WGBH Journal; Homeowners Rehab

Good afternoon and welcome to GBH Journal. This is Marcia Hurd sitting in for vacationing Bill cavernous. Our show today focuses on buildings of one sort or another. First we'll hear about an organization which helps people to purchase and rehabilitate old homes. Then we'll hear about the conversion of old buildings into loss then a feature on a structure in downtown Boston graced by a mural of a French New York classic palace and to close we'll hear about a restored concert hall in Worcester. People who want to own homes in a large city are faced with problems of expense and availability. Homes are either phenomenally expensive to buy or almost

impossible to find. These obstacles are somewhat relieved by homeowners rehab and organization operating in Cambridge which helps people to find homes at reasonable prices in return for some hard work. Becky war has more. Housing costs have increased dramatically in recent years making it difficult to maintain a home and even more difficult to purchase one. In Cambridge the work equity program is attempting to make homeownership a reality for more Cambridge residents. Through this program people who want to own a house are able to buy one without the initial burden of a down payment. In its place families supply their own labor toward rehabilitating their future home. To be eligible for the program applicants must have lived in Cambridge for at least a year. They also must be tenants not presently owning a home. Homeowners rehab is a nonprofit agency which operates the work equity program. Mel GAD is the director of homeowners rehab. The work equity program really got started saying there are a lot of people out there

who have made a commitment to the city have been here but a tenant and they haven't been able to apply to the pro you know to get into any kind of home ownership situation because they don't have the downpayment. I mean they have to do one big thing about the problem is they have to be bankable. OK so they could if they had the down payment right now they could go in on their own and I House. Problem is most of these families are marginal You know they they're feeding they're paying their rent paying their bills and feeding their families but they just can't put away a couple of thousand dollars every year to save them money. And this program really gives them an opportunity to get into an ownership situation. Homeowners we have initially purchases a building with the help of bank loans and federal funds from the community development block grants program since the building is often in a deteriorated condition. Homeowners rehab does major rehabilitation work on the building. When this work is completed the family interested in buying the building does most of the interior work and then they purchase their new home from homeowners we had a great deal of

work is often involved in this process. I spoke with Peter Rennes the contractor for homeowners we have at the present construction site. The families come in here and they do a good deal of work in order to you know work out their downpayment. We sort of encourage these people to come in here like three hours a day in court. For a long time you know at least to have a happy year or so so it's no giveaway. That people have to be ready to put some sweat. This program is sometimes called sweat equity program and so the people have a sense of pride in you know in you know in buying the houses from us because they have a bit of themselves in here. Leonard and Evelyn Capello and their children moved into their condominium several years ago through the work equity program. They describe their participation in the program homeowners give you up to a year to complete the job but I did this in less than three months because I had and I would come in from work at 3:00 o'clock and work till 1 and 2 in the

morning. I know with some friends would come in and especially on weekends. Most of my clothes and having to watch them. Then with the help of and the skill of homeowners. They just explained to you tonight how to do it every now and then you have to have a strong will to do it out if you feel like you know that you are doing something which you have to live with. Not everyone who wants to buy a home has the necessary skills to rehabilitate the interior of a building home when his rehab is committed to training people who may not have the skills would get where he is based on people learn teaching people how to do stuff with our families we tried of course self-help because they save themselves a lot of money which they probably can't afford to pay out anyway and it gets them more actively involved with their own building doing stuff so that in the future they can do stuff themselves. Another benefit from all this is that the people they've learned in this process how to take care of their own better able to deal with emergencies and with

General mate and so on. So it's they're not just falling into this thing blindly without thinking. Feel a secure way. Peter wrens and Mel get of homeowners rehab. This joint commitment to rehabilitation by homeowners rehab and the families involved is an encouraging step toward improving the housing situation in Cambridge. However Mel Gad stresses that additional efforts are necessary. In general what most urban areas need besides groups that go into over a vacant building like a concert. I think most of us agree that you need a regular ongoing maintenance program for housing in general not just for working class families but for people in general because only one house means constant ongoing maiden's And that's basically the problem with most of the urban areas is that maintenance hasn't been done. And I think all the rehab programs in the city really are looking at doing that kind of stuff along with taking no random vacant boarded up buildings and putting them back together.

The city of Cambridge is also working with homeowners rehab in an attempt to improve the housing situation in Cambridge. The city plans to install new sidewalks and trees at homeowners we have present construction site through their joint commitment. The neighborhoods of Cambridge may experience a renaissance of good housing and stable neighborhoods for GBH Journal. This is Becky roar. If you're thinking about a dwelling less conventional than a simple family abode you might be interested in the creation of laws. Many people artists in particular are beginning to buy and convert unused factories into loft Welling's. Jim Stratton is a journalist and filmmaker living in New York and has written a book surveying

loft dwelling in big cities across the country. He described this process of building conversion to reporter David Freud burg. It's rather arduous Actually I've gone through the process a couple times and I'm not eager to do it again. The first thing you would probably need is a bulldozer to get everything out that was there before my first loft was filled with old rag bales and I had wood roll them from one side of the loft to the other. While I was building walls until I finally got into a dumpster in a way. Clearing the brush away if you want to use the pioneering simile as the first problem getting all the residue from the previous industrial tenant out then if you're lucky enough you might have some plumbing pipes coming up or an electrical line or two. And if you're not lucky you have to install those too. If you're lucky all you have to do is build some walls run some electrical lines around and

you're in business. If you're unlucky you may have to jack up the floor or repair the ceiling for any number of things can can step in to your way. But it's eventually a lot more space than an average artist might be able to you know find even in a house in the country you've written in the book that there's a considerable amount of illegal renovation of this sort. What are the zoning obstacles. Well the obstacle is always a kind of bureaucratic dysfunction if you like I think the bureaucracy basically is there to drive up costs and make things confusing. The obstacles are that all codes are written for new construction because that's where their heads are and to try to write a code for a kind of renovation that does not take into account

the fact that you've got all the plumbing lines and old electrical lines and you've got things that just don't look right to the to modern architecture. Trying to justify the situation the planners will wind up writing a very long confusing list of requirements and many of them very expensive and most of these buildings original buildings are better built than the new buildings that are coming up. And there are nicer spaces they're built lower to the ground and they they make good residential buildings in most cases. But the city planner has to catch up on that. So it's happening in some cities in Philadelphia in. Boston and New York in Dallas to some extent. You have some negotiations going on between your legal pioneer and the city planners to make this kind of thing legal. Could you

describe your own loft. Well it's sort of a barn. It's on the third floor of a building that's about. It's about 3000 square feet I would think. Ten foot ceilings the same old floor that I had before except that some of the patina of the 19th century has been scraped off with a sander and divided it up into different spaces. Filmmaker I have room for doing that and I have a couple of children. There's a room for that and you know there's also room for them to ride their bicycles around. But it's a very rough kind of space as I point out in my book. Any loft gets into it finally discovers that about two thirds of the way through they've run totally out of money and over their credit line and there's still a third left to go and that's where I am. I don't have enough money to finish it right now.

Well good luck. Thank you very much talking with Jim Stratton himself a loft dweller and author of pioneering in the urban wilderness. This is David Freud burg in Boston. Mural paintings are known to cover various walls whole rooms long hallways. But how about an outside of a large building. And how about a French classic palace that really looks like a French classic palace. Well there's a mural which covers one whole side of the Boston architectural center and Newbury Street in downtown Boston. Reporter Vivian du cad spoke with the creator of this unusual vision artist artist Richard Haas.

The building is a very interesting one thousand 60s architectural school and it's. I think about seven stories tall. The exact measurements were something for the wall or something like sixty six feet high eight feet wide. And it would only be seen from the second story level. It has a very unusual symmetrical shape. And. That was also considered in the design. I felt it had a very kind of brutal. Fortress like exterior. And I try to consider something on that level. And that process led me to the kind of 18th century cross-section cutaway that I arrived at which is really a dome cut away as you would see it in an architect's drawing from the Mozart period or something and you see inside you see stairways you see doors you see the rotunda and all these other things. And this is a way of patching up a wall that by accident was not covered.

I'm not too sure about the accident in this case I think the intention of the people was that the building would become bigger at some point. And so this was the back wall it wasn't a terrible wall really I mean I've seen a lot worse that I could deal with but in some ways it was a very grand wall and that's what I really got off on. It was never intended to be seen that much and I think now it is. How is this different from doing a painting for a gallery Do you feel that you're imposing your tastier concept on the public. Well I think that brings in and a lot of questions about public art and its purpose and intention. And yes I mean it is different entirely from a gallery situation. I think that restricts me but at the same time it allows me to do more. While it allows me first of all to relate to an audience I would never have in a gallery. It restricts me in the sense that I think it has to work for a larger audience and in many more circumstances than an exhibition or a painting that

you know occurs in a more private space. What are you doing architecturally I mean don't you introduce styles that are not necessarily present or don't fit with the building in the style that's there then. Initially the wall that I did in Soho for instance no really completed the building in that style. Each one that I've done since I think has tried to deal with a slightly different problem and I think the one that you're talk we're talking about mostly is the one in Boston where I really tried to. You bring a fantasy aspect into that building. But I'm still considering the building that it's placed on very carefully in the design. But then it's painting it's not architecture and I think that always has to be kept in mind. Therefore I'm allowed a license that maybe an architect isn't. How is that different from doing your own canvas. Well it really is quite close to that it is a painting that I

submit to the sign painters The difference is I'm working in full scale. I have to work with their sensibility of color and I have to measure everything according to the wall and how this is executed who rents the Crane who who chooses the paint is what's the process. Well we choose the painters by submitting bids. Once I do the sketch for the final wall we'll submit it to two or three paint companies and they will submit a bid in the lowest bidder of course usually gets the project. Sometimes the lowest bidder doesn't get it if I don't feel that they can execute it. And these are generally signed painters or is there now a specialty of of the mural painters around. No there really isn't anything like that these are sign painters but they have incredible capacity to do execute these projects and that they can duplicate any art work scaled up or your regular canvas painter before. Well

I have a multifaceted background I guess you could say I was an abstract painter for some 10 years. I was a print maker and still am a print maker and my print making involves architecture primarily. And that has continued up to the present and then I'm also a painter of architectural subject matter and so is your interest in architecture What got you on to doing city was. Yes I think it came directly out of my early prints of Soho casting and facades and also other architectural Victorian and early 20th century American architectural facades. Worst is one hundred twenty five year old Mechanics Hall is a fine acoustical

concert hall which fell on hard times and gave way from classical music and lofty your ration to wrestling in the war roller skates. About six months ago Mechanics Hall reopened in style completely restored to its 19th century grander as a result of energetic fund raising by people in Worcester. Now music from classical to barbershop will grace the hall again. Henrietta Davies visited Mechanics Hall and talked with its executive director Julie Chace Fuller. It was Bill in 1857. Right as a civil war was warming up and in his I would say in his heyday in those first well the first 50 years at least it was used for almost anything that took place in the city of was still which was then just emerging as an industrial city. It was a meeting place of political rallies and conventions boys coming back from fighting in the Civil War used to get off a railroad train up here at the. Lincoln Square and come down

here for levees and parties. And what happened to it and why isn't it still saying why wasn't it seeing that kind of use. Well I think what happens in all cities interests change people move to suburbia and they have their own you know halls out there. And also right after World War 2 a very beautiful Memorial Auditorium was built. And it's always very thrilling to go to a new facility. And so the focus changed from here to the auditorium and the was to county mechanics Association which owns the building fell on I'd say very lean days. And we had to keep it afloat by having prize fights and wrestling and running it up to roller skating. But used to break your heart to see this lovely concert hall with its fantastic acoustics being used for roller skating. How much money it cost to restore the building. We ran out of money. You

know as you do when you're raising money. So we decided we would phase it and at least get the whole building upgraded as far as its heating wiring plumbing duct work all that. That's the stuff you don't see. Then completely bring back the beauty of Mechanics Hall up stairs which is the concert hall. Having it completely painted new seeding new lighting and have that done and then the front of the building. Bring it back to the way it looked in 1857. This building was placed on the National Registry of Historic Places which was very nice and very helpful to us. It meant that in order to do the restoration everything that was done had to conform to the way it was an eight hundred fifty seven which meant that the paint colors had to be researched going down through 18 coats of paint in some kind. And so this was done and that's phase one.

That pretty well completed. We're now gearing up that cost one million two hundred to how did you raise that money through people and you know the best thing that happened was the bicentennial year because all across this country people discovered that in America we have things that should be saved as they have been save in Europe for years of about all of a sudden in 79 1076 we found out that some of these buildings ought to be saved such as was his mechanics. Then you fund drive starts. Who are your donors or your donors are many of your local industry all local industries and businesses your banks small industries. Then we had a campaign with a campaign chairman and then it fanned down into your neighborhoods. We had a chairman of grants and foundations and received quite a lot of information on how to

apply. You know that's a whole world right writing out those grant applications. We happen to be very successful in getting several grants quite a good deal of money from the Massachusetts Historical Commission because we are now their largest recipient of grants in the entire commonwealth. So that's good. And then the people you know people that would come in and send in you know a small amount of many of them have pleasant you know association with this building. And that's been nice to see since we've been having this rededication people who remember hearing John Philip Sousa coming to the fights or even rollerskating come back in and say oh it's beautiful. And you know this is the nicest thing that can happen. Do you have a hard time convincing city fathers and people in the community that it was really worth saving this old building.

Yes you do. You have to really it almost is like you know a commercial campaign you have to plan it the same way you have to have we prepared a very good booklet a fundraising booklet that lists its sort of the case for support. You had to justify why save an old building by not only pointing out the historical value but its value to the community in employing people during of the construction and having it as a useful resource to the total community afterwards. How are you planning to support the Mechanics Hall in the future in the game that feasibility study I mentioned way back they had said it would take you three years to get up steam. We got steam up now. We have been making bookings like no one's business I mean OK the opening week that we're referring to will end on a Sunday night with the Messiah the next night we bring in a craft fair for another public radio station here in Worcester

and that night we have an old vaudevillian entertainer Henry Tobias who used to write songs and he's coming back for a show for elderly people then we have a lot of music coming in because of the hall's acoustics. Many different musical groups we have dinner dances. We have magic shows. We have an ethnic weekend. We have a black weekend. We have a bar mitzvah. We have a wedding and we have a magic show a puppet show. I come in all in the Night Visitors it goes on and it's just so exciting you know and you know it's a novelty and I don't kid myself the novelty will take you for a while but then you've got to come up with new ideas. Going back to the original purposes of this building being a community hall for everyone in the city to use everyone in the city seems to want to use it for GBH Journal.

I'm Henrietta Davis. So we come to the close of GBH Journal the Thursday the twenty seventh of July. Show is produced by Marcia Hirtz days engineer was Perry Carter. Have a Good afternoon. From. The boom. Boom. Boom.

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