Campus

The Conway School Campus

The Conway School operates out of the first floor of a renovated historic Coach House in the Village Hill neighborhood of Northampton, Massachusetts.

Take a virtual tour of the Coach House space provided by D.A. Sullivan & Sons, the contracting and construction management firm that completed the building renovations.

Our campus is about a mile from downtown Northampton, and surrounded by conserved woodlands, farmland, and a large community garden.

From the campus, students and faculty can easily access, by foot, bicycle, or by a short drive, a diversity of designed and natural spaces for educational purposes: riparian corridors and wetlands, public parks with green infrastructure, both traditional and urban agriculture, suburban residential settlements, rail-trail bike path conversions, and conserved wild lands.

Our new home is:

  • Within 300 feet of an electric-assist bike share station
  • 0.2 miles from a bus stop for the local public bus network (PVTA)
  • 0.4 miles from a separated bike path, part of a network of rail trails extending into Amherst and Easthampton
  • 1 mile from downtown Northampton, which contains grocery stores, shops, weekly farmers markets, pharmacies, and other amenities
  • 1 mile from a regional bus hub connecting Northampton to Boston, New York City, and other metropolitan areas
  • 1.5 miles from a train station providing access to Amtrak trains (bringing passengers to New Haven [CT], New York City, and Burlington [VT])

At the same time, a trail leads from the Coach House down to the Mill River Greenway, and a conservation area with multiple trails is a short walk away. The building is within walking and biking distance of residential neighborhoods and of the downtown.

Downtown Northampton is about a mile from our new home, and the Mill River, a 13.5-mile-long tributary of the Connecticut River, is about a half mile away.

The Coach House is embedded within a vibrant community. The City of Northampton is home to around 30,000 people, and its population is known for social and environmental advocacy. As Conway School board member board member Bill Dwight, who is Councilor at-Large in Northampton, says, “The Conway School’s ethos conforms with the City of Northampton’s vision for a sustainable, livable and vital city.”

The downtown area, located just east of the Coach House, forms the heart of the city; historic Main Street buildings are home to restaurants, stores, churches, apartments, and offices. The newly redesigned Pulaski Park symbolizes the city’s character, with sustainable stormwater features (bioswales), industrial materials (a nod to the city’s history as a mill town), and movable chairs accommodating spontaneous interactions among residents and visitors. The city also recently redesigned a major vehicular corridor, Pleasant Street, using Complete Streets principles, making it safer for pedestrians and bicyclists.

At left, Conway alum and climate change activist Madeleine Charney ’03 in downtown Northampton’s recently redesigned Pulaski Park; at right, a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest on the steps of Northampton’s City Hall in summer 2017 (photo used with permission from Only in Northampton Facebook group).

Read more about our new home here:

> Conway School’s Commitment to Environmental and Social Sustainability