microcosm and experience
tremendous growth.
Unfortunately in this
regard, lightning did
not strike twice.
Just as the Big Y
Supermarkets chain
thrived as a result of
family succession and an
apparent willingness to
invest in long-term
growth strategies, most
of the small businesses
with roots in
Willimansett failed due
to the lack of
succession or the
ability to adapt to
changing markets and
demographics. In
addition to Spalding (a
survivor of sorts), the
other noteworthy
Willimansett
manufacturer at the time
of my youth (and also on
the outskirts of my
linear microcosm) was
the
Hampden Brewery,
maker of the regionally
popular Hampden Ale. The
Hampden Brewery became a
Piels Brewery before
shutting down in later
years, a victim of the
times when beer drinking
habits were
unsophisticated and
distribution became
homogenized by two
dominant national forces
within the region:
Anheuser-Busch and
Miller Brewing.
Ironically, I today live
in a small town that is
home to the second
largest microbrewery in
Massachusetts. One small
brewery after another
shuttered its doors in
the 1970’s and 1980’s,
just a few years before
the popularity of
microbrews would lead to
the largest resurgence
of small brewers since
the days before
Prohibition. The
question begs to be
asked whether the same
full circle
transformation could
take place with dairies,
jewelers, hardware
stores, movie theaters,
and other one-time small
businesses.
My one-mile microcosm
consists of the stretch
of Chicopee Street in
Willimansett between my
childhood home and Mount
Carmel School, just
beyond the “Y”
intersection. At the
time, prior to the
construction of the
Interstate Highway
System and the I-91
corridor that would
bypass downtowns,
Chicopee Street - also
State Route 116 - was
the main route
connecting the city
centers of Chicopee and
Holyoke. Even then, a
shopping trip
“downtown”, whether by
car or by bus, meant
downtown Holyoke.
(Holyoke is a one-time
grand city which has
subsequently fallen on
hard times and now has
nowhere to go but up,
but that is an entirely
other story.) There was
a Willimansett section
of the
Holyoke
Transcript-Telegram
(gone), telephone
numbers in Willimansett
(along with Aldenville
and Fairview) shared
Holyoke’s JEfferson
exchange rather than
Chicopee’s LYceum
exchange, and even
Willimansett’s first zip
code was 01045 (a
subroute of Holyoke’s
01040 and, you guessed
it, long gone).
The walk to and from
school presented me with
a wide variety of
businesses, each of
which fascinated me,
even at a very young
age, and had a story to
tell. Even during the
years between
kindergarten and 8th
grade, things were
rapidly changing, and
businesses that had
thrived for years were
already closing. Most
importantly, the changes
that took place in my
microcosm were taking
place - or were soon to
take place - throughout
America.
Was the neighborhood
movie theater a victim
of television or the
mobility that made it
easy to drive across the
river to the new
multi-screen cinemas in
West Springfield? Or did
the owner simply decide
to throw in the towel
after he realized that
there was no money to be
made with 25¢ Saturday
double-feature matinees
and the candy
concession? I believe
that the biggest nail in
the coffin was driven by
the same automobile
industry which,
ironically, is trying to
escape from its own
coffin today (and which
may have very well
started in Chicopee
itself). Neighborhood
businesses, not
surprisingly, died with
neighborhoods. People
who once walked or rode
the bus to work bought
into the American dream
of baseball, apple pie,
and Chevrolet. Their new
mobility allowed them to
access greater choices,
variety, and
competition, but at what
price? Consumption
patterns changed
dramatically in my
microcosm in the 1960’s,
and this was still years
before the development
of shopping malls, the
cancerous growth of
Wal-Mart, the dawn of
the Internet, the influx
of cheap goods from
China, or the
“maturation” of the baby
boom generation which
would bring new meaning
to the concept of
obsessive
overconsumption.
As neighborhood
businesses have fallen
by the wayside against
the backdrop of these
new market forces, it is
truly surprising that
any could survive. Let’s
walk my “mile” to see if
there are any lessons to
be learned. |
