In Praise of Dinosaurs and ”Third Places” 

I want to invite you to join me at a special pedestrianized spot in Amherst Center, right on North Pleasant Street. And please bring your pet dinosaur because we could well be eating while we are there. We can choose from a wide and world-encompassing variety of dependable eateries as we look around: there’s everything from Panda East to two types of falafel to specialty to-go meals. Plus, this location isn’t all restaurants; it even has a shoe repair shop, which is unusual to find these days. 

You are being magicked to Boltwood Walk (I know, named for Lucius Manlius Boltwood, whose fifth  great-grandfather was an enslaver in Amherst); his name was used to title Boltwood Avenue as well, and while you are standing here pondering this difficult history, you can seek enlightenment from the publicly protected Louis Comfort Tiffany angel in stained glass of the Unitarian Universalist Meeting House and the large shade tree just outside. The tree (can you identify the species for us dear reader?) has a spreading crown that dips down around the sidewalk, offering shade on a hot day. We can take in Italianate architecture — on a grand scale for Amherst — across the street: that is St. Brigid’s Catholic church, an always immaculately tended downtown property.

Perhaps one of the redeeming features in the current era of this “third place” that it is neither a private/personal space nor a work-related, public area, but instead, an intermediate “third place” and it is here that the meeting house has embarked on a revision of its history, noting the indigenous lands on which it is located. 

What is brilliant is that we can just hang out here and not spend any money. That is part of being a third place but we stop nonetheless at Coronation Café, where you can always be impressed by the knowledgeable and courteous staff, and their soft pretzels come in three flavors. If you bring your kids to join us on our imagined little downtown excursion, you will be glad to find a piano as well as a toy Noah’s ark in the café. This is a Mennonite cafe, and there are Bible stories and other books to read while you wait for your delicious cup of coffee. 

A small market/food and wine shop (like a mini-Provisions), called Aster and Pine, has just opened close by.

On the sidewalk of the plaza is a highly popular, and deservedly so New York-style halal food truck. And next to the Coronation cafe is a Syrian-owned falafel cafe that is also excellent; I recently bought ganik, a Turkish-style delight covered with rose petals and pistachios. 

From here, we can walk down to the end of Boltwood Walk and stop in at Mexcalito. They used to offer salsa nights as we emerged from the worst of the pandemic here, and their sister place in Northampton, Masa Mexcalito, continues to offer a social dance floor with a mix of salsa, bachata, and merengue dance. In between, Panda East offers dependable food from Asia — and silk lotus flowers at each table — and the Meeting House serves a monthly meal of Afghan cuisine cooked onsite by volunteers, under Farzana Faquiri’s direction. The Shirzad and Faquiri family have resettled here from Afghanistan.

Nearby and below Panda East is Paul’s Shoe Repair, described by Kitty Axleson-Berry as a place where   “there is a bell to announce customers and where, when entering the shop, one is taken by the smell of the leather and the polish, and the feel of the (wood?”) floors. This is where  people go there to get their shoes repaired from Vermont, Boston, and elsewhere because there are so few shoe repair shops anymore”. And it is especially popular these days, she imagines, with people who are environmentally aware or non-consumerist.  Here is a nice interview with Kevin Grimard who is the proprietor of Paul’s and whose father was Paul. 

What I love best about these kinds of spaces in Amherst is that they are made up of different layers of history and a diverse range of types of ownership. The buildings that help to define Boltwood Walk are from different time periods and they have color, texture, and a variety of building materials so that the “palate” of the place, for want of a better word, is rich and vibrant. Each pedestrianized stop along the way is a little pathway through downtown away from the traffic. In this case, the U.S. Post Office, Ren’s Mobil gas station, and the town’s community/senior center are also just a few steps away.

Places like Boltwood Walk are walkable areas that we need in town (although they are not sterile or monotonous). Socially, they can offer opportunities to encounter people from all walks of life including office workers, residents, tourists, students, dog walkers… the list of possibilities is as infinite as it is human because this is a “third place.”