USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Pittsfield > The history of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 1916-1955 > Part 23
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Immediately after the war, steps were taken to meet these problems. Working hours were reduced to 70 a week in 1947. This necessitated the appointment of 25 provisional firemen, 18 of whom were soon added to the permanent force. In 1952, the proposal having been approved by the voters of Pittsfield in a referendum, the work week was reduced to 56 hours, and the department was constituted at its present strength: a chief
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engineer (fire chief), four deputy fire chiefs, nine captains, nine lieutenants, a master mechanic, a motor repairman, 86 firemen, and five "civilians"-two clerks and three telephone operators.
Under the state's Civil Defense program, set up in 1950 with Fire Chief Burke as regional coordinator for western Massa- chusetts, a fire-fighting unit of volunteers was recruited in Pitts- field. Trained by the officers of the department, the unit became the Auxiliary Firemen's Organization early in 1951 and is still functioning, assuring the city of more protection of life and property in an emergency.
To study the department's housing and equipment needs, a Fire Department Survey Commission of five members, with Donald P. Gerst as chairman, was appointed by Mayor Capeless in 1948. The commission recommended the building of two new fire stations, and a firm of architects was engaged to study modern fire station design and obtain an estimate of costs.
Acting on the recommendation, Mayor Capeless appointed a Fire Department Building Commission of six members, with Donald P. Gerst as chairman and Fire Chief Burke as a mem- ber. Money was appropriated for building two new fire houses.
Both were completed in 1951-one on West Housatonic Street, to replace the old wooden structure on Lebanon Avenue; the other on Peck's Road, complete with drill tower, smoke house, tanks, and other installations for the thorough training of firemen. Some new equipment was bought for the stations, of which Pittsfield now has four. The GE plant has its own fire station and service.
In 1947, a Fire Inspector was appointed under a state law requiring regular inspections to discover fire hazards and pos- sible violations of the fire laws. This work was broadened in 1950 with the establishment of a Fire Prevention and Fire Training program in the hospitals, where the staffs were trained in fire protection and safety, with fire drills held reg- ularly. Fire prevention courses became a part of the Student Nurses Training program.
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In 1952, the Fire Prevention and Inspection Bureau was created and placed in charge of the senior deputy fire chief, with a lieutenant as assistant and a fireman as inspector. Its duty is not only to check public and private buildings for fire haz- ards, but to inspect oil burners and heaters, and the storage of fuel oil, gas, gasoline, explosives, and other combustibles. In 1953, the bureau made 5,280 inspections. This fire prevention work is perhaps the most important part of a modern fire de- partment's duties.
In 1953, through the efforts of local Civil Defense officials, the department's apparatus was equipped with radio, which has proved to be of great advantage. It minimizes the possi- bility of error in locating fires, keeps the fire companies in direct touch with the dispatcher, reduces lost time of apparatus on the road, and assures dependable communication if fire alarm and telephone service fail.
The department's major equipment in 1954 consisted of seven large pumping engine-hose cars, a hose car with a 4-inch deck gun capable of shooting 1,200-1,500 gallons of water a minute, a booster pump and hose car, two 85-foot aerial ladder trucks with water tower attachments, and two trucks, one equipped with a pump and a 250-gallon tank for use in fighting grass and forest fires.
Fire Chief Thomas F. Burke retired at the end of 1954. He was temporarily reemployed for five months until he was suc- ceeded by his first deputy, Ward G. Whalen, the present chief.
In 1946, as part of a safe-and-sane celebration of the Fourth of July, the Fire Department sponsored an old-time firemen's muster. With the fire departments and other organizations of surrounding communities participating, the muster has become an annual event, featured by a large parade along North Street, followed by festivities at Wahconah Park in the form of com- petitive drills, contests, games, and community fireworks.
The latest muster, on the Fourth in 1955, was the most suc- cessful ever, except in one respect. Firemen are used to heat. But many of them could not stand the blaze of the Pittsfield sun that day as the thermometer climbed to a record height.
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Almost two score of them "passed out" during the parade or at the exercises in Wahconah Park.
Parks and Recreation
Though Pittsfield had previously had parks, recreational areas, and playgrounds, the impetus for its present Parks and Recreation Department may have come in 1908 when Joseph E. Peirson read a paper on "Playgrounds" before the Monday Evening Club.
As a result, the Park and Playground Association of Pitts- field was formed in 1911 with the support of the Board of Trade, the YMCA, the Boys' Club, and the Father Mathew Total Abstinence Society, now known as the Father Mathew Catholic Youth Center. Those who became the association's founders had been largely instrumental in persuading the city to vote "yes" on the 1909 state referendum requiring communi- ties of 10,000 to provide supervised public playgrounds.
Pittsfield's first such summer playground was opened in 1910, on the grounds of Plunkett School, with the city appropriating $300 for the project and the Park and Playground Association contributing almost as much. The association bought a tract of land on Columbus Avenue for the William Pitt Playground at a cost of $7,500, raised by loans. In 1912 and 1913, the city and the association cooperated in buying fifteen lots at Springside for use as a park and athletic field. This extended the original land given by Kelton B. Miller in 1910 and 1912.
In 1913, Mayor Moore appointed a Park Commission of five members, with Fred T. Francis as chairman. The next year, the city appropriated $3,000 and the association contributed ap- proximately $2,000 to operate playgrounds at Pitt, on the Com- mon, at Springside Park, at Russell and Pontoosuc schools, and at Pontoosuc Lake.
In 1915, the association deeded to the city all of its park and playground properties at cost-slightly more than $17,000. Though it now withdrew from operation of parks and play- grounds, the association continued to promote and contribute
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to the program down to 1936, when it disbanded, having in- spired the city's modern park and recreation system.
In 1916, the Park Commission appointed Louis C. Schroder as superintendent of playgrounds and in 1919, John A. Ford as recreation director in charge of summer playground programs, a football league in the fall, and the development of a winter sports program to include coasting, skating, and skiing. Use of the playgrounds steadily increased from 1916 to 1920.
During this period, the city acquired new parks-in 1916, Balance Rock and many acres adjoining it in neighboring Lanes- borough, the gift of a group headed by Kelton B. Miller, pub- lisher-editor of the Eagle; in 1917, the Curtin Triangle; Clapp Park in 1918, donated by former Mayor Allen H. Bagg and his wife in memory of her ancestors, Pittsfield's pioneer carriage builders, Edwin and Jason Clapp; and Wahconah Park, ac- quired in 1919 through the generosity of the Pittsfield Ceme- tery Corporation and the heirs of George W. Burbank.
Playground facilities were expanded and more parks were added in the 1920s. Rinks for ice skating were built at Clapp and Springside parks. A tract on Linden Street, given by Mrs. Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, was opened as the Coolidge Play- ground in 1925. The Zenas Crane Memorial Park, in front of the Union Station, was dedicated in 1926, as was the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument in Memorial Park on lower South Street. A new grandstand was built at Wahconah Park in 1927, and a dike constructed there to keep the Housatonic River from eating away the grounds.
During the depression years in the 1930s, city appropriations for parks, playgrounds, and recreation declined sharply, reach- ing zero in 1932, when the program was carried on by volun- teers working through the Citizens' Playground Committee. The latter raised money and hired supervisors to keep the play- grounds open.
After the advent of the New Deal in 1933, the parks and playgrounds saw the greatest development in their history, largely financed by Federal funds appropriated to relieve un- employment. In 1939, for example, the city spent $2,040 and
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the Federal government $19,210 for recreational projects and for the improvement of the park and playground system, largely using the labor of the unemployed on the city welfare and the Federal relief rolls.
More parks were acquired-Wellesley Park, presented to the city by the developers of the Cooper tract; the James A. Wilson Park, donated by Charles H. Wilson in memory of his father; almost 75 acres adjoining Springside Park, given by Lawrence K. and Donald B. Miller, sons of Kelton B. Miller, the donor of the original Springside Park; more land for Pontoosuc Lake Park, donated in 1939 by Kelton B. Miller. The city bought additional land along the lake to enlarge this park.
After a period of status quo during World War II, the park and playground system began to expand again after 1945, when Jackson J. Perry was named Superintendent of Parks and Recre- ation. In 1947, two full-time staff members were hired-one as director of athletics, the other as supervisor of girls' and women's activities-both being enrolled in the On-the-Job Training Program under the G. I. Bill of Rights. At the same time, a firm of professional experts in the field, the F. Ellwood Allen Organization, was engaged to map out Pittsfield's future needs in the matter of parks and public recreation.
West Memorial Park was given to the city in 1950 by the heirs of Harry G. West, a former mayor. The Lakewood Play- ground was established in 1951, the Allen Heights Tot Lot and the Lebanon Avenue Playground in 1954. The Balance Rock Park, a city park though situated in the neighboring town of Lanesborough, was deeded to the Commonwealth in 1953 and became a state park.
Under the present Superintendent of Parks and Recreation, Vincent J. Hebert, the department sponsors a wide variety of recreational activities for Pittsfieldians of all ages and interests -from the annual Easter egg hunt in Clapp Park to the pro- grams of the oldsters in the Golden Age Club-in sports, every- thing from archery to horseshoe pitching and water ballet.
The growth of the city's park and recreation program can be measured in part by the rise in budget figures from $6,795 in
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1916 to $166,776 in 1954. During the latter year, attendance at the parks and recreation grounds totalled 265,000, indicating the popularity and wide use of the recreation facilities which the city provides for its people.
Veterans' Service
Established in its present form in 1946, the Veterans' Service Department has three primary functions: to aid all veterans with their problems; to help them and their families obtain whatever Federal or other benefits they are entitled to, such as pensions, hospitalization, and burial allowances; to give finan- cial aid to needy veterans.
The present department grew out of developments arising from the Civil War. After that war, Massachusetts passed laws to give special help to those who had served under arms, estab- lishing an assistance program known as Soldiers' and Sailors' Relief.
This program was administered by town and city clerks for more than a half century, through World War I and down to 1928, when it was realized that a separate department in every community was needed to deal adequately with the increased number of veterans and their many acute problems.
As a consequence, Pittsfield established a new Soldiers' Relief Department to meet the need, with Colonel William H. Eaton as its first director.
World War II brought a vast change in the veterans' assist- ance program. In 1946, the name of the department was changed from Soldiers' Relief to Veterans' Service, with the Commonwealth paying half of the expenditures made by its communities to aid needy veterans settled within their limits.
Early in 1953, the present head of the Veterans' Service De- partment, Theodore J. Handerek, reported that one out of five residents in Pittsfield was a war veteran. Roughly, 2,800 of them were veterans of World War I; 7,000 of World War II; and 425 of the Korean War. This spoke well of Pittsfield's response to the calls of the armed forces.
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With almost 11,000 veterans living in the city at the end of 1954, the department's potential clientele was one of the largest in the city. In 1954, its expenditures exceeded $115,100, the largest in its history.
Administrative Services
A new department, Administrative Services, was created in 1949, with Philip C. Ahern as its first and present director. The department deals with the personnel, purchasing, and administrative research activities of the city.
Before the creation of this department, the personnel policies of the city were more or less hit-or-miss, especially in regard to the labor force, which normally constitutes a large proportion of municipal employees.
Up to 1934, when the non-partisan charter went into effect, those in the labor force had little job security, no matter what their qualifications and devotion to duty. If they were regis- tered Republicans and a Democratic administration was elected, they were fired and replaced by Democratic workers-and vice versa. It was not until 1940 that they were placed under the protection of Civil Service, which has been extended to include most municipal employees.
Wages of the city's labor force averaged 20-30 cents an hour before World War I. By World War II, average pay had in- creased to 60-70 cents an hour. It has since risen to the 1955 rate of $1.40 an hour. Even so, this does not match the wages paid for similar work by private industry. As a consequence, the turnover in city personnel has been high.
One of Director Ahern's chief concerns has been to bring about a more realistic relationship between salaries paid by the city and those paid by private concerns so that more competent people may be attracted to serve public business.
"Municipal government requires a variety of talents beyond those required by most commercial and industrial enterprises," Director Ahern wrote in his 1952 annual report, "and citizens generally should recognize that the recruiting and retaining of
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efficient and conscientious workers must be based upon a mod- ern personnel system and a realistic salary schedule."
At the beginning of 1955, the city government had almost 1,080 employees. Of these, more than 500 were in the School Department. The municipal budget for the year provided some $4,300,000 for wages and salaries, out of a total budget of $7,490,000. School employees were paid an average of more than $83 a week-other city workers, an average of more than $70 a week.
City business and construction constitute the second largest enterprise in Pittsfield, being exceeded only by the GE plant in size of payroll and number of employees.
Civil Defense
With the outbreak of the Korean War and the growing threat of atomic warfare, a Civil Defense Department was or- ganized under state law in 1951, with William H. Cooney as director and J. Bradley Cooper, Jay C. Rosenfeld, and James E. Stevens as deputy directors. Its purpose is to prepare for and deal with not only all possible effects of air attack on the city, but with any major emergency in the community or the vicinity.
Though it has a small paid staff, the department is manned almost wholly by volunteers, operating through a number of divisions-among them, civilian war aid, education, fire, police, technical service, plant protection, health, medical, rescue and transportation, public works, and warden service.
During 1954, the department improved its communications and siren warning system. Its auxiliary police continued to assist with traffic duty, while the fire auxiliaries gave their services when needed.
After an exhaustive study of their effectiveness, the depart- ment increased the number of sirens from 11 to 15, purchased on a matching fund basis, with the Federal government and the city splitting the cost. The four new sirens were installed at the Wendell Hotel, the General Electric plant on Columbus Ave- nue, Mercer School, and the Public Works Yard on West
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Housatonic Street. Six other sirens were shifted to new sites for better audibility.
Seat of County Government
Since 1868, when it succeeded Lenox, Pittsfield has been the "shire town," or county seat, of Berkshire County. It was so designated largely because of its central position in the county.
The present courthouse building on Park Square was com- pleted in 1871. An addition in the rear, the Registry of Deeds, connected by a bridge to the main building, was erected in 1928.
County affairs are administered by three commissioners. Elected for four-year terms, the commissioners hold regular meetings every Tuesday at the courthouse. The commissioners in 1955 were John F. Shea of Pittsfield, chairman, Clinton J. Foster of Stockbridge, and James A. Bowes of North Adams. Nelson A. Foot, Jr., of Pittsfield was clerk of the county com- missioners; and Harry W. Heaphy of Lee, county engineer.
Courts
Foot was also clerk of the courts-Superior and Supreme Judicial. The Superior Court of Massachusetts sits four times a year in Pittsfield to hear criminal cases, civil cases, and cases in equity. The Commonwealth's Supreme Judicial Court holds its sessions in Boston, except for one day sessions each year in Pittsfield, Springfield, Worcester, and Taunton.
There are six district courts in Berkshire county. That for central Berkshire sits in Pittsfield. Its officers in 1955 were Justice Charles R. Alberti, Special Justice Frederick M. Myers, Clerk Edmund F. McBride, and Probation Officer Joseph A. Torchio, all of Pittsfield. The district attorney of the Western District in Massachusetts was Stephen A. Moynahan of Spring- field, with Frank W. Cimini of Pittsfield, Walter J. Griffin of Holyoke, and Edward J. Dobiecki of Springfield as assistant district attorneys.
The county's Judge of Probate and Insolvency was F. An- thony Hanlon of Pittsfield, with James W. Carolan of Pittsfield as Register of Probate and Insolvency. Berkshire County has
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three offices for the registry of deeds-in Adams, Pittsfield, and Great Barrington. The Pittsfield office in 1955 was in charge of Harold F. Goggins.
House of Correction
When the county seat was moved to Pittsfield in 1868, the state legislature laid down the condition that the town should furnish a site not only for the courthouse, but for a jail. A site for the latter was provided on Second Street. A House of Cor- rection and Jail was erected there, being occupied late in 1870. In recent years, the institution has been much modernized. In- mates are encouraged to join in healthy outdoor exercises and provide themselves with fresh produce in season by working in the large vegetable gardens around the jail and the seven acres provided for them on the outskirts of the city.
The charges against those committed to the House of Cor- rection range from drunkenness, vagrancy, non-support, and motor law violations to larceny, breaking and entering. and moral violations. Drunkenness accounts for about a third of the inmates. Those convicted of more serious offenses are sent, for the most part, to the new state prison at Walpole or the Re- formatory at West Concord.
The average number of inmates a day at the county jail has risen from 49 in 1916 to 71 in 1955; and the number of the staff, from nine to twelve.
Berkshire County, since its organization in 1761, has had 16 sheriffs. John Nicholson of Pittsfield had the longest term of office, serving from 1906 through 1932. His successor was the present sheriff, J. Bruce McIntyre of Pittsfield. There is a special sheriff, Fred N. Cummings of Pittsfield, and four deputy sheriffs.
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XIII
Schools
W TITH THE ADVENT of the Twentieth Century, Pittsfield began to grow very rapidly. Its population rose from approximately 22,000 in 1900 to 40,000 in 1915 and to almost 50,000 in 1930, more than doubling in thirty years.
While welcome in some ways, this rapid growth faced the city with many formidable problems. It severely taxed all municipal facilities and services. It especially taxed the capacity of the schools, both public and parochial.
This was not only because the city had to provide schooling for a greatly increased and steadily growing number of children. It was also because children were staying in school much longer than before. Fewer of them were dropping out in the early grades. A wiser public had come to recognize the importance and utility of education in a world daily becoming more com- plex. Mastery of the three Rs was obviously not enough for a happy life and a successful career in a modern industrial society, which put a premium upon trained skills and broad educational background.
Evidence of this trend was marked in Pittsfield. Around 1900, four out of five children in the elementary schools dropped out before finishing the eighth grade. By 1916, seven out of ten pupils entering the schools went through to gradua- tion, and every year a larger proportion of them went on to
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high school, a practice that has continued down to the present time.
Public Schools
In 1916, the twenty-fifth anniversary of its incorporation as a city, Pittsfield had about 5,400 children attending its twenty- one elementary schools. Eight of the school buildings had been constructed since 1900-Bartlett (1910), Crane (1913), Dawes (1907, 1914), Mercer (1904), Nugent (1910), Plunkett (1909), Pomeroy (1914), and Rice (1890, 1907). These new and larger buildings provided almost two thirds-104 out of 166-of the classrooms in the elementary schools.
Most of the older buildings badly needed paint and repairs, as was pointed out repeatedly by Superintendent of Schools Clair G. Persons, who had taken office in 1910. Four of the old schoolhouses were pre-Civil War, dating back to the 1850s. Five of them consisted of a single classroom in which pupils of many grades sat together and were taught, as best she could, by one teacher.
All of the buildings, new and old, suffered because the city did not appropriate sufficient funds for proper maintenance. Two buildings erected in 1896 had not had a coat of paint or varnish since their completion. The window glass in a newer building was falling out for want of putty and paint.
In the elementary schools there were 188 teachers, all of them women. With few exceptions, they were graduates of the normal schools which were not entitled to grant degrees. Some were graduates of Pittsfield's own training school for teachers, which had operated from 1880 to 1905, supplying most of the city's teachers of the day. For their labors and their harassments by children and parents alike, the teachers received meager salaries ranging from $400 to $800 a year. Still, it was some improvement over the $16 a month that teachers got back in 1858.
In 1919, after World War I, salaries were increased to a range of $700-1,080 a year. Meanwhile, local teachers had won some measure of job security for the first time, freeing them
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from the fear of arbitrary dismissal. A tenure law adopted in 1916 provided that a two thirds vote of the entire School Com- mittee was required to discharge a teacher who had been re- appointed after serving three probationary years.
A closer bond between the teachers and the community at large, the source of much fruitful collaboration, was formed in 1914 when the first unit of the now strong and influential Parent-Teacher Association was organized at Dawes School.
By 1916, children in the elementary schools were being pro- moted from grade to grade without examination if they had made progress during the year. In abolishing the intricate and rigid examination system previously used to determine promo- tion or non-promotion, Superintendent Persons had stated the issue clearly :
"Whether our public school system is to be a relentless machine through which our children are to be passed and ground out like so much grain, or whether it shall be an insti- tution which considers each pupil as a separate problem for whose individual development we are responsible ... Accord- ing to our theory of administration, in a properly organized school system every child except the hopelessly deficient should make normal progress through the grades."
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