{"id":5886,"date":"2013-05-01T11:19:18","date_gmt":"2013-05-01T15:19:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/?p=5886"},"modified":"2013-05-01T11:19:18","modified_gmt":"2013-05-01T15:19:18","slug":"old-berkshire-athenaeum-1876","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/?p=5886","title":{"rendered":"Old Berkshire Athenaeum (1876)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><center><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/44-Bank-Row-Berkshire-Athenaeum.jpg\" alt=\"Berkshire Athenaeum\" width=\"500\" height=\"406\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5887\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/44-Bank-Row-Berkshire-Athenaeum.jpg 500w, https:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/44-Bank-Row-Berkshire-Athenaeum-300x243.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/center><\/p>\n<p>The old <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Berkshire_Athenaeum\">Berkshire Athenaeum building<\/a>, at 44 Bank Row in Pittsfield, was built in 1874-1876. A gift of railway magnate Thomas Allen, it is <a href=\"http:\/\/pittsfieldlibrary.org\/anniversary.html\">a High Victorian Gothic building<\/a>, designed by <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/William_Appleton_Potter\">William Appleton Potter<\/a> of New York, and displays <a href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=GLXmd8WfQKgC&#038;lpg=PP1&#038;pg=PA145#v=onepage&#038;q&#038;f=false\">that style&#8217;s<\/a> distinctive ploychromatic masonry. An addition was made to the rear of the building in 1897. The addition was raised to two stories in 1926, the same year the building&#8217;s chimneys were removed. The building served as Pittsfield&#8217;s library until 1976, when <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pittsfieldlibrary.org\/\">a new building<\/a> was constructed across the street on Wendell Avenue. The building was also home to the county museum until the <a href=\"http:\/\/berkshiremuseum.org\/\">Berkshire Museum<\/a> was built in 1903. The Athenaeum had responsibility for the museum until it became a separate institution in 1932. The old Athenaeum building stood vacant for three years until it reopened in 1980 as an annex to the Berkshire County Courthouse. It currently houses the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mass.gov\/courts\/courtsandjudges\/courts\/berkprobmain.html\">Berkshire Probate and Family Court<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The old Berkshire Athenaeum building, at 44 Bank Row in Pittsfield, was built in 1874-1876. A gift of railway magnate Thomas Allen, it is a High Victorian Gothic building, designed by William Appleton Potter of New York, and displays that style&#8217;s distinctive ploychromatic masonry. An addition was made to the rear of the building in 1897. The addition was raised to two stories in 1926, the same year the building&#8217;s chimneys were removed. The building served as Pittsfield&#8217;s library until 1976, when a new building was constructed across the street on Wendell Avenue. The building was also home to the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,121,133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gothic","category-libraries","category-pittsfield"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5886"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5889,"href":"https:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5886\/revisions\/5889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}