10 Massachusetts Towns With Unforgettable Main Streets

Massachusettshas the New EnglandMain Street down to a science. A town green and a meeting house front a row of independent storefronts. The old bank building in Great Barrington now sells cheese. Stockbridge’s main street still looks like the 1967 Rockwell painting of it. Rockport stages concerts against a wall of glass facing the Atlantic. Ten Massachusetts towns below where Main Street still does the work it was built for.

…

HUDSON
Hudson’s downtown corridor has quietly become one of central Massachusetts’s more interesting commercial strips, mixing food, drink, and civic life along a single walkable stretch. New City Microcreamery sets a playful tone early with small-batch ice cream, coffee drinks, and desserts, while Rail Trail Flatbread Co. pairs wood-fired flatbreads with craft beer a little later in the day. Beer fans can keep going to Medusa Brewing Company for a taproom, flights, and live music. Hudson Town Hall at 78 Main Street gives the street a solid brick landmark, and Apsley Park offers an ideal place to relax when you want a moment to sit.

What these towns share isn’t a list of attractions but a working main street that draws visitors from across the country. One good street, walkable end to end, where a bookshop, a bakery, and a century-old building can all exist within the same afternoon stroll. That particular arrangement, a single corridor holding most of the life a town has to offer, turns out to be harder to manufacture than it looks and more satisfying to find than almost anywhere else.

Read the full article here