Marvin Purry’s memories of growing up on the Westside are like a warm hug -- scenes of a thriving, tight-woven community that made him into a well-rounded, successful adult.
“There used to be go kart races down Columbus Ave, down West Street," he told WAMC. "There used to be block parties in my neighborhood, where parents like my mother, my aunt Annie Purry, Miss Shirley Hamilton, she would make fried dough. It was just a big celebration of the neighborhood, and then this extends throughout. Pitt Park, which is now Durant Park, Dorothy Amos [Park] was created, staples like ECDC, Early Childhood Development Center. The churches, Price A.M.E. Zion, Second Congregational Church, Victory Temple- I could just go on and on and on.”
But the decades since Purry’s childhood have not been kind to the neighborhood. It’s one of the most impoverished parts of Berkshire County, afflicted by disproportionate amounts of gun violence, drug use, decrepit housing stock, and underdevelopment.
Since 2018, Purry has been part of an effort to restore and expand the best of the community. He’s the co-executive director and treasurer of Westside Legends, a volunteer group making serious strides to bolster the neighborhood on the ground level.
“Let's try to do something to shift the paradigm here," explained Putty. "With the block parties, with the go kart races, with our angel trees, where we give kids gift cards at Christmas time, our Easter egg hunt, second year we've had it this year, we're trying to bring back staples that will get the community energized, excited, get the focus off the bad because, you know what? Yeah, there's bad stuff going on here. There's bad stuff going on everywhere. But if we can just focus on the good and the potential that we have for the neighborhood, it's incredible.”
A 2022 report on redlining from the NAACP Berkshire County Branch detailed how structural discrimination set up the Westside and its inhabitants for failure. Decades of denying people of color access to financial resources consolidated Pittsfield’s Black community into the neighborhood over the 20th century by preventing their ability to buy homes in the city’s more affluent districts. It pushed them into what banks and loan institutions determined the least desirable part of the city.
“The findings were amazing. It really hit home for me because it showed how discrimination against people of color really affected those people, and having to remove themselves from their home to another place of the town, and trying to fit in." said Westside Legends President Tony Jackson. "It was a personal thing with my family. My grandparents owned a house on Satinet Street, and they made enough money to afford the house and buy the house, but weren't able to because they couldn't get a loan. And it was pretty sad to think that you could basically live there, afford to buy it, but you wouldn't be able to buy it because of the color of your skin.”
In the years since its formation, Westside Legends has evolved from holding events and celebrations to building lasting material improvements. Working with Greylock Federal Credit Union, the group has helped over 50 people of color in the neighborhood secure millions of dollars in mortgages, rehabilitated homes, and even built its own modular home equipped with solar panels to offer to locals.
Jackson says Project Legacy, the construction of a 16-unit condominium building on South John Street, is harnessing state funding for the Legends’ most ambitious undertaking to date.
“This state program, the Commonwealth Builder, is through Mass Housing," he said. "They have a program that offers $250,000 per each doorstep. It's able to help us build these units and make them affordable and be able to sell them anywhere between $200,000 to $250,000 for a brand new two or three-bedroom townhouse in our neighborhood, instead of seeing public housing come up for rentals, and the rent, with no rent control, that the prices keep going up and there's no equity. So, the state and the Commonwealth Builder building something in Berkshire County – and this is the first – would be a milestone not only for Berkshire County, Pittsfield, but specifically for the Westside.”
Saturday will see the Westside Legends convene its inaugural Westside Neighborhood Summit at Durant Park, which will feature discussions about topics like solar power and securing a mortgage, as well as providing diabetes and blood pressure screenings alongside other resources. Purry says while the city of Pittsfield hasn’t always been there for the Westside, the journey forward requires the community to continue to stand up for itself as it has for so many years.
“The work has to be on both sides," he said. "It has to be the neighborhood. It has to be the government. They both have to come together. I see improvement with it. There's a master plan that the city of Pittsfield is working on- I would love to see the city engage with the community, but the community has to engage with the city as well. So, it's a two-way street. I see gaps closing, I see things happening, I see more openness to the community and the city working together, but the work's not done yet, and we got to continue to put the effort in and create synergies that will allow us all to be in a win-win situation.”
The Westside Legends say their mission is fueled by something unquenchable -- the knowledge that love is real and won’t fade. Jackson points to murals being painted, vacant lots being transformed into housing, and a new splash pad keeping people cool in Durant Park.
"So," he told WAMC, "As you can see, a lot of things can get done by many people getting involved and caring.”
