To know Kate Merrigan is to know how deeply she loves her hometown of North Adams. She has built her professional life there, where she has been working since 2005 at the Northern Berkshire Community Coalition, focusing on youth development work with teens. Since 2006, she has been a volunteer organizer for the popular NAMA Prom for adults. More recently, Kate has been serving as an Artistic Mentor with Barrington Stage Company’s Playwright Mentoring Project and was elected this fall to her first term as a North Adams City Councilor. Kate's love of quality, whole foods and passion for experiencing things that are uniquely “northern Berkshire" drive her social and cultural experiences in the region. My mission in life is to make it easy for you to love North Adams as much as I do. I love to uncover the unexplored aspects of northern Berkshire (and beyond) that we might not see in guidebooks. Let’s look at how we might spend that which we are longing for so hard right now — a warm weather, sun-soaked day — in NAMA (short for North Adams, MA) and the region within a 45-minute drive. To be specific: a Saturday. Morning: Start with breakfast at Lickety Split at MASS MoCA. An informal, pick-up group of 4-20 musicians gathers every Saturday, year-round, to play a dizzying range of jigs, reels, and waltzes. An all-ages crowd, including tourists and multigenerational NAMA families, gather to cheer on the musicians while enjoying low-priced breakfast from the excellent café (they have the best blueberry muffin in the known universe — no joke). You can stroll across the street from there to the North Adams Farmers Market (June-October), which has a fantastic selection of produce, honey and cheese from local farms. They also have lovely, cheap-as-heck flowers. Take home a bouquet in a Mason jar or a fistful of gladiolas for $5.
Afternoon: Next, wander over to Berkshire Emporium & Antiques. I’m convinced this store uses Timelord technology, because it’s bigger on the inside. A small storefront gives way to an expansive two-story interior featuring locally crafted goods, an antique shop, and Luma’s Muffin & Mug. Grab a coffee there, get in your car, and drive to Cricket Creek Farm in Williamstown, whose farm store is open 7 a.m. - 7 p.m., 365 days a year. Snag bread, fig jam and a hunk of CCF’s award-winning cheese and come on back to the west end of NAMA to hit The Cascades, where an easy 20-minute hike leads you to a waterfall. Evening: A few options. For a date night, go up to Bascom Lodge on the top of Mount Greylock (table setting shown right). From May 17 through the end of September, you can enjoy their sunset cocktail hour and spectacular, three-course, $28-32 prix fixe farm-to-table dinners (seriously, check out the menus—they’re basically poetry). On April 25, Hathaway’s Drive-In in Hoosick Falls, NY opens for the season. This family-run drive-in is a treasure: $8 for first-run double features; drive-in food classics as well as options like Boca burgers and sweet potato fries; and rural enough that every time I’ve been there I’ve seen shooting stars. Finally, if you feel like shaking it up, try the NAMA Prom on June 14 at the historic Elks Lodge 487 in North Adams. For just $10, you can enjoy an energetic, unusual, themed (recently: Under the Sea, Out of This World) pop-up nightclub experience in a friendly crush of 500+ partygoers. I may be biased, but there’s nothing like it.
