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Pittsfield is a city in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 45,793 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Berkshire County and one of the population centers of Western Massachusetts. It is home to the new Hebert Arboretum.
History
Pittsfield was first settled in 1752 and was officially incorporated in 1761. It was named after British nobleman and politician William Pitt.
Historic events
Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote "On the hither side of Pittsfield sits Herman Melville, shaping out the gigantic conception of his 'White Whale,' while the gigantic shape of Graylock* looms upon him from his study-window." Herman Melville lived in Pittsfield from 1850 to 1863, during which time he wrote Moby-Dick, or, The Ambiguities, The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade, and The Piazza Tales. His home, Arrowhead, is maintained as a museum by the Berkshire Historical Society, and visitors can see the peaks of Mount Greylock through the study-window, peaks which reminded Melville of a whale's back.{[cite web|url=http://www.mobydick.org/|accessdate=2006-07-06|publisher=The Berkshire Historical Society|title=Herman Melville's Arrowhead}}On September 3, 1902 at 10:15 AM, during a two-week tour through New England campaigning for Republican congressmen, the barouche transporting President Theodore Roosevelt from downtown Pittsfield to the Pittsfield Country Club collided head-on with a trolley. Roosevelt, Massachusetts Governor Winthrop Murray Crane, secretary to the president George Bruce Cortelyou, and bodyguard William Craig were thrown into the street. Craig was killed; he was the first Secret Service agent killed while on a presidential protection detail. Roosevelt, whose face and left shin were badly bruised, nearly came to blows with the trolley engineer, Euclid Madden. Madden was later charged with manslaughter, to which he pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to six months in jail and a heavy fine.
Baseball in Pittsfield
Professional baseball has been played in Pittsfield's Wahconah Park since 1919. As of 2005, Wahconah Park was the home stadium for the NECBL Pittsfield Dukes, a summer amateur team.In 2004, historian John Thorn discovered a reference to a 1791 by-law prohibiting anyone from playing "baseball" within 80 yards of Pittsfield's new meetinghouse. A librarian found the actual by-law in the Berkshire Athenaeum library, and its age was verified by researchers at the Williamstown Art Conservation Center.
The tradition that baseball was invented in 1839 by Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown has long been acknowledged as, at best, a partial truth. Jeff Idelson of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown stated, "Baseball wasn't really born anywhere." If authentic and if actually referring to a recognizable version of the modern game, the 1791 document, would be, as of 2004, the earliest known reference to the game and in Idelson's words, "would be incredibly monumental."
Mark Belanger, Golden Glove for the Baltimore Orioles, and Tom Grieve Outfielder for the Texas Rangers were both from Pittsfield.
Other references
The white terra-cotta Pittsfield Building in downtown Chicago, Illinois is named after this location. It is a reference to the famous Chicagoan Marshall Field, who was born in Massachusetts and has a direct connection to Pittsfield as an apprentice merchant for several years in a Pittsfield store before heading west to Chicago.Commerce
Pittsfield is home to the following businesses:
- General Electric (Plastics/Advanced Materials Division)
- KB Toys - World Headquarters
- Chemex Corporation
- General Systems
- Laurin Publishing
- General Dynamics Defense Systems
- Interprint Incorporated
Environmental Issues
Pittsfield contains an area designated by the Environmental Protection Agency as a Superfund site due to the high content of polychlorinated biphenyls(PCBs), a suspected carcinogen. The source of this contamination is the largely vacant General Electric operations.
The contaminated areas include Silver Lake, former GE properties, residential properties, and "areas where soil was contaminated by the migration of the wastes via the Housatonic River" most notably the floodplain from Pittsfield to Lenox.
The controversy concerning this issue has been ongoing. An article in the Boston Globe (August 10, 1997) revealed that "a 1948 GE memo obtained by the Globe indicates that company officials relied to some extent on residents' willingness to take the fill as a way of handling its industrial waste. 'This is the last section anywhere near the plant where we can dump most anything that comes out of the factory,' a GE manager wrote in 1948 when describing the filling of the residential areas.'"
Recently, roughly 50 corroded barrels were found under the parking lot of the Newell Street light industrial/residential area. The area had been previously evaluated by the GE, and deemed to be safe. The newly unearthed barrels stored PCBs at a concentration of up to 60%. Their contents resembled instant mashed potatoes in texture, and were of a neon orange tint that was visually pleasing but upsetting to many residents' conceptions of safety and health.
Sources:
http://www.epa.gov/superfund/programs/recycle/pilot/facts/r1_05.htm
http://housatonic-river.com/index.php
Geography
Pittsfield is located at (42.452184, -73.251530).
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 109.6 km² (42.3 mi²). 105.5 km² (40.7 mi²) of it is land and 4.1 km² (1.6 mi²) of it (3.76%) is water.
The two primary streets in Pittsfield are East/West Street and North/South Street. East Street runs from to Dalton, MA (at its East end) until the town center, at which point it becomes West Street and continues until Hancock, MA. North Street runs from Lanesborough, MA (at its North end) to the town center, at which point it becomes South Street and continues to Lenox, MA.
Major US Routes 7 & 20 pass through or near the center of Pittsfield, and State Routes 8, 9, 41 and nearby 295 offer direct connections from the three nearby states of New York, Connecticut, and Vermont, as well as points East. The city of Pittsfield is also accessible from Interstate 90 to the south. Pittsfield is reachable in approximately 2 hours from Boston and 2.5 hours from New York City.
Demographics
As of the census of 2000, there were 45,793 people, 19,704 households, and 11,822 families residing in the city. The population density was 434.1/km² (1,124.3/mi²). There were 21,366 housing units at an average density of 202.5/km² (524.6/mi²). The racial makeup of the city was 92.58% White, 3.66% African American, 0.14% Native American, 1.16% Asian, 0.04% Pacific Islander, 0.77% from other races, and 1.64% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 2.04% of the population.
There were 19,704 households out of which 27.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 42.9% were married couples living together, 13.1% had a female householder with no husband present, and 40.0% were non-families. 34.0% of all households were made up of individuals and 14.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.26 and the average family size was 2.89.
In the city the population was spread out with 23.2% under the age of 18, 6.9% from 18 to 24, 28.3% from 25 to 44, 23.0% from 45 to 64, and 18.6% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40 years. For every 100 females there were 90.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 86.2 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $35,655, and the median income for a family was $46,228. Males had a median income of $35,538 versus $26,341 for females. The per capita income for the city was $20,549. About 8.9% of families and 11.4% of the population were below the poverty line, including 16.7% of those under age 18 and 7.1% of those age 65 or over.
Recent population trends
| 1930 | 49,677 |
| 1940 | 49,684 |
| 1950 | 53,348 |
| 1960 | 57,879 |
| 1970 | 57,020 |
| 1980 | 51,974 |
| 1990 | 48,622 |
| 2000 | 45,793 |
| 2002 | 45,023 (estimate) |
| 2010 | 42,199 (estimate) |
| 2020 | 39,115 (estimate) |
Education
- High Schools
- Miss Hall's School (College Prep)
- Pittsfield High School (Public School) PHS
- Taconic High School (Public School) THS
- St. Joseph's Central High School (Private, Catholic school)SJCHS
- Middle Schools
- Elementary Schools
- Allendale Elementary (Public School) AES
- Capeless Elementary (Public School) CES
- Crosby Elementary (Public School) CES
- Egremont Elementary (Public School) EES
- Morningside Community (Public School) MCS
- Silvio O. Conte Community (Public School) CCS
- Stearns Elementary (Public School) SES
- Williams Elementary (Public School) RMS
- Alternative Education
- Hibbard Alternative (Public School) HAS
- Universities
- Berkshire Community College BCC
Points of interest
- Arrowhead, home of author Herman Melville (1850-1863)
- Berkshire Athenaeum
- Berkshire Museum
- The Colonial Theater dates from 1903.
- Hancock Shaker Village
- Bousquet Ski Area
- Parallelogram Entertainment Complex
Pittsfield is home to the Storefront Artist Project, a unique cultural organization described by the Los Angeles Times as "suddenly, joyously(...) steaming mugs of hot cocoa." (Elizabeth Mehren, Column 1, December 4, 2004) http://www.storefrontartist.org/
Media
Newspaper
- The Berkshire Eagle, main newspaper for the Pittsfield area
Radio and television
Pittsfield is primarily served by the Albany and Springfield markets, with one television station licensed to Pittsfield (WNYA).Sister cities
Pittsfield has four sister cities, as designated by Sister Cities International, Inc. (SCI):
- Ballina, County Mayo, Ireland
- Cava di Tirenni, Italy
- Cheong Ju, South Korea
- Malpasillo, Nicaragua
External links
Cities in Massachusetts | Berkshire County, Massachusetts | Utopian communities | Pittsfield, Massachusetts | History of baseball
"Pittsfield, Massachusetts"