Good afternoon and welcome to,
"The Now and There Asks
conversation series."
I'm Kate Gilbert, I use,
"she her" as my pronouns
and I'm the Executive
Director of Now and There.
I'll be moderating our conversation
and today is our sixth of eight sessions
of Now + There asks, where
we ask Boston communities,
"What does your neighborhood
need right now?"
Today's session brings us to Allston.
Also referred to as Brock city,
rat city, little Cambridge,
maybe someday art city.
Today we're excited to have with us
local artists, Ross Miller,
Executive Director of
Allston village Main Streets,
Alex Cornacchini and Christine Le Dale.
Oh my gosh, I totally
got it wrong, Le Dela.
Can you help me out?
Varriale.
Varriale.
Varriale, from Allston Pudding, Varriale.
Before we formally begin,
I'd like to acknowledge
that while I'm standing here
today in Boston, Massachusetts,
on the unceded land of
the Massachusetts people.
And as we talk about Allston today,
we acknowledge the Massachuset people
past, present and future.
This program has been
created to offer a supportive
and proactive space for
artists, cultural producers,
community leaders, the public, all of you,
all of us, in the face
of physical distancing and public retreat.
We aim to bring together all
of you to open up a dialogue
about what's happening right
now in Boston's neighborhoods,
to be better listeners
and encourage action.
We'll start with a 30 minute conversation
that I'll moderate, followed by 30 minutes
of community dialogue with you,
moderated by Mary Liz Murray.
And we wanna include your voices.
So as questions come up,
please add them to the Q and A feature
and let Mary Liz know if you
wanna ask your question live
we'd really like to
get your voice on live.
If not, she will ask the question for you.
And I see some chat going on,
please make sure to use the
chat or you don't have to,
but we'd love to you to use the chat,
to share your thoughts,
your reactions, snaps,
thumbs up, links, other things
that you wanna contribute
to the conversation
and to connect with one another.
Please make sure that
the chat you selected
all panelists and attendees,
so that everyone hears
your response, not just
those on the screen.
So let's get started
with the tough question
of what does Allston need right now?
And a quick introduction to our guests.
Ross Miller is an artist
who works to integrate art
into public places and
everyday experiences.
Ross earned his Bachelor's
Degree at Harvard University
and would later go on to become
a Leob fellow at Harvard University
You might recognize his
twinkling winter lights.
They go up every year around the city,
especially in downtown crossing.
He's work Harbor Fog and
the Rose Kennedy Greenway
or from the annual installation
of his ancient history or
project on the Boston Common.
Which seeks to expand the
time frame of history,
told in Boston's public spaces
and honor the memory of Boston's
early native inhabitants.
Christine Varela, I'm close,
is the Editor in Chief at Allston Pudding.
A blog for Boston music aficionados.
Christine received her Bachelor of Science
from Bentley University,
and went on to begin writing
for Allston Pudding shortly after.
In 2015, she was made Editor in Chief
of the online publication.
Allston Pudding is operated and written
by fans and musicians, to
highlight new and live music
in Boston and throughout the globe.
They seek to champion local
artists wherever they may be,
who may not receive a proper
radio play or publicity,
but definitely deserve your attention.
Last but not least, Alex Cornachinni,
has served as the Executive Director
of Allston village Main
Streets, since August of 2019.
I'm sure you've seen a
lot of change since then.
Alex is a graduate of American University,
with experience in community outreach,
neighborhood revitalization
and program development.
Alex enjoys doing outside traveling
and meeting new people again,
probably harder to do in these days.
And just for background,
Allston Village Main Streets,
is one of the 20 main streets
organizations in Boston,
that works with the community
and local businesses
to create, build and sustain
healthy commercial districts
by creating programs
that foster economic
and social development.
So let's dive in, thank you guys again
for being part of this
and showing up here for,
"Now and There Asks."
This is our six sessions so far,
and what I'm observing, Allston is facing,
it's the same as many of
the other neighborhoods
we've been exploring in this series.
In particular,
gentrification and increased
real estate prices, that are driving out
our small independent
stores and cultural venues.
For Christine and Ross,
you both have very
different art forms and ways
that you support the art
forms that you're in.
How is what you're doing changing
because of these economic pressures
and maybe amplified because of COVID?
What can we do now to keep art
as a vital part of Allston?
And Christine, why don't we start with you
if you're game for that?
Always game, I think a lot
of the immediate issues about
art right now in Allston,
are related to COVID.
So, a lot of what we do at Allston Pudding
is around live shows and
those can't happen right now.
And we don't exactly know
when they can come back.
We're sort of trying to
figure out how we keep
our music community together while apart.
We've done a lot of live streams
and done what we can to
uplift the voices of people
who need the most help
right now, a lot of that.
And then like Kate
mentioned, gentrification
and greedy developers are
also a huge part in this.
We just lost Great Scott in Allston,
which is a long time music venue and
is a pivotal part of our music scene.
Places like Cantab
Lounge in Central Square.
And like how much of the
development that's going up
isn't built for people
like myself and musicians
and artists that are in our
neighborhood to live in,
because we can't afford it.
I'll let Ross go now.
Most of my work is public
art in physical places
and often takes years and years to do.
In Allston where my studio is,
partly because it was a great place
to find a studio 20 years
ago and years before that,
I was in a rental space on Rug Road.
My work in the neighborhood has been both
with the school yard initiative,
designing outdoor classrooms
and using sculptural pieces
as part of the school
yard and how you get kids
learning to take place outside.
And I've done a number of projects
with the Harvard Ed Portal with again,
students at High schools,
things like that.
And I'm not necessarily trying to advocate
for that whole practice of working
with students or working with kids.
But I have a couple of projects
I've been involved with
I think that do speak to the
voice of a new generation
of Allston youth and
Kate, maybe we could show
some of those later on.
I'm also fascinated because, public art is
being used in Allston, sometimes
paid for by developers,
sometimes paid for by Harvard,
as a way of having a
little mitigation for the
very large things they're doing.
This is a project that I did,
actually sponsored by Ed Portal.
It was just after one of
the schools shootings.
So this is one of the
banners that kids made.
We took existing banners for
other events and we re-primed
them with white paint
and then painted them.
And the kids really express themselves.
It doesn't matter if I'm happy,
there were very poignant projects.
I was pretty excited, Harvard has been
the big Allston in Allston,
but Harvard actually
sponsored that project
which was kind of awesome.
But it didn't happen this year,
the outdoor classroom stuff
didn't happen this year.
The school yard stuff
didn't happen this year.
One thing that did happen,
some artists and other people developed
the whole pollinator garden,
along Everett Street.
So there are lots of
little things happening,
which aren't exactly actually
art work in the traditional way,
but maybe in the way that Joseph Beuys,
who was a artist who came out
of the second world war Germany,
when German artists were
feeling both the guilt
of the second world war
and the stress of it.
And he developed the
idea of social sculpture.
And social sculpture is something that
actually has values placed in the work.
So it might not look like an artwork
that you see on the wall, but
it's a making of something
in a physical place, that
combines craft, values
and the people in that area.
I'm hoping to, in some
ways, work in that tradition
rather than other
traditions in public art.
Christine I wanna just
kick it back over to you,
if there are any new experimental forms
that you're seeing, and yes
we're all sort of doing online Zoom.
Does that work in a
recording or musical fashion?
I feel like I've seen
just a lot of people
are giving themselves more room
for experimentation in their music,
because they're home alone,
they're not necessarily doing it
to perform for other people.
A lot of the have music
that I've heard coming out
of these self isolating times these days,
is a lot more personal.
Some of it is a lot more political as well
with the uprisings going around
the country around police
brutality and racism.
I've seen a lot of great
stuff come from that
and a lot of people band together more,
even though we're physically apart
to work together for the greater good.
I've seen a lot of that and
still comes a lot of people
who are this time, especially artists
take a moment to heal and listen
and this experimentation
that's happening right now,
I think could be pretty fruitful.
Alex, moving it over to you now.
As a Main Street's public art
or art, isn't necessarily part
of what you're doing, but I'm
curious if you think that.
Why don't you tell us a
little bit about the work
that you're doing around the issues
of gentrification and
support for small businesses.
And then if you want,is
art part of your mission?
Thanks everyone for coming,
glad to see all of you.
The mission of Allston
Village Main Streets,
since its inception in '96,
has been to work together to make Allston
a safe, thriving, friendly
business districts.
To promote the area,
make it cleaner, greener,
and more pedestrian oriented
and to help foster cooperation.
A large part of what we work towards
is promoting the physical
and cultural vitality
of the neighborhood.
We've always acted as a support
for local artists and entrepreneurs.
We've had a number of public and private
art projects and events spaces.
I'm not sure if you guys
remember Pop Allston,
but back in 2015, before
I joint we partnered with
a number of local businesses
and local organizations
to build a indoor skate park that featured
a vintage clothing market and bike shop.
While also making it a community space
for popup theater
production and performances.
Currently, we're actually
looking for 10 local artists
to paint 10 utility boxes
in the neighborhood.
Put up murals on the neighborhood.
And we're currently actually working
with Ross here and another
local artist, Tim Kadish,
to install 16 artistic
permanent light fixtures
on poles, right on Harvard App.
I see AVMS as kind of the
facilitator there of art projects.
We look for grants
opportunities, find local artists
that are willing and interested
in working on projects.
And we work with city departments
to get permits and pull
permits, and get approvals
and kind of really do the
behind the scenes work,
so that these projects can be successful.
Technically, we work for
the local businesses,
making the area more
viable and more attractive.
Businesses wanna stay here and people
wanna come live and work and play here.
But a large part of the vibrancy
of the neighborhood is
these design projects.
With these, the lighting projects,
we've hired local artists to paint mural
we're doing a utility box project.
These are all not exactly the main focus
of our organization,
but it's one key feature
of our organization.
Ross, can I kick it over to you?
You and I have talked in the past about
our skepticism around public art at times.
And you've given us some examples of works
that aren't sanctioned necessarily.
And what they've done to highlight
who Allston is right now.
Can you give us some of those again
or for those who weren't on the pre-call
your opinions on all this?
Maybe you shaped the
question a little more
I'm trying to think of what.
Examples of non sanctioned public art
that didn't come out of Alex's office or
Now and There, or city.
You wanna pop up the thing, those ones.
There was a project that
was done on the Greenway
that was paid for by the
Greenway Conservancy.
They have a whole public art program
and after it was the Greenway,
they never had a place to put it.
So they moved it to a fence
along Everett Street Allston
and it never made much
sense to the neighborhood,
And nobody was really asked
about, why to put it there?
But it's a series of
letters that are bolted
onto a chain link fence,
and they're not easy
to put on or put off.
'Cause you have to be in
a new side of the fence,
you have to have wrenches and
bolts and things like that.
And it sat there for about a year.
And then, a couple of
activists in the neighborhood,
who were really more bicycle activists
they just started hacking that
existing piece of public art.
Go to the middle one.
That's what it looked like
when it was first put up.
And then, the third photograph down,
that was the first hack to it.
"Rats r ppl 2."
And then just about three weeks ago,
the top one, the same
letters were morphed.
And so, you actually have
to have somebody on one side
of the fence, and the other
side of the fence and do this.
So it's actually kind
of exciting when things
that are just there, almost
like this kid of parts
and people are playing with.
I think that's kind of the
spirit of a certain level
of the Allston neighborhood.
And it's still inexpensive enough
that people can live in a
group house and not have
to spend all their time
making their living
and do things like this.
They're also projects where, because it is
a student neighborhood and
be used down the street
and Boston Colleges like
that, the Universities do
put a little bit of money into public art,
but also that sometimes
teachers or universities,
send their students in to do something.
And this is in a little
park along Franklin Street,
where students did this
decorative project.
I'm not against decoration
but they actually
didn't talk to anybody
in the neighborhood.
They just did it and partly
because they just did it,
the neighborhood was going
like, "What is this?"
It has no meaning, and
why are these marks there?
They finally got ahold of the local rep
and got ahold of the
Public Works Department.
And two guys from the
Public Works Department,
spent a day power washing this off.
I think when something is
a meaningless (laughing)
people in the neighborhood also say,
"Hey, we don't want
that meaningless thing."
Whereas those letters, that
now say, "Black lives matters"
and for a while said,
"Rats are people too."
Have been there and they're fine.
And they're a little bit
more graffiti on them,
but they're actually cared
for by the neighborhoods.
There are a lot of these
little mini barometers,
which are flexible public art projects,
that I'm really excited to be
in a neighborhood that has that.
It's a working class neighborhood,
it's a middle class neighborhood.
In many ways, the artists are
also middle class artists.
They're people that either
have gotten out of school,
recently, mass art or museum school
and moving the neighborhood
or artists who've
been there for a long time.
It doesn't really represent
a big class diversity per se.
And doesn't really represent
a lot of ethnic diversity
per se, in the maker community,
in the artists maker community.
But I think that community is concerned
about the larger culture
and in some good ways.
Given that I guess middle-class nature
of the number of the artists that I know,
visual artists, not musical
artists, but visual artists.
Are recognizing, this
is a crazy pandemic time
for a lot of people.
But themselves are
actually, hate to say it,
kind of enjoying it
because they're reclusive.
They don't necessarily like
to interact with people a lot
they like to be in their studio working.
In many ways there's less
stress to be out and do things.
I think that it's a very
creative time right now
for artists who've been working
for home their entire life.
And right now it's kind of,
they don't have to feel bad about it.
They actually feel more entitled to do it.
They can do their work (giggling)
The other thing that I've observed
is maybe because of the student body
and I just found a statistic this morning,
I think it's 78% of Allston residents.
And this might be from 2015,
are between the ages of 18 and 34.
And I see a lot of
activism that's happening.
And maybe Christine, you can fill us in on
some of the many groups that
you've been working with
and where they're being
successful and where they are not.
I can pull up some links to
them as you, as you talk.
For now I'm still in that group, yes
the 18, the 34 (laughing)
Got a few more years.
Do you mean like civic
groups or art groups?
The civic groups that
you're involved with?
Got it, I'm a voting member
of the Allston Civic Association.
Which is a great neighborhood group,
that sort of encompasses
people of all walks of life
in the Allston neighborhood.
We meet once a month and
developers who have projects,
whether it's commercial or
residential, or a restaurant,
a liquor store, et cetera.
We'll come to the meeting
and present as a way
to get support from the neighborhood,
before they go to places like
the Zoning Board of Appeal,
or the Boston Civic Design Committee.
I'm not sure if I actually
got the acronym right,
but it's definitely BCDC.
It's a good opportunity
to get your voice heard
by these developers, to make sure that
those developments fit in what you believe
the future of our
neighborhoods should look like.
There's not very many
young people in the group
and myself and some other of my friends,
have worked really hard to try
to get those numbers of younger people,
people of color, et cetera,
involved in those conversations.
Because there's definitely a lack
of those voices in the room.
That's a big group that I'm part of,
that I love being a part of.
I also am a member of artists impact,
which is an Artists Civic Group
that some friends of mine
started about two years ago.
We specifically focus on
those same developer aspects,
but through the lens of working
artists in our neighborhood.
And you guys are working on
some impact guidelines right?
Is there anything that you
can sneak out leak to us?
We are trying to help the
city with some guidelines,
but I wouldn't say that we have the power
to change them just on our own.
But we do have connections to
the city and BPDA et cetera,
that we can voice our
ideas to, to help them.
We talk as small groups
with different developers
to help them become more artists friendly,
I guess I would say.
A lot of that focuses foremost
on the affordability of the building.
Most of the stuff that
gets proposed in Allston,
isn't affordable to your
regular working class artists.
I think I saw Ethan
posts the median income
of the neighborhood in the chat.
That's pretty spot on for
what an artist would make,
who lives in this neighborhood.
I'm pushing to get apartments
that they can actually afford
in those buildings is the highest win.
And then on top of that
can we get them to commit
to live workspace?
Something that somebody
like Ross could use,
where they don't have
to pay the extra money
to get a studio when they could have
a large enough apartment,
with all of the stuff that they would need
to work like in their home.
Right, let's face it,
you can't work and live
in any space in Boston anymore.
Yeah.
I was down there and lower
Allston slash Brighton,
off of Western Avenue in 1999.
And the house was for
sale for $220,000 a full.
Sounds like a deal.
That would be over 600,000 now.
I wonder, there was
something you said about,
we don't have the power.
You didn't quite say that.
But I was on the phone with
some city officials yesterday
and they reminded me that we elect them.
And we do have power and we need to vote
and we need to call the
BPDA and ask who's sitting
there and how old they are and
what their ethnicities are.
I know you guys have strong
city council representation too.
Liz Brayden's a good
advocate for the arts
and I know her from
Affordable Housing Advocacy
that we've worked on together.
I'm always picking her brain
with my ideas and stuff.
And it's nice to have that
really open communication
with her and other city councilors
and state reps, et cetera.
Great, we're not gonna stop development.
This is the world that keeps moving along.
There was something
that you guys brought up
at our last call, thinking about,
and I experienced this
when I was at the Greenway,
a luxury condo comes in and
it's in front of an open space
or it's across a bar from
a bar that's been there
or a music venue for ages and ages.
Alex, can you remind me the name
of the change agent or
something like that?
There's the Agent of change policy.
And I think Christine brought it up
she might be more
adopted at discussing it.
But I think, with all of
these new developments
and kind of higher income
level apartment buildings
and condos coming into Allston,
we need to think about
preserving the establishments
that have been here for 10, 20, 30 years.
For example, if there
was a new development
right across from,
let's say the model down
in Union Square and
lower in Allston Village.
And they didn't like
the fact that the model
was operating until 2:00am,
people from a more higher
income bracket would be able to,
complain to Zoning Boards,
complain to city officials
and kind of get them to change their ways.
It's agent of change policy would kind of,
let these already established institutions
be preserved and how they do business.
So last question, before
we kick it over to Q and A
and bring in audience
and participant voices.
Again, going back to the
statistics, Allston has a lot of,
different ethnicities, It's
still predominantly white
in the last BPDA 2015 publication
showed 57% white, 20% Asian, 13% Hispanic,
5% African American and 5% other.
I'd love to hear how you guys are,
and you can answer this
in any way you want.
Either individually or as your business,
or as a collective
reconciling, responding to,
and otherwise, recognizing
the inequalities
that keep black and
brown artists from having
the same experiences that us
as white facing presenting
artists have had especially
those in Allston.
Anyone can start this off.
I often hire people
part-time seasonally to work
on things and I've
actually gone out of my way
different times to have African American,
Indian, continent of India
and Hispanic artists.
When I have a choice of people to bring in
to the studio with it.
It's very small that's just a little bit
of stuff of hiring people.
If I can zoom back for
a second to Christine,
I just like to say, that
what Christine is talking
about in terms of its
advocacy and being on
the Allston Civic Association Board,
and all that sort of stuff is,
is really essential and fantastic.
Thank you, Christine.
My concern is, this stuff
is happening so fast.
How do we act on sovereign urgency?
Because this really is
an urgency to deal with
these buildings, because there's,
you go to these Allston
Civic Association meetings,
and there's the architect,
a developer, a lawyer,
their PR person, and actually
in the audience of the room,
they're members of their legal team.
And it's really out numbering.
In some ways going on to Zoom
meetings has been better,
because more people are able to show up
and the chat bar of
some of these meetings,
rather than whispering into
your neighbor and saying,
what's going on with this guy?
The chat bar has all that
stuff in it, and it's recorded.
I think actually Zoom is really helping,
otherwise unheard voices get
a little bit more stature
in things like the
Allston Civic Association.
It seems like a new kind of democracies.
I'm excited about that
but I would really like
to just try to figure out
how we can all kind of,
embody the urgency of
some of these issues.
Doing more now is going to be better than
doing less two years from now
or more two years from now.
They're urgent things, and I think
there's a time to be creative in a way
that doesn't trash development,
but really looks at quality of life.
This is American in time.
I also wanna piggyback
on that and double down
on the urgency of this.
I know that Allston village
isn't as developed as of yet,
as a lower Allston, but
I think I counted it
a few months ago.
And there was 17 projects in
various stages of development,
in and around the Allston
Village neighborhood.
In the next five, 10 years we're gonna see
this place changed dramatically.
And one of the things
that I was most impressed
about the neighborhood, is the amount
of advocacy and groups and committees
that there already were
in the neighborhood.
Dedicated to preserving the
arts in the neighborhood.
Working toward to better
the transportation
in the neighborhood.
I sit on the transportation
committee that's run
by Anna Leslie from
the Allston Brighton Health
Collaborative, quick shout out.
She's been amazing at organizing people
and getting people involved.
And ever since Mid-March
COVID actually started,
we've been having neighborhood discussions
and resource sharing with
at least 25 different organizations
within the Allston Brighton community.
What do people need?
What resources do people have?
What challenges are we facing?
What can we do together?
The more people get involved
and the more people sit on the ACA
and more people go to
transportation committee meetings,
and the more people get
involved in IAG meetings
for specific developments,
that's where we can really
lead the conversation.
I think IAG should be voting.
Everyone shouldn't have to not voting.
Jury duty, everyone should have to do it.
Exactly.
Christine.
Christine, I wanna give the
last couple of minutes to you.
And then Mary Liz is
gonna come on for Q and A.
Just to keep that those ideas rolling,
piggyback some more.
The BPDA put or Boston
Planning Development Agency,
in case anyone on here isn't
aware of what they are.
They're the ones who
decide what gets built.
They put out a report a couple
of weeks ago, a week ago,
July 16th, so barely a week ago.
And it showed the approved
residential square
footage by neighborhood.
Just in 2019 alone.
Allston's was 1.3 million square feet.
It's higher than the sum of
the next three neighborhoods
of development which are underneath it.
Which is West Roxbury,
Fenway, and East Boston.
It's absurd, the amount of square foot
that has been approved
in our neighborhood.
And making sure that people
are at those meetings
is so important because
what are those 1.3 million
square feet gonna look like?
Who's going to be living there?
We need to make sure that our neighbors
can afford those things
that we are not pushing out
low-income immigrant neighbors
and their businesses.
'Cause that's a lot of what
Allston Village Main Street
does is support small businesses.
And we need to keep them here
because even though there
will be more people living
in the neighborhood,
what's our neighborhood gonna look like?
It's cool to live here
but if Great Scott closes,
Azama just got bought out by a new owner.
If all these different
businesses get bought out
and turned into condos,
there's nothing to do anymore.
There's no reason to stay here.
We need to have the people on
those impact advisory groups,
in those meetings to make
sure that our neighborhood,
stays vital and vibrant and exciting.
And just another thing, I
agree with Ross about having
the meetings on Zoom,
making it much more accessible
because a big thing that I
notice at these meetings is,
they're either people my age,
where we don't have
family responsibilities
because we don't have
families we're just young.
Or they're like older retired folks.
Again, don't have very much
family responsibilities.
There's very few people who
are working parents there
because they have to be at
home feeding their kids.
It's like how do we make these meetings
more accessible to those people
who can't afford the childcare
to go to the meetings?
Can we provide them food?
Can we provide them
childcare there for free?
Things like that would be awesome
for the city to look into.
And then in terms of personal
Allston Pudding stuff,
we've been having a lot of discussions
about making our staff more diverse.
Getting more diverse voices at the table.
We are majority white just
like our neighborhoods.
We're looking at ways that we can work
to better that to get more
diverse voices on our site
and continue to cover the various
diverse voices in our city.
Because there's a lot of great music
in the city and it's not just
the white indie rock
boys anymore (giggling)
So yeah that's me.
Just a quick one if I could.
I kinda like to do a little
bit of follow the money thing.
If there is this million plus square feet
of residential space having in Allston.
They're gonna be the
tax rolls are going up
the city is getting more
money from this part of town.
How can that money be sent back in
in a more equitable way into
different parts of Allston?
It's a no brainer if you
look at it economically.
The city is anxious and
actually there's I think
a big bias towards supporting
development in the city,
because they know it increases taxes.
And yet, the other costs of that are again
in the world of bias
and things just ignored.
I think we really need
that's part of the urgency.
It's like the city is getting
great benefit out of this,
and we need to direct how
that benefit comes back
into people who aren't at the table,
who don't have a voice,
who don't have a lawyer,
who don't have an
investment fund behind them.
And I'll take a little
bit of a consensus
to go back to the city to ask for
what those things are.
I think a lot of people in neighborhood
even the old time Irish neighbor,
they are interested in this.
They don't wanna get kicked
out or having their kids
not be able to live in the neighborhood.
And there's a lot of voices.
I think we also need to
leverage our universities
as another nonprofit or it's
more in our neighborhood too.
There's this thing called pilot,
for those who are unaware.
It's called Payment in lieu of taxes.
And it basically says that,
if you are a nonprofit organization
like a university or a hospital,
since you don't pay taxes,
you're supposed to put,
I think it's 25% of that
into community benefits.
So 12 and a half percent of
that goes towards things like,
trash pickup and other city services.
But the other 12 and a half percent,
is supposed to go towards the community.
And many of the universities.
We have Harvard, BU and BC
right in our neighborhood.
And none of them pay all of that.
They need to pay more,
they need to do better
to connect with the community.
I know they're trying,
but it's still not enough.
I would like to see our
universities do more.
Like Harvard bought out all this land
in lower Allston under
all these fake LLC names,
for beacon yards.
And if they don't build
substantially affordable housing there
we're all gonna be very upset.
I think pushing on our universities more
and helping them create
a better partnership
with their community with
their students themselves too,
would be super great.
Students are in such a
bubble at their universities
and it's like,how do we get
them to get those students
out in their neighborhoods?
Learning more about their community
and connecting more with the people
who have been living here for a while,
instead of just like the
four years that they're here.
This could be a great
place for incubating ideas
that could go around the country.
Really, it could be incredible
to take these opportunities
and these problems and turn
them into creative methods,
that could be modeled other places too.
But again, it's about the urgency
and holding all those
people's feet to the fire now.
I'd like to just let everybody know
that we're open for questions.
If you have questions
for any of the panelists,
you can submit them through Q and A
and we'll bring you into
the conversation live.
While we wait for some
questions to roll in.
One of the questions that is on my mind
and part of this conversation is,
as we're talking about
universities and how much
they should be investing
in the neighborhood?
and what they don't.
it's also a huge student
and recent grand population
in Allston, right?
But with pandemic, we're
looking at potentially seeing
a much smaller influx of those
students, this coming fall.
I know US and BC have both announced
that they're gonna hold
classes online right now,
but I think whether or
not they're actually
able to do that is still up for debate.
Alex, I'm gonna ask you this
question first actually,
'cause I think you're in
an interesting position to answer it.
As somebody who sits in
the business community
that serves students and residents,
longer term residents, people
who've been there a long time,
as well as less transient populations.
If students don't return
in the same numbers
they usually do in a fall,
what are the impacts
and some of the changes
that you're anticipating and how are
you planning for those things?
What do they mean for the other people
who live in your neighborhood?
That's a great question.
I think that's on the
back of everyone's mind.
A lot of the local businesses
in the Allston area,
cater directly to students.
And there's a lot of businesses that
immigrant run businesses
that catered towards
different sets of student population.
I'm really glad that
the White House's order
on the ban of students from
coming to the United States,
if they're taking online classes.
I'm glad that's gone 'cause
that would have been detrimental
to our local businesses.
While I've seen a decrease
in the amount of students
in the neighborhood, I do believe
that since Boston college,
maybe Boston university,
said they might bring students back.
Harvard's planning on bringing
around 40% of students back
and most students from
the business community.
I think it might be okay,
but it's still not gonna
be as populated with
students as we used to be.
And that means that a
lot of the businesses
won't have as many
customers as they used to.
We're trying to teach businesses
new ways to get customers.
So getting online, finding ways to do
virtual business and stuff like that.
We don't really know as of right now,
but it's definitely gonna be a big change.
Ross, I'm wondering from
the artist's perspective
and as somebody who's worked with students
and seeing the student art, having them,
what kind of changes you
think there are in terms
of neighborhood identity and
culture that could happen,
if students don't return in the same way?
And if you think that that
change is likely to be temporary
or is it possible never
seeing a longer term shift?
Now, in the particular little
lower Allston neighborhood
that I'm in, a lot of student leases
go from September to September.
So people have leases through September.
They kinda don't wanna go back
to where their parents are
or someplace else.
I think a lot of those
student or recent graduates
are still around,
musicians, artists who are
just getting going on things.
I haven't seen a real big
shift that way on the street,
in terms of who's walking down the street?
Who's riding their
bicycle down the street?
I guess the question is,
"what's gonna happen in September,
with those leases turning over?"
From just my conversations, I think a lot
of people wanna stay here.
They don't want to go someplace else.
It's a better place to shelter
in place than any place else.
If you come from some
other place in the country,
you still got your community around.
So I think...
If you can pay the rent.
Huh?
I said, if you can pay the rent.
Because lots of students who rent
or paying it on student loans.
Yeah absolutely.
I think September is gonna look
a lot different around here.
Not to mean Allston Christmas anymore.
(Christine laughing)
We need to slide that one in.
The governor extended
the eviction moratorium
through mid-October which is really great.
I think it should be extended further.
And there is a bill in
the state house right now
it's got rent stabilization,
it's got support for small landlords
and it also extends
the eviction moratorium
to one year after the emergency
declaration March, 2021.
Essential.
Very essential because
I know many friends
who are moving in September
because their lease is up
and they don't have a job.
It's kinda like, why stay
here if I'm not working?
And I know that a good amount of people
that are going to be in that same place
and I am worried about
people being evicted.
Anything we can do to
stop that is very good.
I think the whole city is
gonna see this impact, widely.
We'll see what happens.
But Allston in particular
is just so concentrated.
Had a couple of great
questions, come up in the chat.
One, there there's some
conversation going on
about what Harvard stake in
the neighborhood is right now.
And I do wanna say,
we've got some great people
from Harvard in the chat
who are doing some work
answering those questions.
But for those folks
you don't have somebody
from Harvard on the panel.
We can only speak to what the
impact is on the neighborhood.
But Christine, you might
have some information
exactly on how much of that,
that square footage of development
is slotted to Harvard,
if you wanted to share.
And if you don't, that's fine (giggling)
I don't think any of that
1.3 million square feet
in that chat that I mentioned is Havard.
Because most of the things that Harvard
is building right now
were approved before 2019.
And then, their upcoming
beacon yards project
that you should definitely keep an eye on.
Is still in the very,
very low planning stages.
I think they just found an architect,
end of last year, maybe.
I think that that's still very nascent.
But if you subscribe to the
Boston, the BPDS website,
you can select a neighborhood
and subscribe that way.
And then you get emails from
all of the different projects
that get announced in that neighborhood.
That's super helpful I'd that.
They send you all the information
about the various meetings
that you can attend,
how you can write comments, et cetera.
Definitely recommend doing that.
Harvard's Engineering
School is still being built.
They've recently opened the art lab,
which I don't know if it's open.
I've never seen anyone in it.
That's there Ed Portal has
been around for a while.
The Business School
obviously is in Allston,
the Harvard Athletic Complex.
They have a good chunk of lower Allston
and it's gonna continue to grow.
'Cause they also own a lot of land
that isn't specifically Harvard.
Pretty much all of Western
is owned by Harvard.
The land along the Charles
River where the plain fields
are and stuff like that.
The Harvard has a thousand
year lease on that land
from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
There'll be there for awhile.
Harvard's a complicated thing,
but individuals who have been
hired through the Ed Portal
or through other things, I
found incredibly responsive.
The Harvard flex fund,
which their $5 million fund,
to sort of do things in the community
has been going to the Gardner
School and playing seals.
I think it's about speaking
up and asking and being there.
And I think Harvard in the bigger picture,
how it all happened might
be the bad neighbor part,
but now that things are rolling
I think they've really been trying
to be thoughtful neighbors
and support community things in their way.
And there's kind of a DMZ
that they're not moving
over North Harvard Street.
There Harvard has a zone
which for the most part
wasn't otherwise being used
it was industrial or something like that.
They haven't really done that much.
They haven't done this
placement of people per se.
Some of that displacement was done before
in the sixties and seventies
by other developers.
But Harvard hasn't been responsible
for actual displacement of
housing units in a big scale,
the way some other universities have.
I wanna agree in that, there
are individuals from Harvard
that have been pretty instrumental
in promoting art and culture.
And the Harvard Ed
Portal, I've been working
with Falana Brown since I started.
Who's been amazing at
running a winter market
back in December.
They promote local
artists in their gallery,
and I've been working with
another man, Jim Barrows,
who works with the Economic
Development of Harvard,
to holds economic development workshops,
how to apply for grants,
how to get your business online,
tips for entrepreneurs, and all for free.
They've been pretty big about working with
the local community.
But that being said, they
are also have a big influence
in the neighborhood and
have a big influence
in making all lower
Allston a less affordable,
more expensive neighborhood.
When I look at all the
things that Harvard provides
for the Allston community.
They have job workshops,
they have the daycare things,
the Ed Portal elbows.
Why can't that happen in Dorchester?
Why when some ways, models
really good community
funding of things that is
completely lacking in Mattapan.
We're talking of Mattapan
next week (laughing)
It's heartbreaking, I have some people
who live in projects in Dorchester,
and I want to send them
over to the Ed Portal
in Allston to get job training.
There are some incredible
resources there that,
in some ways it'd be better if though,
rather than complaining
about what Harvard's
doing or not doing.
Just saying, "wow, this is great,"
How can this happen more places in Boston?
One of my favorite
things at the Ed Portal is,
their annual winter market.
I've had the pleasure to
help them with booking
some of the music for it before.
And it's great, and I
honestly wish it could happen
every single week year round.
Because it's so nice to give
artists and crafts people.
They mostly get them
from the neighborhood,
but I think there are
people from outside too.
And they get to sell their stuff
there's food trucks, there's music.
I wish that we had something
like that in Allston,
every week kinda like
a soar or bow market.
Something like that would be great
because you're taking craft artists
It feel are kind of
left outside of a lot of
artists conversations because
if it's not a painting,
people can sometimes misinterpret it
as something that's not art, but I don't.
I come from a family of jewelers
and I think jewelry is art.
I wonder if that's an opportunity to
the city is doing a public plan right now.
And I wonder if there's
everything is up in the air.
I wonder if that's an
opportunity to rethink public art
and craft markets can be part of that.
(mumbles) Pop Allston so much.
I also wish that have been permanent.
It was great to have like
a place to go every weekend
and be like, "oh, I'm gonna
go shop at the vintage market
and check out some band
that's playing behind it."
Go watch people's skateboard,
'cause I'm too old to start
skateboarding (laughing)
Just things like that.
For those who didn't
see it, Sarah Rodrigo
put a survey in the chat,
as they're working on this
cultural planets and public art.
I've attended a few of
those meetings with Civic Moxy
and they basically are
trying to get a feel,
kind of similar to this conversation.
Where they're trying to get a feel of
what they want the future
of Allston to look like
in terms of public art and
how we can best support
the art and see what artists
in the neighborhood need.
If the survey's still
open, definitely take it.
If you're an artist in the neighborhood
or somebody who is supportive
of the arts even so.
The interesting thing when you look
at what Harvard's done,
the winter market or the student projects,
and when we've done students,
we've always paid students to do art work.
Harvard's approach is often
very management intensive
because a very organized place.
But it takes a lot of
management as Kate knows,
it takes a lot of management
to do these projects
and a lot of other neighborhoods in Boston
don't have that management infrastructure
to advocate for themselves.
So I have
I see
I'm sorry, go ahead.
Nope, go ahead.
Well, I was gonna say, I see a question
in the chat that says,
"Why do you need to rely on Harvard
to create these services?"
And the answer is, "we really don't."
We do offer technical assistance workshops
for local businesses, run
through AVMs and by the city.
We have a restore program
where we provide grants
to local businesses to get
a storefront improvement,
get new signs.
We worked to hold annual
Allston open studios,
which showcases local artwork
in and around the Allston neighborhood.
There are organizations
us and other places
that do offer the same kind of
resources that Harvard does.
It's just that Harvard can offer
them on a much larger scale
because they have so many more resources.
t's not a question of we're
not doing it because Harvard's
doing it, is we are doing it,
but Harvard is doing it
at a much larger extent.
That brings me to my last question.
Before we wrap up and Alex, I'm
gonna throw it to you first,
but then I think we can
go around and answer it.
And just a couple things
like pick one and share it.
But I would love hear
from you especially Alex,
in your position as part of
the Main Streets Organization,
'cause there are, as Kate mentioned,
many main streets districts across Boston.
I'm sure that you are
in connection with a lot
of the folks who run the other ones.
What's something you
feel like you can learn
from another neighborhood in Boston
and that you're trying
to bring into Allston
or to apply to your model or
to apply to your practice?
And what's something you feel
like Allston has to share
or something that you've
learned working at Allston
to share with another neighborhood?
That's a great question.
It's true there's 20 main
street districts in Boston alone
and a dozen more in and
around the North shore area
and hundreds across the country.
And when I first started
I leaned pretty heavily
on the other main street directors
that have been there for
multiple different years.
And there they were all super helpful.
A lot of what we do is
run by one paid employee
and then dozens of volunteers.
The biggest thing that I was taught
is to expand and maintain a
really robust volunteer network,
because one person can't do everything.
It's up to multiple different people,
actually each carrying their own
each doing what they
said they were gonna do.
Each carrying some weight to
get projects off the ground.
I've learned that there are multiple ideas
that can start in someone's head.
But if you don't have the resources
and the community support behind you,
then it's virtually impossible.
One thing that Allston can
teach to other organizations
is how to advocate for
your community in terms
of large scale development.
I know that the Fenway-Kenmore
area has been developed
more than Allston, but
we are starting to see
the development process take place
before a lot of these other
main street districts.
If I could teach another
main street organization,
anything is to get involved
build up a coalition of
volunteers and people
that are dedicated to the community
and be part of starting the conversation
around development and around
what you would like your
neighborhood to look like.
Christine.
I think a big one for me
in another neighborhood is,
I'm a big fan of Dorchester art projects.
Which is a community,
they have a venue space,
and then they also have
artists studio spaces
in fields corner in Dorchester.
And I would love again, just
gushing about the things
that we could have here.
I would love something
like that in Allston.
It's like very community oriented.
They give back to their community a lot,
they prioritize the immediate
community around them
by uplifting Dorchester artists.
And they also have a gallery
space, I think I missed
that when I wasn't
originally talking about it.
I love the way that it
brings different kinds
of art together, because I
think one of the hardest things
for me is that a lot of
the music and art scenes
in Allston are pretty segmented.
Even though we're all
artists we don't know
like a music oriented person
don't necessarily know
very many visual artists.
Ross and I first met
virtually like two days
ago and we're both artists.
We both live in lower Allston.
So just like things like that where,
I love the idea of
bringing different kinds
of artists together in one place.
It's not in Boston, but
also the democracy center
It's pretty similar.
They're a pretty progressive org too.
They run most of the
shows that they have there
are benefit shows, that partner
with local organizations
like Mass Bail Fund or
other Pro Immigrant,
and Anti-police prison
abolition, those kinda orgs.
They have a Xen library things like that.
We'd love to have something
like that in Allston
that we can learn from
other neighborhoods about.
You asked something that you
I feel like I'm in sort
of the fortunate world
of all sinners has been
here for a long time.
And I think the music scene
might be more challenged.
If Great Scott's gone
I hold onto the model.
But I'm thinking what other
neighborhoods really need,
because I think if you were to
look at the city as a whole,
I think at this point more
energy in terms of support
for the arts maybe should be going
to Dorchester and Mattapan.
And I'm almost thinking there's
Urban Development Reparations Program
and Allston doesn't need it.
No other need and you eventually get more.
Frankly some students lose out.
There are a lot of
students who were actually
more well-heeled than a lot of people
in a lot of neighbors
who have lived there,
their whole lives.
I'm just not that worried about it.
It's a drag, I liked
the way Allston is now,
but it's much more painful when you look
at the city as a whole,
think about other neighborhoods
in terms of support.
And there's some really great
artists and traditional artist
and traditional cultural
artists and musical artists
and lots of neighborhoods who need
that Urban Development Reparations Fund
for their neighborhood.
Something sticking with me.
I liked the way Allston
is now but it's it also,
isn't working for a lot of people.
This conversation has
been really enlightening
for me and has reinvigorated
the reason that
we started these conversations.
And Ross, you bring up social sculpture
and I keep thinking,
maybe this is the new form of
social sculpture right now.
It's called Zoom, it tires our eyes,
but we are making these connections
intergenerational and
across the city right now.
And I just wanna remind
everyone and myself to show up.
We need to take that time
right to our city counselors
and those who represent us
and say what's on our mind
and what we need.
Christine, sorry, Alex and Ross,
thank you so much for
your time and your wisdom
through all of this.
I love Allston and hope
that it stays funky,
but yet becomes more
equitable as it develops.
I also wanna thank our funders,
Nico's Fund for the Arts
and the Boston Foundation,
for their ongoing
support of Now and There.
And for generously helping us produce
this series with their support,
we can make these
recordings available online
with closed captioning not for pay each
of our participants a living wage.
Thank you to all of you joining us today.
If you have a few more minutes now,
we'd love your feedback on this session.
We've put a link or we will
put a link in the survey,
to a survey in the chat.
We hope you will be able
to join us next week,
Thursday, July 30th same time same place.
As we ask the question,
"What does Mattapan need right now?"
I think it's going to be
a different conversation.
We have special guests,
artists, and community leaders
the WABA, the Dean and Ayana Mack.
To talk about the
neighborhood of Mattapan.
We've dropped the registration link
in the chat box to sign up.
I hope to see you all there,
continue to see you online
and thank you again for
being with us today.
Thank you.
(group talk all at once) thanks.
Really appreciate it.
