Pittsfield, Massachusetts

Pittsfield is the largest city and the county seat of Berkshire County,Massachusetts, United States. It is the principal city of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of Berkshire County. The population was 44,737 at the 2010 census. Although the population has declined in recent decades, Pittsfield remains the third largest municipality in western Massachusetts, behind only Springfield and Chicopee.

In 2005, Farmers Insurance ranked Pittsfield 20th in the United States as "Most Secure Place To Live" among small towns with fewer than 150,000 residents. In 2006, Forbes ranked Pittsfield as number 61 in its list of Best Small Places for Business. In 2008, Country Home magazine ranked Pittsfield as #24 in a listing of "green cities" east of the Mississippi. In 2009, the City of Pittsfield was chosen to receive a 2009 Commonwealth Award, Massachusetts' highest award in the arts, humanities, and sciences. In 2010, the Financial Times proclaimed Pittsfield the "Brooklyn of the Berkshires", in an article covering its recent renaissance.

Joseph Scelsi Intermodal Transportation Center

The Joseph Scelsi Intermodal Transportation Center (also called the Scelsi ITC) is a transit facility located in downtown Pittsfield, Massachusetts. The $11 million facility is named after Joseph Scelsi, a longtime State Representative who represented Pittsfield. Owned by the Berkshire Regional Transit Authority (BRTA), it is serviced by local BRTA bus services, Amtrak intercity rail service, and Peter Pan intercity bus service.

Railroad stations have been located in downtown Pittsfield since the Western Railroad opened in 1841. The original station burned in 1854; after its replacement proved inadequate, a union station was constructed in 1866 to serve the Western plus the Housatonic Railroad and the Pittsfield and North Adams Railroad. A second, larger union station replaced it in 1914. The New Haven Railroad and New York Central Railroad moved to smaller depots in 1960 and 1965, and Union Station was demolished in 1968. Rail service to Pittsfield ended in 1971 but returned in 1975 and moved to a new shelter downtown in 1981. The Scelsi ITC opened in 2004 to combine local and intercity bus and intercity rail operations into one location.

Union Station (Pittsfield, Massachusetts)

Pittsfield’s Union Station was a train station built in 1914 for $300,000. The building replaced the original Pittsfield (Boston and Albany Depot) and was constructed in the Beaux Arts style and had green-veined marble walls, a high-domed terrazzo ceiling, polished woodwork, skylight, chandeliers and tall arched windows. The New York Central-owned Boston and Albany Railroad and the Berkshire Division of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad operated trains through the station to Boston, New York City, Albany and points west.

Despite the objections of some local citizens the station was demolished in 1968.

References

Media related to Union Station (Pittsfield, Massachusetts) at Wikimedia Commons