Brayton was part of three school buildings constructed between 1897 and 1898. The other schools were Houghton and Johnson Schools. Brayton was on the west side of the city and facing Pine Cobble, was built very similar to Houghton School which was…

The idea of a new school on or around the State Street area began when Fire Chief H.J. Montgomery spoke to the school committee and stated that the State Street School, on the corner of Hooker and Francis Streets, was in “deplorable condition”. He…

Three years after the city of North Adams built Johnson, Brayton and Houghton Schools, it was deemed necessary by the school committee to expand yet again when it voted to build Freeman School on the corner of Estes and Eagle Streets. Estes Street…

The building of Johnson School began in 1896 and it was completed the following year. When it officially opened in September 1897, 313 students entered its doors. Grade 6 (41 students) and grade 5 (83 students) were each divided into two rooms…

Sometime prior to 1891, a school was built in the Greylock section to service children whose parents worked at the Greylock Mills. The school educated many young minds through the year 1927 when it closed due to the opening of the Parochial school…

In the aftermath of the Rice’s Corner fire in February 1916, a proposal by E.M. Loew was put forth to build a theater where the badly burned Bradford Block stood. The store owners in that block however were eager to rebuild their businesses and the…

Plans to erect a brand-new theater in downtown North Adams began with the Sullivan brothers in the early part of 1901.  They already owned the Wilson House and Sullivan Block, both on Main Street.  The Wilson House already had its own opera house,…

Joe Sharkey was the patriarch of a family of two sons and four daughters, 15 grandchildren and one great grandchild at the time of his death, December 13, 1970. In his younger years he was a shoemaker employed by local shoe shops and later as the…

Central Bowling Lanes shared the top floor of the Martin Block with the Sons of Italy Lodge; two floors above the C. H. Cutting Company store on the corner of Main and State Street.  The owner and proprietor was Clyde Lentine who had purchased the…

It was during the middle decades of the past century when Ted Butterworth owned and operated the Olympian bowling alleys in the Dowlin Block on Main Street. This place was a large, dingy, smoke-filled, dark and cavernous expanse of floor space on…