I’ve fallen for Bellows Falls, Vt.

In 2000, Bellows Falls, another bleeding old mill town in New England, did something different.

It took a decaying old block down by the canal and turned it into an artists block – free rent for about a dozen artists and plenty of vacant stories for studios.

The block has more character and feeling than most big cities have in their entirety.

Bellows Falls has mysterious tunnels and tracks that run along the falls, and because it got so poor, the best buildings and houses are still standing. May they stand forever.

Industrial America was cocky, busy, and tough, and the architecture reflects a place that works, not a place that sells stocks.

In the 1800s, they used to pick up boats at one end of town and carry them to the other end on the way North because the water stopped.

Then, they built a canal so the boats could float through.

Then they built a railroad that runs right underneath the town’s main square. This is not a town that quits. It is unstoppable and working hard on another comeback.

It is now defining itself as a hipper, more artistic place, but if you go into the thrift store downtown or walk down some of the mill worker streets, you’ll see that there is plenty of old Bellows Falls left.

The canal is still working; it’s become an electric power source.

Bellows Falls has a lot of history. Before it became a mill and trading down, it was an important fishing spot on the Connecticut river for the nomadic Abenaki tribes, part of the Algonquian family.

Before the Europeans came, the Abenaki caught salmon and shad and had fished at the falls for thousands of years.

This is a tough and resilient place with a very rich history. Maria and I went there on Friday and had lunch.

I loved it so much we went back again on Saturday. I wouldn’t use the term charming exactly; it reminds me of the Tenderloin district in Manhatten before the hedge fund people got hold of it. Lots of wonderful buildings still standing, all kinds of new people moving into them.

We know Bellow Falls. We each got several tattoos there five or six years ago. But we never really explored the art block before.

I couldn’t get enough of the industrial mill architecture that gave the town – and America – so much feeling.

Since the pandemic, the town is changing;  people from New York City are paying cash for farms and houses and moving north in a panic.

I hope they don’t wreck it like they wrecked New York.

The artist block has taken hold; we stopped in at the Canal Street Callery on one end of the block. To get in, you have to call Mike Noyes, an artist who made a living for a while as a house chef on  Cape Cod.

Like so many other Cape Card artists, he fled to Vermont. I think he got there just in time.

To get into the gallery, you have to call Mike on his cell phone, and he comes down from his apartment somewhere above the gallery. He is a gifted artist in his own right and seems to be a Godaddy to the other artists living on the block.

Bellows Falls has been struggling for a century or more, but there are plenty of signs of life.

I so loved the thin wooden structures on the main street that I bought a painting of a Bellows Falls canal house, 58 Canal Street #7 by Nancy Fitz-Repalje.

Her painting captured the feel of industrial architecture and this very scrawny and spunky working-class town.

Industrial architecture is my favorite,  a style I have always loved and never managed to live in. I have a good feeling about Bellows Falls; every place has its time.

Walking around there, I felt Bellows Fall’s time is just about here, riding in one on of those canal boats or trains that run below the town. We walked up and town the art block peering into the old store windows, now galleries of a dozen different kinds and styles.

I admire people like Mike Noyes and the pioneers of the art block. They take risks, gamble on their creativity.  He talked about the artists in the gallery, their quirks and moods, and stubbornness.

Clearly, he loves them.

He and I talked briefly about being a writer and being an artist. “You just can’t help it,” he said,  “you have no choice.”

Amen brother.