![]() It's pumping $14 million a year into area hotels, restaurants and shops. One study measuring MASS MoCA's economic impact found an increase in the number of jobs since it opened, along with higher property values and tax revenue. "Take out the word museum, and just run the numbers on the number of visitors and the amount of money it generated," Bosley says. Daniel Bosley, of North Adams, got behind it by shepherding unprecedented legislation that would direct $35 million toward the project. The small town of North Adams is an unlikely home to one of the world's largest contemporary art museums. The contemporary art museum offered a promise to revitalize North Adams. Thousands of jobs disappeared, devastating the town. It was unlikely because the town was reeling after the Sprague Electric Company closed in 1985. "It was not the most likely of places for this." "It was an absurd idea to build a very large institution devoted to contemporary art in North Adams," he says. Museum Director Joseph Thompson says the location raised eyebrows from the beginning. The pretty, but gritty former mill town is off-the-beaten-path, in the northwestern corner of the state, hours from any major metropolitan area. ![]() Standing in MASS MoCA's exposed brick lobby, you can sense the ghost of North Adams' industrial past. ![]() Its doors opened 10 year ago this summer in North Adams, a working-class town in the Berkshires. MASS MoCA, as its known, is located in an old electric factory compound. The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art is one of them, and it is enormous: 400,000 square feet total, with 150,000 square feet of gallery space. There are few museums in the world with enough space to exhibit a giant musical instrument made of 13 inflatable bags, each the size of a school bus. Facebook Email Jodi Joseph, retail manager for MASS MoCA, says she never would have stayed in her home town of North Adams if it weren't for the contemporary art museum. ![]()
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