Fire destroys an Amherst tradition

Drug Store News, Jan 22, 1990

Fire destroys an Amherst tradition

AMHERST, Mass. - Many Amherst College students paused to read the sign on the door. It began, "To all our loyal friends and customers: It is with great difficulty that we have reached a decision not to reopen College Drug Store."

The sign went on to note that the drug store had served Amherst since 1910; that it was "truly an old-fashioned neighborhood drug store," with a soda fountain that later gave way to cosmetics; and that it was among the first pharmacies in the state to computerize. The message was signed, "John and Kate Hersey."

Kate Hersey's grandfather, William McGrath, bought the business 79 years ago. Her father, William McGrath Jr., took over in the 1930s, and in 1954, moved the business to its current corner location.

"I don't even like to come in here anymore," said pharmacist John Hersey as he picked his way past the debris and empty shelves - about all that's left in the store after a fire spread from the shoe shop next door on Nov. 4.

"The computer was running, and it just sucked in the heat and smoke," Hersey recalls.

Hersey had a full cellar of inventory, and the insurance company sent the salvagers in within three or four days. "Everything went," he said.

Then the state came in: "We sealed all the boxes, and $60,000 worth of drugs went to the landfill."

But the coup de grace for the Herseys was a state law requiring that they install an elevator to accommodate the handicapped as part of renovations. The elevator would have to be installed at the rear of the store, where the pharmacy area is. "That would make the store one-third smaller, and you can't survive with a store that small." When Hersey looked elsewhere to relocate, he found rentals had skyrocketed to $25 a square foot and up.

That spelled the end for College Drug Store, the last independent in town, and with it, a part of Amherst's history. "Prince Rainier of Monaco was one of our customers when he was a student at Amherst," Hersey said.

Robert Frost, who lectured at Amherst, was also a customer.

The Herseys have an old leatherbound book of prescriptions that were pasted down on the pages. "We know [Amherst poet] Emily Dickinson's prescriptions are in there, but the prescriptions don't include names," Hersey said. Dickinson scholars used to ask to look through the book, "to see if they could find a clue to what she died of."

Right after Labor Day was the busiest time of the year, with 30,000 students showing up on campuses. (The University of Massachusetts and Hampshire College are also in Amherst.) "You had about seven days to educate them on where to buy," he said.

But that's history. Now Hersey, 41, plans to become a hospital pharmacist.

PHOTO : John Hersey, pharmacist, in front of College Drug Store, Amherst, Mass., which he and his wife decided not to reopen after a fire struck in November.