Transcendentally trendy

19th Century mill buildings in Haydenville, Mass.

‘— Photo by Magicpiano

“I live right here in the heart of New England...and I have to say that things are very good here. Just yesterday I walked down Main Street. The soap store, the candle store, the balloon store were all full of customers. The sticker store,, too…Brisk business at the Juice Bar, with a new item featured: fresh wheatgrass juice.’’

— Richard Todd (1940-2019), in “Notes from the Transcendental Valley,’’ in the February 1987 issue of New England Monthly, a defunct magazine based in Haydenville, Mass., (a village in Williamsburg), in the Connecticut River Valley, from 1984 to 1990. Mr. Todd was an editor at The Atlantic.

1887 map