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5.29.11
This is an Archival Site
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5.18.11
Weekend Preview May 19-24
Bob Dylan tributes, Deborah Voigt, Tom Paxton, Bill Kirchen, John Kirk and Trish Miller



5.18.11
Celebrating Bob Dylan's 70th Birthday in Style
Paying tribute to the greatest rock songwriter ever



5.17.11
FILM REVIEW: In a Better World and Of Gods and Men
Review by Seth Rogovoy



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5.12.11
Deborah Voigt Headlines Mahaiwe Gala
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5.15.11
Famed Spiritual Teacher to Speak on Nonviolence
Mother Maya in free talk at Sruti Yoga in Great Barrington, Mass., on Friday May 20 at 7pm



5.12.11
Special Effects Wizard to Be Honored by Film Festival
Doug Trumbull to be Feted by BIFF



5.11.11
Weekend Preview May 12-16
Cultural Highlights of the Berkshire Weekend



6.4.09
Talk about a small world
Elaine and I grew up together, but only just recently met....



5.8.11
Berkshire Living to Cease Publication
A Farewell from Publisher Michael Zivyak



5.8.11
twiGs Branches Out
Lenox boutique launches new e-tail site



5.8.11
[MUSIC REVIEW] Avalon Quartet in Close Encounters at Mahaiwe
Review by Seth Rogovoy



5.8.11
[MUSIC REVIEW] Avalon Quartet in Close Encounters at Mahaiwe
Review by Seth Rogovoy



5.7.11
[FILM REVIEW] Bill Cunningham New York
Review by Seth Rogovoy



5.7.11
[FILM REVIEW] Bill Cunningham New York
Review by Seth Rogovoy





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Another Pittsfield business bites the dust

6.22.05
Before the July issue of BERKSHIRE LIVING could even hit the stands (look for it on newsstands and in mailboxes starting at the end of this week or the beginning of next week), one of the local businesses we feature in the issue, Jerome's "The Pitt" Barbecue, in Pittsfield, Mass., has apparently closed its doors.

Besides this being infuriating from the point of view of the magazine -- the article is a great feature by food writer Elaine Khosrova, and profiles what she considers to be the two best barbecue places in the region (the other being Hickory Bill's in North Adams, Mass.), and if it's true that the business has closed (we couldn't confirm this because the phone number is disconnected), the owner, who knew the article was on the way, didn't even have the courtesy to give us a call and a heads-up -- this whole situation just underlines a disturbing syndrome about local businesses in general, and business in Pittsfield in particular.

Over the years we have seen way too many businesses start up with what seems to be great verve, energy, and determination, only to see them turn tail at the very first sign that things are not going gangbusters.

Now, i have no idea what must go into opening up and running a restaurant. But I do know that anyone who is going to put thousands of dollars into opening a business, and a half year or year's worth of sweat equity, ought to have some semblance of a plan of how to stay open at least a year before turning a profit. If you can't stick it out before you've even given customers a chance to learn about your business -- even when you KNOW there is a high profile article coming out in a regional magazine that might possibly boost your business -- if you can't stick it out for more than a few months (in this case, opening in the dead of winter and then CLOSING just weeks before the height of the summer tourist season!), then perhaps you have no business having gone into the business in the first place. This is disruptive of many people's lives -- your employees, freelancers you might have hired on long-term basis (in this case, musicians who set aside dates for gigs), and press outlets that work on long lead times.

I've seen this sort of thing in particular happen in Pittsfield way too many times over the year, and it's part of why i have my doubts about the hype about the revitalization of downtown Pittsfield. It's interesting that the Berkshire Eagle -- a thinly disguised version of the Pittsfield Chamber of Commerce newsletter -- hasn't seen fit to write an article yet about the closing of this linchpin to downtown revival -- a linchpin that received government subsidies in the form of reduced rent in the Central Block, which was set up to bring businesses to the core of the dying city's downtown.

Now, maybe there are circumstance that can explain all of this. Maybe it has nothing to do with anything, and maybe the business will reopen. But too many times new businesses have been hailed as signs of the downtown of Pittsfield's revival -- and then nothing is said when they slink away like thieves in the night.

The end result is just a greater credibility problem for Pittsfield to overcome as it struggles to make believers out of cynics, and even more important, as it struggles to live up to the hype that it's a city on the way back.

----

on a related note, because of getting burnt this way, BERKSHIRE LIVING magazine will institute a new policy: we will not feature new businesses in any major way until they have proven themselves over the course of time by sticking with it through thick and thin for at least one yearly cycle.





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