Greenfield, MA (May 2025)
Today I visited Greenfield, Massachusetts, a small city in rural Franklin County. Franklin County generally, and Greenfield specifically, is known for its "hippie" culture and liberal politics, and sure enough it's probably the only place I've ever been where you can find farmers flying Palestinian flags out of the back of their pickup trucks (sadly I didn't get a picture; although, given the current administration's approach to pro-Palestine expressions this is probably for the best).
Montague Bookmill
Before I went to Greenfield, however, I stopped by the Montague Bookmill. Compared to some of the other used bookstores I've been to recently in southern New England (Raven Used Books, Niantic Book Barn, Paper Nautilus) it has a somewhat disappointingly limited selection of history titles, but the location itself is gorgeous and it's a great place to spend a morning and get breakfast (a small cafe, Lady Killigrew, shares the building).
Greenfield Main St.
The city was apparently celebrating its annual "Bee Festival" when I arrived, a delightful custom apparently in honor of Lorenzo Langstroth, "the father of modern bee-keeping." Whatever that means!
Downtown is pretty cute and has a lot of local restaurants, antique stores, art shops, etc. I had a "non-GMO" breakfast burrito and overpriced coffee with almond milk at one of the local brunch spots (when in Rome et cetera).
Main St. miscellaneous
Street art
Note: the graffito in the last photo says "Act gay in public."
Other bookstores
There's two other bookstores in town, Federal Street Books and Roundabout Books. Technically these are mixed bookstores (used and new), but they have substantial used selections so I checked them out. Federal Street Books is pretty small and I didn't get anything, while I picked up a couple titles from Roundabout Books.
Bugs
