Lanesborough, Massachusetts

Roasted 2w ago36 views36 pts

We're sorry. Actually, no we're not.

HISTORY

A town whose famous son died in 1885

Lanesborough's greatest cultural export is Josh Billings, a 19th-century humorist who wrote in deliberately misspelled dialect and was once compared to Mark Twain. The town never produced another funny person, which tracks, because the current municipal vibe is an open town meeting about culverts. The 'Mark Twain rival' has been dead longer than most of your septic systems have been legal.

GEOGRAPHY

Your whole personality is 'gateway to someone else's mountain'

The town's official brand is 'Gateway to Greylock,' which is the municipal equivalent of being the lobby of a building. Tourists pass through Lanesborough on Route 7 specifically to be somewhere else, and the summit of Greylock is technically in Adams, so you don't even get to own the peak. Pittsfield sits right on your southern border, which is a polite way of saying you're the quiet part of the commute.

FOOD

The fine dining scene peaks at 'olde' spelled wrong

Your culinary crown jewel is a pub where the wings are the headline act and the praise tops out at 'extra crispy.' The competition is a country kitchen, Krispy Cones, and a pizza house, so the food scene is basically carbs with a zip code. When the most exciting thing on the list is a lodge on a mountain where you eat family-style with strangers, you aren't a foodie town, you're a hostage situation with gravy.

VIBES

3,000 people and an economy built on a dying mall

Lanesborough has almost no industry, so residents commute to neighboring towns to earn money, then come home to a town whose retail legacy is the Berkshire Mall, a shopping-center corpse you still give directions by. The town's economic development plan is 'agritourism,' which is Latin for 'please come pick our apples, we are begging.' Your most thrilling nightlife is a motel and a tourist asking where the Dunkin' is.