The word “party” in a headline has a troubled history in Amherst, but not this Thursday. That’s when many hundreds were to gather for the Celebrate Amherst Block Party. We expected peace to break out all over.
And at 6 p.m., officials planned to take to one of two stages in the Kendrick Park area to note that Amherst center holds a new status as a cultural district.
Given the music pumping from 5 to 9 p.m. and other arts events, there was no doubt that the community deserves this distinction, approved in May by the Massachusetts Cultural Commission.
They organized, and now they’ll mourn: Just for fun, some planned to walk over to Emily Dickinson’s West Cemetery gravesite for “Death & Donuts,” a reading of her most depressing poems.
Nearby, visitors were able to stroll about on the middle of North Pleasant Street, since it was to be closed, as of late afternoon Thursday, from Amity to Pray streets.
The Amherst Regional High School Marching Band said it would be cutting loose with “impromptu marches.”
Now that rings a bell in Amherst.
Amid the partying, Amherst did have cause to celebrate. It is one of three dozen state communities that can use a critical mass of culture — and a new state designation — to drive economic activity.
That recipe is already working in Easthampton, with its Cottage Street Cultural District, and in Northampton, with its Paradise City Cultural District.
Amherst’s zone includes, among other attractions, the Dickinson museum, Amherst Cinema and the Strong House Museum, along with galleries and public art installations. Signs and marketing efforts will encourage stepped-up tourism.
Many people and groups propelled creation of the district, including the Public Art Commission, town museums and the Amherst Business Improvement District, which is serving as its management agent. When the designation was OK’d in May, Senate President Stanley C. Rosenberg predicted it will help ensure Amherst’s “long-term artistic, cultural and economic vitality.”
Over at West Cemetery on Thursday, they might have shared Dickinson’s “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,” which continues from that first line: “And Mourners to and fro / Kept treading – treading – till it seemed / That Sense was breaking through -”
Dickinson might not have imagined it, but even her most morose takes on life now help keep the lights on in Amherst. And that also rings a Belle.
