Squad Goals
“ALL OF THIS is brand new,” says Alex Morse, the 30-year-old mayor of Holyoke, Massachusetts. He’s waving a tattooed arm in the direction of several dozen brick factories and warehouses, towering vestiges of this former mill town’s once-thriving paper industry. They appear largely vacant and in various states of disrepair, yet as we enter what was once the Judd Paper Company, his point becomes clear. The building now houses a trendy bistro, an art gallery, an events venue, and an airy co-working space that Morse is using to prepare for a primary challenge to one of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s close allies, a powerful Democrat named Richard Neal.
More than half of the city’s old warehouse space has
