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Can you name the location?
The Paramount Theater.....Main Street, North Adams.

Comments...
It was a wonderful place to spend winter Saturday afternoons with double features and cartoons. I remember tickets being 35 cents. The lobby always had the wonderful aroma of fresh popcorn. This photo appears to be from the 40s or 50s....the automobiles are from that era.

Posted: 02/20/2002


What was the Year?
1936

What was the Season?
winter

Can you name the location?
Main street North Adams (near State St.) at Christmas time.

Comments...
I think this was the old Paramount movie theatre (now long since gone) and the time was somewhere in the middle to late nineteen thirties.

Posted: 02/20/2002


Can you name the location?
Main St.----North Adams, Ma.

Comments...
Christmas time------most likely in the 1940's, judging from the cars in the picture. Paramount theater, after the last feature had started. (The upper part of the sign is off to signify last show had started.) Ahhhhh! If only today's generation could experience Main Street during it's "Heyday". What a different lifestyle they would know. No need for drugs! Just walking the streets, visiting the stores, going to the theaters, was "high" enough. I feel so lucky to have known the 50's as a teenager!

Posted: 02/20/2002


Can you name the location?
Main St.----North Adams, Ma.

Comments...
Christmas time------most likely in the 1940's, judging from the cars in the picture. Paramont theater, after the last feature had started. (The upper part of the sign is off to signify last show had started.) Ahhhhh! If only today's generation could experience Main Street during it's "Heyday". What a different lifestyle they would know. No need for drugs! Just walking the streets, visiting the stores, going to the theaters, was "high" enough. I feel so lucky to have known the 50's as a teenager!

Posted: 02/20/2002


What was the Season?
winter

Can you name the location?
The Paramont Theater

Comments...
Around Christmas Time

Posted: 02/20/2002


Can you name the location?
Paramount Theatre/ Main St NA

Comments...
Bravo to the person who writes...wishing today's generation could have experienced the stores, movies, and simple pleasures just strolling down Main ST....I lived it too!!

Posted: 02/20/2002


What was the Year?
1940

What was the Season?
winter

Comments...
believe me this generation is not thrilled about how this beautiful city has turned out after the rte 2 bypass and the 70s urban renewel we can only hope that this great city will once again thrive the way it did during the 40s and 50s and until that happens our generation can only look at the past with envy

Posted: 02/20/2002


Comments...
North Adams holds many great memories for many people. When I visit I get very sad at what it become. There isn't much to come back to. Main Street looks like aghost town.

Posted: 08/08/2002


Comments...
I too, was one of the lucky ones to have grown up in North Adams. The 40's and 50's in North Adams were wonderful!...Now I live less than 20 miles away, but I never stop because of the sadness I feel because they tore the heart right out of the City. The beautiful buildings are gone, Center Street and Main Street are forever changed. My childhood memories are all that I have and I ask myself why did that ever happen?

Posted: 01/27/2003


Comments...
I was a teenager in the 50's also. I remember Rices Drug Store and Ames where everybody stopped afterschool. You could always find people (mainly boys) hanging out on Rice's corner. Saturday night was usually Movie night and maybe you were lucky enough to have a date to go with. No drugs and child molesters were heard of; at least not like they are now. We really were not afraid to go out walking at night in our local neighborhoods. When I tell my children about the 50's they think I am talking about a strange land, not North Adams, This picture really does bring back good memories.

Posted: 01/27/2003


Comments...
Sure was the good ol days.I grew up in the late 40s and all the 50s also. Remember the Richmond Theater? And the old Richmond Hotel.I took tap dancing and ballet lesons there.

Posted: 01/28/2003


Comments...
I grew up in this great city too, I graduated from Drury in 61.....I remember Ed's Diner and playing the pin ball machine....Rice's Drug Store...Joe's Hot Dog .....loved to go down street and just walk around...get a soda....see the sights....I've been gone for a long time....but I'll never forget my childhood in North Adams....it was awesome!!!!

Posted: 01/31/2003


Comments...
Paramount Theater. As a youngster I went to the Saturday afternoon cartoons. AS a teenager I went to the regular movies (if my parents could afford to give me the money for the ticket and popcorn). I remember driving down Main Street checking who was out and then stopping at Anes where the Spectacle Shop is now. That was a local hangout as well as Candyland at the other end of Main Street. Their Chocolate cokes and hot fudge sundaes were delicious. I agree that the 50's were a wonderful time to be a teenager. As a young adult I went shopping on Thursday night. Main Street and Eagle Street were lined with nice stores and we certainly spent our money in them. Recently I visited Greenfield and was in awe of the main street. It was just like North Adams used to be, all stores. Wilson's department store is still thriving. We can't shop unless we go to the Mall and the only decent stores are Pennys and Filenes. Too bad we can't bring back the fifties mentality.

Posted: 08/12/2003


What was the Year?
1940

What was the Season?
winter

Can you name the location?
Main St

Comments...
Main St was one of my favorite places to be,shopping ,movies,the sodas and table juke boxes at the M&R.Also sang christmas carols at the tree with Mr Bousher(may have misspelled) he use to dress as santa and teach us carols.It was great and I miss it.Thank God for memories!

Posted: 08/12/2003


What was the Year?
1937

Can you name the location?
Old Paramount Theatre below Liggetts drugstore don't recall the icecream parlor that was next to itand magazine store.

Comments...
I recall that the movies had large commercial art work all over the walls showing the actors and actresses portraits etc. painted by Mr. Ledger whos commercial art studio was over Saulniers meat, fish and provisions market at 9 Eagle St. The descriptions of movies were fantastic. If only some of that great artwork had been saved to remind us just how great it was. My favorite was the work depicting "GONE WITH THE WIND" starring Clark Gable. 'WOW" it must have been at least 15' long and 6' high, just "GREAT" TO MANY MEMORIES NOT ENOUGH TIME OR SPACE.

Posted: 08/12/2003


Can you name the location?
Main St. North Adams

Comments...
I grew up in North Adams....Born in 43...Lived there til 74....Graduated from Drury in 61....Remember the good times on Main St...no one was scared to walk the streets after dark...my Mom used to work at J.J.Newberry's and J.C. Penny...yes, it was a place that I will never forget...just like the Twilight Zone today...we never locked our doors at night...never were worried about drugs or robbers, etc....N. Adams was a beautiful place to be brought up in....I remember going to the Paramount Theatre for 40 cents.....all those days are gone...it's a different world out there.....wish the ole days were back....unfortunately......................

Posted: 08/13/2003


Comments...
How about 10 cents a ticket AND loads of free gifts located on the stage. If your ticket was called you could win various games and even bicycles. Those were the days.

Posted: 08/14/2003


What was the Year?
1948

What was the Season?
winter

Can you name the location?
Main St/ corner of Main & Holden

Comments...
Wonderful writeups about this particular picture.... I too remember them, I worked at Liggetts Drug Store. .. thru high school/ graduated in '52,,,St Joe.. There is no going back, but we must remember NOrth Adams is trying to survive/ just wish they could do more for the kids here.... teen towns that we knew/ roller skating etc.. maybe just a place kids could go to feeling WELCOMED === Memories...!!!

Posted: 02/28/2005


Comments...
I can remember mothers leaving their little kids in strollers and carriages out side Newberrys while they shopped. Sometimes 6 or 8 of them at a time. No one worried about them, and no one would even think about taking one. That was in the 40 s and 50 s I also took dancing lessons at the old Richmond Hotel.

Posted: 07/25/2008


Comments...
LOVE THESE OLD PHOTO'S OF NORTH ADAMS!

Posted: 05/01/2010


Comments...
Who remembers the Center in the old Richmond Hotel. Who played pinball in the old smoke shop and Jacks hotdog stand till they got thrown out for winning too many games. Who remembers the old YMCA and Mr.George St. Piere (SP) Sorry. Taught me to swim! We had Candy Land and Rices, Pops and The Spudick shop along with Nevilles. We had Molly's bakery and Delego's dinners even though it moved at least 3 times . We had a train station and buses that took us everywhere we needed to go. There were jobs to be had by those who wished to work.. it's sad what has happened to NA. The loss of neighborhood schools and intramural sports, safe places for kids to play and get to know each other but they say this is progress. Would someone PLEASE tell me whats so good about it now!

Posted: 01/30/2011


Comments...
In response to the last comment "Would someone PLEASE tell me whats [sic] so good about it (NA) now!" let me add the following: there are many wonderful restaurants such as Taylor's, Freightyard Pub, The Hub, Boston Seafoods, the Richmond Grille (in the Holiday Inn), Gramercy, RUB, Lickety-Split, Petrino's, Brew-Ha-Ha, Elf Parlor, the Sushi House, not to mention many pizza parlors, all downtown. The internationally-renowned MASS MoCA museum draws 100,000 visitors annually. If you're interested in our great past (rightly so) we have the impressive North Adams Museum of History and Science and the Visitors Museum (on the Hoosac Tunnel) both in Western Gateway Heritage State Park. Shoppers come from miles away to Persnickety Toys and Shima's (both for children)and to Tala's Quilts; local artistic creations are for sale on Main Street, Holden Street and at the renovated Eclipse Mill on Union Street. We are home to the SteepleCats of the NECBL and have excellent recreational facilities at Windsor Lake, Alcombright Field, Joe Wolfe/DiSanti/Noel Field and the Peter Foote Vietnam Veterans Rink. I could go on, but I think you get the idea. By the way Jack's Hot Dogs and many wonderful people, long-time residents and enthusiastic newcomers, can still be found in North Adams.

Posted: 03/19/2011


Comments...
Im not that old only been in this area for about 4 years now and this place, RUINED alot of it history with urban renewal. I look at the plaza and thinks its a waste. I love the past and wish I could have seen NA in its heydey. Im a child of the 80s, most this gone before my time, but still I have always felt that I was born in the wrong era.

Posted: 09/06/2011


Comments...
And you can thank the Bianco adminstration for the so called urban renewal. We lost some great buildings to the pile of eye sores we have now.

Posted: 09/09/2011


What was the Season?
winter

Can you name any of the people?
Paramount Theater

Can you name the location?
Main St, North Adams

Comments...
1940s I guess. I moved away in 1964, Before any "urban renewal" but I still rememeber everything there like it was yesterday. I loved living there and would like to come back someday soon. I did visit once in 1980 and was sad to see the large "parking lot" where all the buidings on the south side of the street used to be. My aunt had a beauty salon upstairs in one of them, not sure which one. I still have family and friends there and I live vicariously through them in North Adams until I can return.

Posted: 02/21/2012


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Images from the Randy Trabold Photograph Collection donated to the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts by Ida Trabold. Original photos are held in the collection of the Eugene Freel Library, MCLA. All rights including publishing rights, reserved by MCLA.