Bayview MA

[M. Casey]

On 9/11/2013 1:19 AM, Garrett Wollman wrote:

> Well, except for the minor issue that Massachusetts has no such thing
> as a "village".

That is only true with respect to (most) of the Governmental functions of 
the Commonwealth which recognize incorporated towns and cities. We really do 
have many villages or communities, many, still with their own separate Post 
Offices. In the City of Springfield we have Springfield and Indian Orchard, 
both with separate "downtown" areas, and post offices, and different Main 
Streets, Oak Streets, etc. Or, even in the town of Nantucket; Nantucket and 
Siasconset, also, both with separate "downtown" areas, and post offices, and 
different Main Streets, etc. Palmer has Three Rivers, Thorndike and 
Bondsville, all very separate villages with their own "center of town" or 
"downtown" areas in addition to Palmer's downtown area.

Maybe the worst example of a licensed not-really-a-community in this region 
is Baptist Village, part of East Longmeadow. It is a section of town that 
most people never refer to using that name anymore. There is only a Church, 
and a Cemetary. Driving through, the average person would not say that it is 
any kind of village. There's no store, no gas station, no Dunkin', no car 
lot, no Post Office, no grouping of homes and businesses.

Now, when you guys are driving around nearby, looking for a picture of the 
Baptist Village radio tower for next year's Calendar, please stop here at 
Hampden Hardware, which is in the Village of Hampden, but you may not think 
it is the village because the main business district is on the west side of 
town, which is a bigger village, and has the Village Mart, but that more 
busy village does not have a village or community name! Well, maybe we'll 
just call it the West Side!

Now, can I get an FCC License for "West Side, Massachusetts"????

Mark Casey
Hampden Hardware
480 Main St.
in the Center, or Village... er.. or whatever....of Hampden
(not far from Baptist Village-ha!)


>
> In the case of the Barnstable "villages", they are all fire districts,
> and may have other aspects of municipal government as well.  In
> Newton, they're just administratively designated districts that
> approximately coincide with historic postal zones.

We do have villages, but they are completely unofficial and undefined.
Chestnut Hill actually consists of parts of Brookline, Newton, and West
Roxbury, and the only thing it seems to have in common is a zip code.

At one time in Massachusetts, a village had its own town green and
Congregational Church.  As population grew, these villages eventually
became incorporated as towns.  Anherst has a couple of villages like
that.  South Amherst has a town green and a Congregational Church.  I'm
not sure whether North Amherst has a town green.  If it does, it's not
as obvious, but it does have a Congregational Church.  I'm not sure how
a town the size of Amherst manages to support three churches of the same
denomination, but it does.  There's another "village" in Amherst called
"Cushman," but I've never figured out where it is.  Probably there's no
green or church there.

Other towns in Western Massachusetts have villages, whose legal status
is unclear.  Turners Falls is a village of Montague.  Leeds and Florence
are villages of the City of Northampton.

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