((This post was originally written and posted on my Facebook community page, Arts and the Community, and Fashion Statements, on September 29, 2014.)
In the United States, unlike the small yet emblematic city of Niagara Falls as discussed, the big cities do not have the worry of losing their official city status, and they also have a larger variety of abandoned buildings potentially available when it comes to creating community venues for the arts and culture.
Such as former police station buildings.
Police stations? Yes, like in Chicago, one of the largest and most populous U.S. cities, where the police buildings had to be pretty solid to handle the criminals.
Founded in 1988, the Griffin Theatre Company of Chicago started out in a factory loft renovated by the company as a theater. In 1992, the company rented, renovated and relocated to the historic Calo Theater. Then in 2005 due to escalating rents, the company searched for another venue and, upon the interest shown and help provided by Alderman Patrick J. O’Connor of the 40th Ward, set on a course toward purchasing the former 20th district police station from the city.
Nearly 6 years later in 2011, Griffin Theatre Company succeeded in getting the former police station for just $1, and announced a plan to refurbish it as the Griffin Arts Center, with an 80-seat black box theater to open in 2012 and a 120 seat main-stage theater to be completed by 2015.
The dream for a permanent home was finally becoming a reality, Griffin Theatre Company’s March 2011 announcement quoted board president Terry Kozlowski as saying:
“The Griffin has already begun a five year capital campaign to raise 3.2 million dollars to complete the 2 phase project. Terry Kozlowski the Griffin’s board President who lead the five year campaign which culminated in the city awarding the property to the company explained, “I am so grateful to all the people who have supported this dream over the years and worked so creatively and diligently to make this a reality. After 20+ years of service, this building will give us the base to become an even greater asset to the Edgewater community, to all of Chicagoland and to the over 100,000 youth we serve through our outreach programs across the country.””
(“Griffin Theatre Company to open “Griffin Arts Center” in renovated police station in fall 2012“, March 2011, Griffin Theatre Company)
A small theater group with great ambitions, for the Fall 2014 season Griffin Theatre Company is staging the first major U.S. city production of a new, chamber version of the Tony Award Best Musical,”Titanic – The Musical”:
“The original Broadway Titanic earned five 1997 Tony Awards including Best Musical. In 2012, original Broadway cast member Don Stephenson developed a new chamber version of the musical – a scaled down production using 20 actors to play all of the roles (instead of 45) and new orchestrations designed to make the score sound as if it was being played by the ship’s band. Material previously cut from the original Broadway production was put back into the show and existing material was reordered and reassigned. The new intimate version of Titanic opened in July 2012 at The Hangar Theatre in Ithaca, NY followed by an off West End production at London’s Southwark Playhouse in July 2013, which earned multiple awards. The production was scheduled for a six-week, pre-Broadway engagement at Toronto’s Royal Alexandra Theatre during the summer of 2014 followed by a Broadway opening in the fall of 2014 – however, it was announced that both engagements were postponed due to a lack of available Broadway theatre space for the 2014-15 season.”
(“Griffin Theatre Company Launches 2014-15 Season With New, Intimate TITANIC!“, July 2, 2014, Griffin Theatre Company)
It’s an original Titanic-inspired version of the Titanic musical, not to mention a steal of a North America first – well, second if the small city of Ithaca counts – from the established venues of Toronto and Broadway in New York City.
Surely the new Griffin Arts Center must have been taking the company to a new height of theatrical greatness.
But no, Griffin Arts Center isn’t here yet.
The March 2011 announcement of a $3.2 million capital fundraising campaign for the 2-phase project had anticipated the first phase of an 80-seat theater to complete in 2012. Over a year later in May 2012, the story of converting a police station to a theater made it to the Chicago-area media, but the renovations were to begin in the summer and to complete in 2013:
“In 2005, Griffin Theatre was comfortably inhabiting a former movie house in Andersonville. Then the rent shot up to $6,000 a month. Realizing the theater company had been priced out, artistic director Bill Massolia went to 40th Ward Ald. Patrick O’Connor, who led him to the recently shuttered Foster Avenue police station. Massolia bit.
Acquiring a city property often takes years. In this case, the city’s budget woes prolonged an already long process. “One of the last things [Mayor] Daley did before he left office is make the phone call to say yeah, let’s do this,” Massolia says. In January 2011, six years after negotiations began, Griffin purchased the building for $1.
With Steppenwolf Theatre architect John Morris handling the build-out, construction starts this summer on an 80-seat black-box theater, expected to be completed a year from now. A second phase includes demolishing the back half of the building and creating a larger 120- to 130-seat theater.
Not all of the old structure faces a gutting. “Morris said, ‘It’s a police station—why not use what’s in there?'” Massolia notes. They picture the high-security cell as a box office, and three other cells as the green room and dressing rooms.””
(“Old police stations“, Madeline Nusser, May 30, 2012, TimeOut Chicago)
Before the summer’s end, the story was mentioned in the national media but the renovations were now to begin in September 2012:
“In Chicago, the Griffin Theatre Company acquired a former police station and plans to start construction in September on the first of two live performance spaces. The building’s large cells are too massive to remove, said William Massolia, a founding member, so they’ll be used to house a green room, dressing rooms and a box office.
“We’re going to be using some of what was there and not disguise the fact that it was a police station and a jail,” Massolia said.”
(“Ex-jail cells serve as artist studios in Detroit“, David Runk, August 9, 2012, Yahoo News)
In early 2013, Chicago Tribune theater critic Chris Jones marveled at the modest amount of money needed for the Griffin Theatre Company to make the small 80-seat theater out of an abandoned police station, that had a noted history of scandal, and at the even more meager amount the company raised, barely a fraction of the $3.2 million goal – not enough to complete the refurbishment and so nothing started:
“Some big new theaters cost tens of millions of dollars — even more than a decade ago, the new Goodman Theatre in the Loop cost $46 million. …
…
Griffin had the support of local businesses and Ald. Patrick O’Connor. The building — once the scene of the Summerdale police scandal of 1960 — had been standing vacant for years.
…
I was struck by the relative smallness of the figures involved. The theater-loving general contractor had run the numbers, and since time had moved on, the $500,000 budget had become $800,000. … Griffin has raised about $150,000 to date and has secured a $250,000 construction loan. By my math, that leaves it about $400,000 short. And so nothing is happening. Even though the building sits there vacant, benefiting nobody.”
(“Griffin Theatre’s plans for new home remain stranded“, Chris Jones, February 7, 2013, Chicago Tribune)
The “Summerdale police scandal of 1960” involved police officers taking part in a burglary ring, stealing from businesses while on duty. It was the worse scandal in the history of the Chicago police department up to that point, and led to the reorganization of the Chicago police force.
(“Griffin Theatre Company renovating police station with scandalous past“, Shia Kapos, February 22, 2012, Crain’s Chicago Business)
That kind of begs the question, why an ambitious small theater company would want an infamous building like that.
The Griffin Theatre Company is an innovative, award-winning theater group, in 2014 receiving a Special Jeff Award of the Chicago theater community:
“The Jeff Awards Committee has announced that Griffin Theatre Company will receive a Special Jeff Award at the 41st Annual Non-Equity Jeff Awards ceremony to be held June 2 at Park West, 322 W. Armitage. The company, which has been a fixture on the Chicago theater scene for 25 years, is being cited for “its dedication to provocative and transformational theater that bridges the generations.”
…
Throughout its history, Griffin has produced a wide range of work (including many premieres) of everything from original adaptations of novels to contemporary plays, musicals and classics. Its national touring company produces three productions, including “Letters Home,” which incorporates letters from military service men and women to tell the story of soldiers’ experiences in war. The production has been traveling since 2007, playing to thousands (often at military-related sites), and will seen at the Columbia Festival of the Arts in Columbia, Maryland in June. Since 2008, Griffin also has traveled with two youth-oriented productions: “Frindle” and “The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales.” Last year, the company’s touring productions were seen by more than 100,000 young people and adults throughout the United States, with stops in 150 cities in 41 states, including Alaska.”
(“Griffin Theatre to be honored with Special Jeff“, Hedy Weiss, May 13, 2014, Voices Blogs, Chicago Sun-Times)
Perhaps doing the touring shows of “Letters Home” made the performers feel a special vibe with soldiers in the U.S. military – in a metropolis like Chicago the closest to them would be police officers.
In any case, the former police station building had been recommended by Alderman Patrick O’Connor of the 40th ward, the neighborhood’s elected representative in the city.
Had the owner of the previous venue not drastically hiked the rents in 2005, the Griffin Theatre Company would not have gotten itself into such a frustrating situation, being unable to obtain and renovate its venue for so many years.
That previous venue was the historic Calo Theater, an 880-seat former movie theater that was renovated by Griffin Theatre Company into a 135-seat live performance theater:
“Opened in 1915 for the Ascher Brothers circuit, the Calo, which originally sat 880, is located in Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood on Clark Street near Balmoral Avenue.
In the early 90s, the historic Calo, with its elaborate white terra-cotta facade, became the home of the Griffin Theatre Company, which put almost $100,000 into renovating and restoring the former movie house into a legitimate theater, the seating decreased to just 135 in its main auditorium.”
(“Calo Theatre“, Cinema Treasures)
The Griffin Theatre performances are gone and the Calo Theater is now home of the Brown Elephant consignments shop:
“But the 1920s-era Calo Theater in Andersonville doesn’t show movies or host live performances anymore: The huge space — with its vaulted ceiling, sloping tiled entryway, beautifully tattered walls and decorative moldings — now boasts the secondhand wares of the Brown Elephant Resale Shop, whose proceeds go to AIDS research and providing medical services within the gay community. This makes it one of the neatest shopping locales in the city — plus it has a higher-quality selection than other consignment shops, including, say, a wallet (for $5) from the Andy Warhol clothing-and-accessories line and vintage Dunhill lighters. If you’re not a thrift-store junkie, grab an old copy of Life magazine from the ’60s or perhaps A Legal Guide for Lesbian and Gay Couples and plop down on one of the nearby couches — they’re the best seats in the house.”
(“City Guide Chicago: 10 Things to Do: 7. Brown Elephant Resale Shop“, Leah Pietrusiak, Travel,Time)
That may be a reason, that selling used goods in a heritage building not only makes better economic sense but is more likely to garner major national media coverage, in this case by Time magazine, than doing live theater to a small audience of 135.
The latest news from Chicago Tribune’s Chris Jones still shows no prospect for the planned Griffin Arts Center:
“Griffin Theatre, another Chicago theater with extensive programming for young people, is still trying to raise money to turn another former police station into a theater. The Griffin project, which is taking far longer than expected, is located at 1940 W. Foster Ave.”
(“Chicago Children’s Theatre eyes a new home in the West Loop“, Chris Jones, August 13, 2014, Chicago Tribune)
Doesn’t Jones call the Griffin Theatre “another Chicago theater” for young audiences that is trying to “turn another former police station into a theater”?
Yes, the frustrating long journey of the Griffin Theatre Company, never reaching its permanent home, has not discouraged the Chicago Chidren’s Theatre from taking on something similar, i.e., obtaining and converting a former police station, the 12th district police station in this case, to its arts center:
“Chicago Children’s Theatre, a non-profit, Equity-affiliated Chicago theater company that specializes in work for young audiences, is eyeing a potential new home in the West Loop, where this is still little competition in the arena of live performance.
The object of the Children’s Theatre’s desire is the now-abandoned 12th District police station, owned by city of Chicago and located in the blooming residential district at 100 S. Racine Ave., near the corner of Monroe Avenue. A spokesman for the theater said the plan is to retain the shell of the building but gut it, rehab it and turn the interior into two theater spaces, including a 299-seat mainstage, along with classrooms and administrative offices. The theater declined to say how much the project might cost.
Many hurdles remain, including the need for a capital campaign to complete the renovation of the space, as well as support from the local neighborhood organization…”
(Chris Jones, August 13, 2014, Chicago Tribune)
The Chicago Children’s Theatre at least has larger audiences to fill a 299-seat theater!
Though only 10 years old the Chicago Children’s Theatre, like the Griffin Theatre, is ambitious, currently producing world premieres of two new musicals, “Frederick” in Fall 2014 and “Wonderland, Alice’s Rock & Roll Adventure” in Spring 2015:
“… based on Leo Lionni’s book “Frederick,” the story of a poetically inclined field mouse with a penchant for storytelling, even as his friends concentrate on surviving the harsh winter. …”
“”Wonderland, Alice’s Rock & Roll Adventure,” … a fresh, rock-infused look at the work of Lewis Carroll.”
(“Chicago Children’s Theatre to stage two world-premiere musicals“, Chris Jones, April 23, 2014, Chicago Tribune)
Let’s hope that the Chicago theater community’s love of former police stations for young theater audiences will come to fruition, because artists in the small city of Hamtramck, Michigan, have already succeeded in turning its former police headquarters into an arts center.
Hatch: A Hamtramck Art Collective, is an arts group that did not have a permanent home when in 2008 it purchased the abandoned former police headquarters for $1, and then spent the next 4 years renovating the building into the Hatch Art Center.
The Center opened in April 2012 with an art exhibition:
“Hamtramck has a new venue for art. …
In 2008, Hatch purchased Hamtramck’s former police station for one dollar. It has worked for four years to convert the building into an art center, which will feature low-cost studios, a workshop with a darkroom, a printing press and a kiln, a classroom, a gift shop of locally made goods and a gallery.
Hatchback 6, an annual juried exhibition, will open Saturday, April 28. Gilda Snowden, a well-respected Detroit artist and College of Creative Studies professor, served as juror, selecting nearly 70 artworks from an open call for submissions. Among the 48 artists are Topher Crowder, Jack Summers, Laura Macintyre, and Marianne Burrows, who will be opening her own gallery and artists studios in Hamtramck soon.”
(“Hatchback 6 and gallery opening“, April 24, 2012, Hamtramck Star)
As in this report, the well-respected Detroit artist and art educator Gilda Snowden selected the artworks for the Hatch Art Center opening exhibition.
Converting a police station to an arts center that did not include a theater might have been easier than converting to live performance theaters. Also important besides funding, as Chris Jones pointed out, was local community suuport, and as Bozeman, Montana, and Niagara Falls, New York, have demonstrated, refurbishing old public buildings for arts-and-culture use tended to elicit more vocal support in a small city.
But Hamtramck is a rather unique small community: it is fully surrounded by the big city of Detroit. To the city of Hamtramck, an arts center is viewed as an important part of the local culture vital to the community’s success:
“Many cities talk about supporting the arts; Hamtramck puts its money where its mouth is. In February, the City Council unanimously passed a resolution to give the art collective a one-year option to purchase the former police station for $1. City officials and business owners say culture is important to the success of their two-square-mile city within the larger city of Detroit.
“The Hamtramck City Council is very progressive I think,” said [Hatch: A Hamtramck Art Collective president Chris] Schneider, 39, a photographer and photography instructor who lives in Hamtramck. “It’s rather rare that a government really reaches out to help a community art group. They recognize we bring quality and interest, creativity and energy to the area. It helps build community pride.”
Since the 1990s, artists have flocked to Hamtramck, attracted by cheap property, low rent, space for lofts and studios, and an interesting multi-ethnic community where there is no need for a car and the corner bars host a wide variety of bands, said Greg Kowalski, 57, chairman of the Hamtramck Historical Commission and editor of the Birmingham Eccentric Newspaper.
…
“Over the years, there has been a strong artist community in Hamtramck,” said Catrina Stackpoole, 55, a member of the City Council and executive director of Recycled Treasures, a Hamtramck nonprofit. …
Kowalski, who is longtime Hamtramck resident and author of Hamtramck: The Driven City, agreed: “We have a large artistic community and they need a center. They’re a tremendous asset to the city. When we can establish a reputation as an artist community, it reinforces a positive image. That is what a city really needs.””
(“Hamtramck hatching an art center“, Elizabeth H. Voss, June 20, 2008, Crain’s Detroit Business)
A “two-square-mile city within the larger city of Detroit”, and Detroit’s streets probably aren’t any easier than Chicago’s, the independence of a small island in a big sea – so to speak – really showed its advantage here: a unanimous decision by the city council was made quickly and clearly in support of the artists’ goals, rather than dragging on for years like in Chicago until the Mayor was about to retire when he would sell an abandoned police station to the Griffin Theatre Company – as Madeline Nusser reported in TimeOut Chicago.
But one may ask, if arts were so important for Hamtramck why didn’t the city consider finding a newer building for the arts center?
To begin with, unlike in a nice town in the American hinterlands where the government and law enforcement may enjoy more special social status, Hamtramck is so modest that its city hall is located in a former hospital, and the former Hamtramck police headquarters had been refurbished from a former dormitory for nuns and nursing students:
“The building was originally constructed as a dormitory for nuns and nursing students affiliated with nearby St. Francis Hospital (Hamtramck City Hall occupies the hospital space today). Later, it served as Hamtramck’s police headquarters from 1972-2003. A jail cell from its police station days remains preserved at the Art Center.”
(“3456 Evaline“, Hatch Art Center)
So the centrally located, 2-storey, 6,000-sqft old building – nearly as large as the White Building adjacent Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London – was already the best for a new arts center in Hamtramck, and the costs to renovate it, though modest, was also a challenge:
“Scott Collins, 25, an architect with S3 Architecture in Farmington, Hamtramck resident and member of Hatch, estimates repairs and renovations to the former police station, a two-story brick building with 6,000 square feet of floor space, will cost $150,000. This includes an environmentally sustainable roof to replace a leaky flat one, new heating and plumbing systems, and reconfiguration of the first floor space. Artist volunteers will do light work including painting, replacing dry wall and ceiling tiles, and cleaning up the building.”
(Elizabeth H. Voss, June 20, 2008, Crain’s Detroit Business)
The Hamtramck artists resorted to various creative ways of fundraising.
First off, the artists in this small colony had cultural influences in the greater Detroit area, and so they pitched the importance of the envisioned Hatch Art Center to the larger community – in terms of revitalizing an economically depressed region:
“When you drive through Detroit and Hamtramck, chances are you’ll see just as many abandoned spaces as there are occupied ones. City officials have to figure out what to do with these spaces. As Michigan Radio’s Katie Carey reports, some artists think they can step in to help.
Chris Schneider lives in Hamtramck and he is in charge of an artist’s collective there called Hatch. The group has been looking for a place to house studios and a gallery for some time. Most of the abandoned places that they looked at were privately owned and really expensive. So instead they decided to team up with the city of Hamtramck, and buy a vacant police station for $1.00.
…
Hatch is part of a larger movement of artists in and around Detroit who are transforming vacant buildings into art spaces. The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit bought an abandoned auto dealership for $1.00. Russell Industrial Center houses over 100 artist studios in an old Ford Production plant. Izzy’s Raw Art Gallery in Corktown sits in a century old department store.
Schneider thinks this kind of “creative sector” will help revitalize the city.
“Well creative is part of it,” says Sabrina Keeley. She works for Detroit Renaissance. The group works to bring economic growth to the region. “But honestly,” continues Keeley, “for the city and the region we need all kinds of industry, we need to diversify what we’ve got. We just see the creative sector as a very important piece to that.”
In Houston, Texas, something similar has already happened. About 2 blocks of row houses were completely abandoned. A group of artists came along, and turned the vacant buildings into artist studios, galleries, and residencies. The whole thing is called “Project Row Houses.”
Tim Martinez works for the project. He says art – and the community it creates – can help revitalize crumbling inner-city neighborhoods.”
(“New Art Space “Hatches” in Hamtramck“, Katie Carey, May 19, 2009, Facing the Mortgage Crisis, Michigan Public Radio)
Michigan Public Radio’s Katie Carey showed a good point, that abandoned private buildings were still too expensive unless, or until, they were completely abandoned like the row houses in Houston, Texas, but governments might have old buildings they could contribute favorably to arts and culture causes. Other examples Carey mentioned included abadoned industrial buildings – not unlike the White Building in London, England.
In fact, a 2012 national media report quoted earlier referring to Griffin Theatre Company’s plan to refurbish a former Chicago police station, was about former Detroit police station jail cells being used as artist studios:
“For Hugo Navarro, the 5-by-9-foot jail cell that serves as his studio in southwest Detroit is an admittedly creepy place to immerse himself in his work.
Unlike jailhouse artists who find creative inspiration behind bars, however, the 56-year-old is there by choice. He paints at 555 Nonprofit Gallery and Studios, a decade-old arts organization that this year moved into its new home in the Detroit Police Department’s former Third Precinct station.
The city closed the building in 2005 as part of a department-wide reorganization, and the former lobby where residents once could walk in to report crimes now is an airy gallery. Detectives’ offices now serve as classroom and studio space. And potentially claustrophobic cells — bars still on their doors — are fostering creativity.
“I didn’t really have anything in mind before going to my jail cell,” said Navarro, whose colorful paintings of Detroit’s shuttered Michigan Central Depot and fires gutting homes adorn some of the cells near where he’s worked for the past few months. “I just let myself go and let my inside do the work.”
The Third Precinct renovation is among a handful of projects nationwide converting old police facilities, including one in Chicago that is becoming live theater venues and one in Philadelphia that is being converted into homes. For Carl Goines, a co-founder of 555, says the project is a balancing act between preserving parts of the police station’s past and making it a welcoming place for artists.
“This is a space that’s taking on a new life. It’s a space that’s becoming inspirational,” said Goines, a sculptor. “It pushes them to take their work to a new level.”
555 is leasing its new home from Southwest Housing Solutions, a nonprofit community developer that bought the former precinct in 2009 and spent about $2 million on the project. Garage space at the building houses Detroit Farm and Garden, a gardening, farming and landscape supply store.”
(David Runk, August 9, 2012, Yahoo News)
In all the police station-conversion cases reviewed, namely the former 20th district station in Chicago, the former Hamtramck headquarters and the former 3rd precinct station in Detroit, the jail cells have been kept for one reason or another; but the Detroit cells appear espeically prominent and the entire space is being reused as art space more than being substantially reconfigured as in the other cases. The Chicago Children’s Theatre, however, has said it would gut the interior of the former 12th district police station to make the theaters if it gets the building.
The Hamtramck artists also went to compete for corporate sponsorship money, which necessitated them to “get out the vote” in an entertainment-advertising setting for a chance to win:
“This time around, Skipper’s opened its doors (once again) to the city’s local artist collective, Hatch. The purpose of the event was to bring people in to get out the vote.
Wait, vote? That’s right – vote. It seems that our friends at HATCH are in the midst of a competition to bring in $50,000 worth of funding to fix up the building that will eventually become its home.
The competition is called the Pepsi Refresh Project and it runs from now until Dec. 31. An online contest that gives grants ranging from $5,000 to $250,000 based on the number of votes an idea receives…”
(“Toast of the Town: Skipper’s Hamtown“, Ian Perrotta, December 3, 2010,The Hamtramck Review)
Internet crowdfunding also had popular potential, and the Hamtramck artists went to Kickstarter for the final amount to finish the renovations:
“Hatch: A Hamtramck Art Collective is a grassroots non-profit based in an immigrant community nestled inside loving arms of Detroit. We purchased an abandoned building from the city of Hamtramck for one dollar–that’s right, one dollar– with plans to convert it into an art center. It was built as a dormitory for nuns around a century ago and eventually converted into a police station (complete with jail cells and the rumor of ghosts). While the building is structurally safe and sound with lots of possibility, most of the plumbing and heating needs to be replaced thanks to harsh Michigan winters.
We are very close to being able to occupy the building, which will feature low cost studios for artists, an art gallery, a workroom that will include Detroit’s only public darkroom, a classroom, and more. Our first major hurdle of replacing the roof has been completed. Now we need one more push. With this grant, we will get the building fully operational.
It is well known that the Detroit area is struggling. The problems here are anything but subtle. One positive to emerge from these extended hard times is that Detroit and Hamtramck have a burgeoning artist community thanks to the low cost of living plus the abundance of space and opportunity. Hatch provides a hub for artists to share ideas, create events, and link the artist community to the community at large.”
(“Convert a Police Station into an Art Center“, Chris Schneider, May 24-Jun 23, 2012, Kickstarter)
Hatch: A Hamtramck Art Collective’s online fundraising message was clear: in an immigrant community nestled inside “loving arms” of Detroit, the “extended hard times” actually made the artist community thrive, and Hatch strived to be “a hub for artists” as well as to “link the artist community to the community at large”.
The Hamtramck artists succeeded in creating the venue, and their arts-and-cultural dreams are becoming reality:
“Ah, Hamtramck, where all roads and rail lines lead (it is bound by iron on its western, southern and eastern borders), where people of all ages, of nearly all colors and ethnic groups, walk to shop, to school, to churches, mosques, Hindu temples and Buddhist centers. Or just walk around the city for fun, which I do all the time.
…
… But Hamtramck, a destination for the international art and research scene? Why, yes. Just in the last year I have hosted scholars from Boston and New York; a visual artist from Northern California; a techno producer/journalist from Berlin; a photographer from Rome and a gallery owner from Warsaw (the latter the co-founder of Raster Gallery arguably Poland’s freshest contemporary art space).
The city’s food culture — a perfect complement to the art scene — is rich with existing possibilities; even richer with the potential for higher quality markets and restaurants as more people jump into the competitive Hamtown food scene. …
Food, music, art, people: yep, the fundamentals for growth and development, all here. It’s the recipe making Hamtramck hum.”
(“Artists, musicians take over Hamtramck“, Walter Wasacz, October 1, 2013, Model D)
Unfortunately though, the energetic and exuberant artist and art educator Gilda Snowden who selected the 70 art works by 48 artists for the Hatch Art Center opening exhibition in April 2012, unexpectedly died of an sudden heart attack just under 3 weeks ago on September 9, at only 60 years of age.
(“Obit: Artist Gilda Snowden’s Sudden Death“, Travis Wright, September 9, 2014, WDET News; and, “Detroit artist Gilda Snowden dies at 60, was ‘generous with everybody’“, Michael H. Hodges, September 9, 2014, The Detroit News)
We’ve witnessed how much artists in the big cities of Chicago and Detroit, and in the small enclave of Hamtramck situated inside Detroit, loved to have former police stations as art spaces and were allowed the opportunities by the city governments to get them.
In a more idyllic American community, however, the center of local affections is not necessarily police officers, or sheriff’s deputies, but often firefighters who extend a helping arm on almost everything.
When the iconic Fire Station No. 2 in Bellingham, Washington, built in 1927, was closed in 2001 and put up for sale by the city in 2002, it attracted the immediate attention of modern dancer Matt Christman, who decades earlier as a boy used to pick up newspapers at its front porch for delivery.
Christman wanted to turn the local historical landmark located in the Fairhaven District into a performing arts center, and spoke to his father, who shared his enthusiasm and was willing to finance the venture if there was sufficient interest by artist groups in renting the performance space.
With his father’s help, Matt Christman became the winner out of 11 groups that submitted proposals to the city for the historic building, and he converted it into the Firehouse Performing Arts Center.
The local artist groups were interested because Christman, being a performing artist himself, set very affordable prices for artist use of the performance space, at $25/hour without seating or $55/hour with seating:
“The Firehouse Performing Arts Center opened its doors in 2004 as a place where people could rent out space for a reasonable price. Christman said the space can be rented for $25 an hour without seating and $55 with the theater seating.”
(“Local Performing Arts Center Planning to Switch to Non-profit“, Jeremy Smith, June 7, 2010, blog of South Hill, Bellingham)
And this wasn’t temporary seating to be moved in or out, but permanent theater seating retractable to the ceiling, a technical invention by Christman:
“Perhaps the most fascinating thing about the center is the performance space itself. The theater seating for the space hangs from the ceiling and moves down and up as needed.
“I designed the theater seating mechanism myself,” Christman said. “I’m in the process of getting it patented right now.”” (Jeremy Smith, June 7, 2010, blog of South Hill, Bellingham)
Matt Christman’s family more than helped with financing; his father Bob Christman became a co-owner, and they ran it like a non-profit venue, with proceeds going back into the operation to keep the rental costs low:
“Matt Christman, owner of the Firehouse Performing Arts Center, and his father, co-owner Robert Christman, purchased the old building in 2002 and think of the Firehouse as a farmers market for the performing arts.
All proceeds go back into he Firehouse to keep rental costs low for local performers, such as Kuntz and Company, a non-profit dance and theater company that performed a dance piece this September at the venue.”
(“Dance, music, theater… and now films: Firehouse Performing Arts Center adds silver screen to its repertoire“, Dakota Mackey, September 27, 2011, The Western Front)
The most remarkable facets of refurbishing the former fire station into a performing arts center were in restoring and highlighting the building’s heritage, and in returning the environment to green – no doubt the Christman family’s financial ability and interest were important factors.
One can almost hear Matt Christman’s pride describing the details of the restoration and conversion, significant helped by local professionals:
“”The creativity level went way up so we could preserve the elements that were of particular note,” says Christman, “yet still accommodate the new use and what it would require as far as the renovation of the space.”
Gene McConnell of McConnell Construction – “just a phenomenal woodworker,” Christman raves – was commissioned to re-build the original truss bay doors.
…
McConnell recreated them. “They’re triple-paned glass and essentially the same design as the original doors,” Christman says. “Gene did a beautiful job; they’re just stunning.”
Behind those new doors, where the trucks once lived, became a stunning performance space, designed by Christman and Zervas Group [Architects]. The entry was transformed into a comfortable coffeehouse and café, complete with original wood-burning fireplace.
…
Through a stroke of luck – and knowing the right person and the right time – Christman was able to make an important change to the building’s roof.
“I was running a Scout troop at the time and one of the dads was an architect who happened to be re-doing the roof of Miller Hall up at Western [Washington University],” Christman says. “We salvaged the tile and finally put on the tile roof that the building was originally designed to have.””
(“From Historic Fairhaven Firehouse to Charming Performing Arts Center“, Stacee Sledge, April 10, 2014, WhatcomTalk)
Returning the environment to green from its recent fire-station use was something even the firefighters would love:
“A parking lot took up over half the area, but Christman worked out a mutually beneficial deal with the city that saw a waiver for on-site parking requirements, allowing the creation of a little pocket park.
“We tore up the asphalt and reseeded it,” says Christman, “and one of the firemen from Fire Station No. 2 made a couple of beautiful benches for back there.”
Another former Fire Station No. 2 firefighter, Roger Iverson, planted an American Sycamore tree in the back yard in the early 1980s that has grown into a lovely landscape centerpiece. It’s now a pleasant spot enjoyed by neighborhood folks or anyone walking by.”
(Stacee Sledge, April 10, 2014, WhatcomTalk)
In 2010, Matt and and father Bob Christman began planning to officially turn the Firehouse Performing Arts Center into a non-profit venue and let a non-profit board take over its operation, and they hoped that their success would continue by the non-profit organization:
“The Firehouse Performing Arts Center at 1314 Harris Avenue is planning to file for non-profit status in hopes of keeping the center open for the southern Bellingham community.
Converted from a mission-style firehouse built in the 1920s, the property was remodeled and reopened in 2004 thanks to investments in time and money from South Hill resident Bob Christman and his son Matt Christman.
…
After owning and operating the center for the better part of the past six years, Christman says he wants to file for non-profit status and select a board to take over. Rather than selling the space to earn back the money he and his father invested, he said he wants to keep it around and feels the best way to preserve it is through becoming a non-profit.
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Along with the Firehouse Café and Theron Eirish Massage, the center also has a small studio that can be rented by artists and a park out back for the neighborhood to use.
…
Christman hopes that all of his family’s hard work will remain behind when the center switches to a non-profit. He is still in the planning phase, hoping to either find a non-profit or create one himself to take over and transition away from becoming a business and keep the atmosphere more like a family.
…
With any luck, Christman said he hopes to get the paperwork in and find a board to run the non-profit by the end of the year, ensuring that the only space for local artists to produce their work in the southern part of Bellingham remains available to them for many years to come.”
(Jeremy Smith, June 7, 2010, blog of South Hill, Bellingham)
But the planned non-profit switch may not have materialized, and instead a negative turn of events occurred to the Christman family. The father Bob Christman, a nationally prominent science educator, professor of Geology at Western Washington University, and a patron of community causes in Bellingham, died in 2012.
Bob Christman’s former student and colleague at WWU, George Mustoe, wrote a moving, vivid tribute to Bob Christman:
“I was always impressed by his lack of ego. Bob never displayed the slightest bit of self-importance, never advertised his own achievements, which were many. In his early years, Bob did important work as a petrologist and field geologist, but his passion was for geoscience education. Bob’s very active role in the National Association of Geoscience Teachers included serving as President of the Pacific Northwest Section, as Secretary/Treasurer, and ultimately as Executive Director. In 2008, NAGT created the Robert Christman Distinguished Service Award, and in 2009 Bob was honored with that award. He served as President and long-time board member for the Washington State Science Teacher’s Association.
…
Bob and Bess were strong on family values, and they raised 4 children. Together with their son Matt, Bob and Bess founded the Firehall Performing Arts Center in Fairhaven, with Bob still serving as the bookkeeper at the time of his death. He was devoted to the Catholic Church and active in a wide range of community activities that included the Bellingham Theater Guild, WWU Summer Stock, and the Fairhaven Neighborhood Association.”
(“Recollections of Bob Christman“, George Mustoe, December 2012, National Association of Geoscience Teachers Pacific Northwest)
Quite an unassuming owner of the Firehouse Performing Arts Center Bob Christman had been, referring to himself as the “bookkeeper”. But his colleague George Mustoe hastened to add that he did not quite agree with Bob Christman’s sense of community activism:
“In many respects, Bob Christman and I were very different. We were 25 years apart in age. He was religious, family oriented, and a world-traveler, active in the community. I’m a religious unbeliever whose only family is an adopted stray cat. For me, a drive to Sumas ranks as adventure travel, and I’ve always heeded my father’s advice from his time spent as a corporal in the U.S. Army during WWII: “never volunteer for anything”.”
(George Mustoe, December 2012, National Association of Geoscience Teachers Pacific Northwest)
I wonder if George Mustoe’s advice, “never volunteer for anything”, originally received from his World War II U.S. corporal father, hasn’t influenced Matt Christman the son. After a decade operating the Firehouse Performing Arts Center, recently in April 2014 Christman put it up, along with adjacent lots and buildings, for sale for $1 million, saying that his father had passed away, his mother was “slowing down”, and he needed to pay his family back financially:
“Matt says the time is right for him to “make good” on his promise to pay the family back for their investment in his dream to create a “community-oriented performing arts center” in the old “Fairhaven Firehouse.””
(“Owner puts Firehouse Performing Arts Center up for sale; hopes buyer will continue community focus“, Margaret Bikman, April 9, 2014, The Bellingham Herald)
Christman still hoped he could find a buyer to maintain it as a community-oriented performing arts space, but selling it for a financial return to pay his family back became the more important objective, and so he set a deadline:
“If a person or group isn’t forthcoming with such an offer by June, Matt says, they will entertain buyers with other interests for the purchase. He hopes a local investor – or investors – will be willing to step up to the plate to purchase or donate to the end of keeping it a performance space and community center.”
(Margaret Bikman, April 9, 2014, The Bellingham Herald)
That deadline has passed, but there is still no news on any sale of the Fairhaven Firehouse Performing Arts Center in Bellingham, Washington. Let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope that it will continue as an affordable performing arts space “for many years to come”.
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