How big is this city/town and where is it located? Towards PRovidence, RI? or towards Albany, NY?? Berkshires maybe? If the latter, are those only high priced homes or is it a good mix of people? Thanks..

It's in the Berkshires. North of Pittsfied, near Williamstown. About an hour from the Albany area. Pretty blue collar if I recall correctly. Not the upper class crust of Williamstown or Lenox.

Miriam, North Adams is a one-time industrial city that lost its industry (Sprague Electric) about 20 years ago. Today, it's an area in decline; most of the housing stock is 50 years old or more. In the 1960s, downtown North Adams was "urban renewaled" out of existence; it is today a collection of deserted brick plazas surrounded by empty garages and municipal buildings.

It is in the northwest corner of the state; a truly beautiful area scenically, and the picturesque college town of Williamstown is just five miles away. The Berkshires are right behind the town. If you're considering moving there, you may want to look at several of the surrounding towns.

In the past few years, the city has attempted to re-invent itself through the creation of MASS MOCA, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, which attempts to re-use some of those old Sprague buildings as spaces for installation of large pieces of modern art. Whether or not it succeeds is a matter of interpretation; I've read that MASS MOCA is "wildly successful," I've also read (and noted personally) that, except on promotional weekends in the middle of summer, the place is "completely deserted."

The nearest city is Albany, NY, fifty miles away. Boston is two hours distant over the Mohawk Trail, a wonderful highway for tourists, an oath-causing relic for residents.

I don't mean to scare you off; I've lived in the Berkshires in a prior life and visited there annually for the better part of 20 years. I love the area... it's just that North Adams is one of those places you drive through and get reminded about the decline of small city America.

I spent one of the funniest days of my life in North Adams at MassMoca. We went there for the day with friends we were staying with in the Berkshires. Now I'm not into really modern art, but we got to laughing and holding in it so long that I hurt for a week. MassMoca has taken this absolutely huge bunch of buildings and converted it to "modern art" space. Fine. We joined a group to listen to a lecturer in a huge gallery. The place was totally empty, except for this crowd of people looking at a group of about 50 tiles on the floor. As I recall these were one foot square "tiles" of plain polished aluminum. They were placed on the floor in a very simple pattern. Ten rows of five each. In other words, it looked like a long rectangle in the middle of this room had been tiled with aluminum squares. The lecturer went on and on about the brilliance of this exhibit. He encouraged people to stand on their "favorite" tile so they could connect with the art and the artist. He asked everyone to stand back and admire it from various angles. People were allowed to step forward one at a time and touch a tile and feel what the artist was saying to them. People would "OOH and AHHH". I thought one woman was going to have an orgasm when after careful deliberation she picked out a corner tile to touch. This went on and on. My friends and I had to leave, we were bursting inside. What the artist was doing in my opinion was laughing all the way to the bank. As I recall this was a project that was funded by several grants for a total of something like $200,000. I'm all for the arts, but that day was too much for me. In all fairness, however, some of the exhibits I found very interesting. Meanwhile although millions of dollars has been spent on this entire project, the city looked like a real dump. I'm all for urban redevelopment and I hope this works the way it is supposed to.
Sorry if I'm off the subject, but I was trying to remember why I knew North Adams and then Neal's post jogged my memory.

Neal is completely correct - I would add that the surrounding area is beautiful and convenient - ie just because you work in North Adams doesn't mean you have to live there. It is located in the NW corner of Mass, near Vermont and New York state. Its a beautiful part, but VERY rural.

Patrick's post reminded me of my own funny experience in the Berkshires, although not in North Adams. Was in a new agey sort of store looking at rings. Asked the salesperson for a closer look at one of them. She refused because I didn't have the proper "aura" to wear that ring. And you thought all the nut-cases were on the Left Coast.