Saturday’s front-page Gazette article “Returning key mural to heyday,” was a reminder of what made the late 1970s itself a heyday of the Northampton community arts scene. We saw exactly what can happen when the arts, key business leaders, the news media and government collaborate, nurture and support each other. The Hestia mural was born of such mutual interest and the commitment to sustain it gives me hope for the future.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Northampton gave rise to Chrysalis Theatre, Dance Gallery, City Studio Theatre, Pioneer Valley Folklore Society, A.P.E., The Pines Theater Festival, Violet Ray Theatre Arts, No Theater and Project Opera, for starters. All of these organizations were supported by downtown business owners like Sam Goldman, Joe Blumenthal, Eva Trager, Sheehan’s and Rahar’s, The Pleasant Street Theater, the Abuza Brothers, Lizotte’s and the Thorne family. These businesses provided critical financial support, organizational advice, free electricity, and performance space.

The arts were promoted by news reporters like Marietta Pritchard at the Gazette and David Sokol at The Advocate. Their reliable, honest and accessible pieces got people to take a chance and go see unknown bands, avant-garde dance, and multi-media theater premieres.

And the city, led by Mayor Dave Musante and his chief of staff, Marcia Burick, paved the way by creating the Northampton Arts Council and working overtime to develop public art spaces like the wall of the Verizon Building.

All of theses entities worked together to put Northampton at the epicenter of the arts map. I was there. As a 24-year-old community arts administrator and Northampton Arts Council chairperson, I stood on a flatbed truck in the parking lot to represent the city and crack a bottle of champagne on the Hestia mural to dedicate its completion. Northampton can get its groove back if it remembers how it got it in the first place.

Deborah Radway, founding chairperson of the Northampton Arts Council

Montague

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