Observation is a rare skill

The Berkshire Eagle has a long piece, "MoCA just part of Bosley's legacy," on Daniel Bosley, a legislator from North Adams, Massachusetts who has been tapped to be the economic development director for the state under the new Governor, Deval Patrick. From the article:

Bosley made his first run for public office in 1983. One Friday on his way to meet friends at the American Legion for drinks, he noticed several people waiting in the rain for a bus on Main Street. At the bar, he insisted that a bus shelter was needed, and his friends encouraged him to stop talking and take out papers to run for City Council.
-----
He is also one of the fathers of the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, which has been essential in leading the arts-based revitalization of the Berkshires. (This is featured in the movie "Downside Up" which I hope to sponsor a showing of this spring.) See the AP story, "Against all odds, Mass MoCA thrives," for more information.
Photo by Ben Kriete.
-----
It is a logical career step for Bosley: His long fight for state support of Mass MoCA led to one of the earliest examples of how arts and culture can revitalize an economy. He led the deregulation of the state's electricity industry and fended off casino gambling. And he had a hand in nearly every unemployment and jobs creation bill of the last 15 years.

Shortly after Sprague Electric closed shop in North Adams in 1984, the city was left with not only huge unemployment figures but a vast, cavernous factory complex in the heart of a city that was in danger of falling into disrepair. Williams College Museum of Art Director Thomas Krens had come up with an idea to turn the space into a vast art museum to be called the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, which could be the spark to get the region back on its feet.

Despite the idea's skeptics and naysayers, Bosley said it did not take him long to buy into the idea. He recalled discussing it with Mayor John Barrett III, and the two agreed the city's future was not in luring another a single 3,000-employee company, which could cave in another single, devastating blow. The future would be "to create 300 jobs 10 times," for a more recession-proof economy....

Not only did the delegation need to win the support of the Legislature's leadership, but they also needed to keep people back home on board. "The proposal was exciting, but Mass MoCA was no Sprague Electric," Guernsey said. "We knew locally there would be a lot skepticism, and indeed there was."

Index Keywords: urban-revitalization; arts-culture; museums