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I'm Philip Martin filling in for Kelly. This is the Kelly Crossley Show the state legislature is poised to pass Governor Patrick's crime bill. And part of this legislation includes reforming the laws that govern criminal offenders record information also known as Corey. These days the notion of a president paying his debt to society is long gone. With prospective employers and landlords digging into a person's criminal past. The attempted arm robbery or unintended trespassing. A crime of any degree is a major strike that can block someone at every turn from finding a job to finding a home to getting an education. It may not be a life sentence in the conventional tradition but a criminal record can lock someone out of the bare essential for life. We'll look at what a true court reform could mean for Massachusetts. We top off the hour with a new initiative that could bring a museum to a storefront near you. Up next fresh starts and rotating art. First the news. From NPR News in Washington on CORBA Coleman homebuilders in the U.S. are still clawing their way out of the sluggish economy. The Commerce Department says housing starts and building permits were down

in February. But as NPR's Tamara Keith reports back to back blizzards on the East Coast played a part in these numbers. Some of the blame for the nearly 6 percent drop in housing starts goes to the February snowstorms but new building permits which give a sense of future home construction also fell by 1.6 percent. Some analysts are saying that's just fine given the saturated state of the housing market. DAVID CROWE The chief economist at the National Association of Home Builders isn't so sure the inventory of brand new houses is very low it's the lowest it's been since 1971. But new homes are only one part of the market. The builders are still competing against a lot. Distressed sales foreclosures and short sales and so forth and until more of those homes work their way through the system. New Home Builders are likely to remain cautious. Tamara Keith NPR News Washington.

Golfer Tiger Woods says he'll return to the professional circuit next month at the Masters Tournament in Augusta Georgia. He's been in seclusion since December after news broke that the married golfer had had several affairs. NPR's Tom Goldman says despite how people view him Woods return is great news for pro golf. Regardless of what many in the public think of the sex scandal that has tarnished Tiger Woods image the PGA Tour needs Tiger Woods he is their biggest star. He's the guy who brings in the casual fans. He's the guy who drives has driven up the purses the money that other players have made in these tournaments. He is a cash cow. NPR's Tom Goldman. Tension remains high in Iraq. Eight people died today when bombs stuck underneath their vehicles blew up. Ten people were hurt in the attack south of Baghdad. NPR's Quil Lawrence reports from the Iraqi capital. An Iraqi police source said two minibuses full of people commuting from Baghdad to the city of

Hillah exploded near the town of Musayyib. Within five minutes of one another there was no discernible motive for the attack. Levels of violence have been low since Iraq's nationwide elections on March 7th. But delay in the announcement of results has left the country awash with rumors and a growing number of fraud allegations. International observers say none of the charges so far could affect the overall tally. But that all serious claims will be investigated before the result is certified. U.S. military officials say they intend to begin drawing down troops rapidly about two months after the results are announced. But it may take much longer than that for Iraqi politicians to agree on a coalition government. Quil Lawrence NPR News Baghdad. On Wall Street the Dow was up 1000 points at ten thousand six hundred two. This is NPR. Michael Jackson's estate has signed one of the richest recording contracts in history with Sony Music. The singer's longtime label as NPR's Neda Ulaby reports the deal includes some of Jackson's unreleased work.

The deal gives the Jackson estate up to two hundred and fifty million in advances and other payments for about 10 unreleased recordings as well as for the superstars back catalog starting with the soundtrack for his final film. This is it. Still good deal announced today enable Sony to collaborate with Jackson's estate a lucrative licensing arrangements in which Jackson's music might be used in movies stage shows or anything else that might appeal to fans. Last year after his death in June Jackson became the top selling musician in the U.S. international sales of his albums topped 30 million. Sony says it has a new album of unreleased recordings scheduled to go on sale in November. Neta Libby NPR News. Road crews in California will fix part of a road along Interstate 5 in Los Angeles after rush hour tonight. Authorities first thought an early morning earthquake caused a 10 foot section of the road to wave in buckle today but the California Highway Patrol says they actually got damage reports about that spot yesterday. Today's quake had a magnitude of

4.4 millions of people felt it just before dawn. There are no reports of injuries. The federal government is warning people in the upper Midwest about heavy flooding. Forecasters say there's a lot more snow that's going to melt this year and run off into the Mississippi Missouri and red rivers. Officials in Fargo North Dakota plan to lay up to one million sandbags to protect their city from flooding. I'm CORBA Coleman NPR News in Washington. Support for NPR comes from Lending Tree with the innovative loan coach which provides personalized financial advice for every step of the lending process at Lending Tree dot com. Good afternoon I'm Philip Martin sitting in for Kelly and this is the Kelly Crossley Show Nathaniel Hart Thorne seminal novel The Scarlet Letter tells the story of Hester Prynne an unmarried woman who bears a child in puritanical 17th century Boston. As a consequence she is literally branded with the letter S

which she must wear for ever in the 1905 film version of Hawthorne's novel Prin played by actress Demi Moore faces her accusers. Mistress. If you do not speak out the name you must wait upon your bodice this symbol. Of you will simply. Eat. Or eat nothing. There's little warning from this. It would be a riot. Football shot by rebel held by everybody thought it was. OK now fast forward to the present and the criminal offender record information or Corey might be likened in the view of some to a 21st century scarlet letter. Once you commit a crime of just about any magnitude you are branded for life. Now in 1972 when Corrie was enacted into law it seemed like a good idea at the time at least to keep track of criminals so that's what was the idea. But critics believe Corr has also served to keep individuals convicted of nonviolent crimes

from moving on with their lives. They want to change it and leading the call for reform. Our guest today Suffolk County Sheriff Andrew Breaux and Jeff Ross an attorney and partner at Ross and associates where he practices human rights and immigration law. Welcome everyone. Thanks for having us. Thank you for having you. Now later we'll be joined by State Representative Elizabeth Malea a Democrat representing the 11th district. Now let's get into a sheriff. I don't mean to sound presumptuous but some people hearing the title sheriff might assume you're taking a different stance on this issue. Why do you want to change the way Massachusetts keeps trying to keep track of individuals with with criminal records. Well most of the people who know anything about my career know that before I was sheriff I was a prosecutor for about 16 years. And. My position is unchanged with regard to personal accountability. If you commit a crime you're accountable for that crime and you're accountable to

deal with whatever the punishment is for that crime. The issue for me is a more nuanced approach to what we do with people once they are incarcerated. What we're doing with them to help them if they do want to get their lives back on track get their lives back on track. So my position is unchanged with regard to accountability but it's it's a very realistic practical approach given the exploding numbers of people that we have involved in the criminal justice system as to what we do and how we modernize our system of assisting them to get back on the right track. Now this is obviously a huge problem for for the reform effort to be taking on the shape as it is why it's critical in your view. Well I think that you know I think you'd mentioned in your opening comments about the the kauri system. I think it it was a good idea when it started and the Cory this criminal history systems board is still a good idea I think the problem was that it simply with the ever increasing numbers of people who have become involved in the criminal

justice system and that's and that's a whole separate discussion as to how that has occurred over a period of years that the system itself needed to be needs some attention it needed to be updated it need to be scrutinized it needed to be held to a higher standard I think that's what the kauri reform bill does. OK. Why should. Let me just ask you this question Jeff Jeff Ross. Why should those of us who have never had a record care anything about this issue. I don't part of the problem is that when you have a system that creates records that follow people around for example a juvenile who is trespassing you know in another juvenile in a separate case who commits a more serious crime when they get older and they have these records sealed the presumption that people make oftentimes when they're looking at hiring individuals or if they have access to these records as the worst case scenario. And so oftentimes people are precluded from getting jobs when they come out of the system. There are some statistics by the Boston Workers Alliance that 5 percent of black

males with Cory's are not called back for interviews versus 14 percent. And so there's the argument to be made that Corey's impact you know the transition back into job the job market and. And that this is a cycle. Well on the phone bright right now by the way folks we have state representative Elizabeth Malea Democrat representing the 11th District representative. Yes no you know I'm doing well on yourself very well thank you. OK this court reform started some time ago and I guess the question is Where is it now. What what is the status now. And what do you want the final bill to look like. Well again I think I heard the brawl address the issue of the origin of Corey being something that the kind of in my mind is sort of lost in history a little bit that there were some in a different time we invented some of the rules that we're using today for

other purposes and we haven't updated them we haven't looked at Quarry reform as a practical policy. And you know so really over the years we've all been working I think those of working in corrections but also working in human services have been looking at ways to make quarry effective and equitable. And I think what's driving current interest in reform Cori reform is. The fact that we're looking at costs to the state. That are skyrocketing I mean our corrections costs are really the major the major increase in any area of the budget at this point in time. And we know why. Why are we continuing to hemorrhage dollars into a system without getting great response and when we look back at where the original intent of Kauri came from I think the hope was that there was

some prevention available there. It's not working in the fashion that it's being utilized. We are not decreasing the numbers of people staying in prison. And frankly I think the bottom line right now and the reason a lot more people are at the table about this discussion in the legislature is because the state can afford to keep replicating and paying for a system that is ineffective doesn't work and is frankly bankrupting us. Are you saying it's super expensive to keep track of people is that the bottom line. It's super and expensive to keep people involved in a criminal justice system when very many of those folks particularly you know my my I'm the chair of the Mental Health and Substance Abuse committee and what was really interesting about this is all the ways the issues intersect. Corrections public health mental health. And now that there are more and more people at the table because costs have risen so much we're beginning to understand that we haven't

done a good job weeding out people who are nonviolent offenders. And when we draw everybody in through one large opening we end up having to manage them. We incarcerate them. And one of the things that one of the problems of the Corey laws we have that have been in effect up till now has been creating most a whole separate segment of the economy that sector of the economy that is unemployable i.e. those who have existing quarries and are are not are still basically held back from employment by them. That is essentially we're creating another class of. Dependent citizens in the state and I think we know a lot more about things like treatment and prevention and we have to really

begin to focus state money on the real purposes. If we have a correction system we need to be able to say that we're we're effective in that system and keeping people who have very often are low level drug offenders young young people who've had their first involvement with the criminal justice system keeping them tied into the system and not employable and how simple. Well let me let me ask you not to say nable. Well let me ask listeners what do you think I mean once someone has served their time should their record follow them on the job. Or should their record follow them in trying to rent an apartment so on and so forth. Have you lost out on the job because of a criminal record. We're at 8 7 7 3 0 1 8 9 7 0 8 7 7 3 0 1 8 9 7 0. Let me turn to represent of Malia Thank you. Let me turn for a second to sheriff and asked this question you have you have a

reputation for assisting many of these many of the people whom you've actually incarcerated trying to help them turn their lives around. Can you illustrate give us an example of someone who has basically been caught up in the system and then had a hard time transitioning into into the workforce as a result of that record or for that matter finding an apartment. Well I do it in the context of being someone who runs correctional facilities. So the people that are involved in the programs that I offer are still in custody albeit prerelease in the months before they're scheduled to be released is when we actually work with them and so are our re-entry programs. Two in particular one for men and one for women actually cultivate employers who will hire people who have criminal records. So we've actually gone out and saw employers who say I know this person has a criminal history. This it's

still a good workforce and I want to hire this person and we deal with those employees were almost a liaison between those employers and the and the people who are in our re-entry programs as they're completing the program and building their skills. We have in fact one program in particular the common ground Institute actually finds jobs with these employers so we've placed over 200 five people in jobs who the employer knows they have a criminal record so there's not any issue within the re-entry program that I have for women. I have four total but these two specific ones the re-entry program that I have for women does the same thing our community partners at the South End communal center and project place where one of the things I want to ask Jeff when we come back is why this rises to the level of a human rights issue. This is this is a fascinating topic and again it it takes on many many dimensions and Jeff perhaps you can in fact just tell me briefly and we can pick up on what do you think this is a human rights concern.

Well I think as a policy person and somebody who's written on this issue in the past there is a Supreme Court case in the state of Massachusetts in 2002 called the Commonwealth versus Gallivan which precludes judges from expunging juvenile records. And so we're asking for changes to this bill and we thought we were going to we're going to elaborate I'm Philip Martin sitting in for Kelly and we're zeroing in on Corey on the criminal offender record information. Is it the scarlet letter of the 21st century here in Massachusetts. Give us a call. We're at 8 7 7 3 0 0 1 8 9 7 0. We'll be back after this break. Stay with us. With that. With the.

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Learn more by clicking the donate at WGBH dot org. I'm Philip Martin and this is the Kelly Crossley Show. We're focused this hour on the criminal offender record information passed into law in 1972 to keep track of felons. But critics say it keeps nonviolent offenders from moving on with their lives. With me right now are Suffolk County sheriff and Rick brawl. Human rights lawyer Jeff Ross and State Representative Elizabeth Malea on the line now. Jeff you were saying right before the break that you think this rises to the level of human rights. Why. Well I was saying that in 2001 to when the Supreme Court precluded juvenile judges from expunging. Juvenile records are one of the thrusts that I see behind this piece of legislation and the one of the reasons I say we need to change is because the legislature is the you know the legislature can make this fix. And so my argument is that in cases where there is a juvenile who has a you know case filed against them and there is a complaint where that where those

charges are dismissed or they're not prosecuted or they're filed and they're ultimately not adjudicated as delinquents that juvenile judges should be able to step in and make decisions to expunge those records and expunging is a complete eradication of the record on the person's Korea versus a sealed record which would remain on the record but be sealed and only visible to certain agencies. Well I think my problem with that is you know it's wrong I'm sorry go ahead. Fundamental difference between expungement and sealing and expungement generally is used when it is very clear to the court or the system that the person who was charged is not the right person I mean expungement traditionally has been used when someone has been accused of a crime and it's clearly shown that they were the wrong person the person was ultimately accused clearly shown to be the wrong person. Sealing is different and I think people don't understand the current status of the law with regard to juveniles is that after three years.

Only criminal justice agencies are allowed to see that juvenile record after the criminal history systems Board reports that out to anyone who is looking as no record. If you if all you have is a juvenile record they reported there is no record after three years and that's under matched. If you get the section the chapter The general was a know it Section 100 and I think that that you know ceiling doesn't permit necessarily this access to this record that Jeff was talking about and so my base is a disagreement. Do you have to wait for three years to do it but my basis of disagreement is that I think expungement is supposed to be reserved when it is very clear that the person who was accused of the crime did is not the right person they did not commit the crime vs. And there are issues. You know sometimes a case is no Prost because of that so I can certainly see Jeff's point in that. I think sealing is the proper avenue when you've got the right person and there's probable cause to believe that they committed the crime in fact in some many cases they have been convicted of the crime. Sealing is the appropriate mechanism for that and the criminal history

systems board even currently has the rule where it stays available under certain circumstances for three years and after three years if it's a non criminal justice agency looking at it it's reported out is no record so essentially it doesn't you. The employers and people in housing and others as Jeff referred to are not gaining access to it after three. What you're saying there should be a record but it shouldn't it shouldn't be exposed can it depends and it depends. OK so it depends on depends on what it is who is asking for it and what it is but I think you just blanket lease say that it should be expunged I think that's a very there's a very fundamental difference between the ceiling. Well let's let's let's do this let's let's talk to Gina who is on line 3. Gina you you have a sister I understand who lost her job. Yeah and you know I wanted to you know start up by saying that you know I've always been sympathetic to trying to get the kauri laws changed because as was

discussed earlier in the show the disproportionate effect on racially and on young men but. Recently my family discovered that my middle aged white sister in New Hampshire lost her job at a candy manufacturing company because apparently the employer did ongoing Cori checks and she had had some incident involving a ne'er do well son of her live in boyfriend who was stealing from them and she musta made some kind of threat but she's you know all of a hundred pounds five feet tall middle aged and you know there was some kind of domestic violence claim made by that teenage boy who didn't even live with them or maybe lived with them some of the time but at any rate it into resulted in her getting a CORI. They they but they fired her. She was so embarrassed she didn't tell the

family for almost a year and when she finally did a member of the family said Get a lawyer. The lawyer did the issue and she got hired back. But I mean it was absurd I mean this just goes to show how far Corey has gone from its original intent. OK Janet we get the point and much appreciated. One of the questions I would ask our guests is how do you respond to this type of thing with legally. Well I feel like if I if I could just interject this is right now again. OK. Again one of the things that we're looking at from a broad perspective and that's really the perspective that I have to look at I'm not an attorney and we've been dealing with so many of these related issues but complex combinations for for a long time is that this year we're hoping we will finally begin to do the reform of the quarry laws. We were also trying you know the Senate is trying to address sentencing reform. There are a whole host of the aspects

Cori laws and sentencing reform that really desperately cry out for reform. And if for no other reason because we can't afford not to begin looking at them. But you know if through the legislation that we're proposing this year is something that's been on the line it's been discussed for many years. And what we're hoping to do is to begin at least opening the door to to including all the reforms that needed to be needed to be examined including the ones that Jeff is talking about. But you know again the Senate had a little bit more expansive view of the kauri law then than the original intent of the kauri reform advocates. But you know we're talking about all of those issues. What we need to do this year is to get something concrete on the books and how close are you to house or not. During that represent of how close are you to doing that this year. I think we're very close. Again we're we're at a point

where you know the Senate has really worked through this. There's been a slightly different perspective in terms of having brought sentencing reform into it so it becomes a more complex issue. But at least at the minimum Cori reform this year I think it's reachable. And again I think both from what the sheriff is saying and from what Jeff is saying the need is to formally address this issue and say you know what we've got on the books hasn't worked and wasn't designed for the purposes we've got them now. Let's reform our system let you know again this is a very cost effective way to begin reforming the criminal justice system so we get better outcomes in the long run and were more effective with what we're doing. OK well clearly clearly this is having a major impact on people across the state and and we're hearing from a number of callers. We now have some Sunday on from New Bedford on the line.

Hi can I call it because a lot of people you know a lot of private business owners are criminals markings with everything. So a lot of. Will go realizes a lot of people that have Cory weren't even that big he says would drive they would just do it. So DD if a judge did not see that they did the crime why they continue to be kind of people who were caught up wrong place wrong time wrong people when they are like 17 18 years old. Here they are 40 years old and they can't get a job or the people who did do a crime. They pay their time in jail probation or what have you and now they are trying to feed the kids to pay them right and then being forced to continue a life of crime just to feed their kids and pay their rent. Well Cindy what's so let's see let's see how. Let's see what Jeff Jeff response. Well I think that we all agree. It seems that we all agree that there needs to be a change in that. You know with the sheriff and Representative Molly and the great work that they're doing everybody agrees that there needs to be a change the system. What I'm not suggesting with all due respect to the sheriff that we expunge

all juvenile records are that we have this broad sweeping. But what about Saddam as opposed to doing what Sandy was just saying about the fact that this. It may not even include people who then necessarily convicted of a crime. Well one of the pieces right and that's the piece that I was going to get to is that you know and the view of a defense attorney you know the work that we do sometimes in my office probable cause is not a conviction and we're just my position is that judges should be allowed to decide those cases and that we should you know they will know the history of the youths that come before them repeatedly. You know there may be some of those issues but where somebody is in the system for the first time and this is a situation that we don't want to continue to perpetuate. You know and there is a rehabilitate Torii nature to the system we want to allow you know expungement where there where there is no conviction or no adjudication as it is with juveniles. We're here for a world that seems reasonable. What do you think. No I'm not I don't disagree with Jeff about that Cori reform

bill at all. I said I was making a distinction on juveniles in particular an expungement versus ceiling. But to Cindy's point and the caller before her and sort of. It will enable us to talk a little bit more about the content of the bill the bill is loaded with the very protections that Cindy was saying needed to needed to be had and they were protections that were originally in the bill when Governor Patrick filed it and there were amendments to the bill that came out of the Senate that add to those protections so the bill itself it's very very long but it's Senate bill. I think 20 to 20 is the name of it. And when you look through it you see that there are tons of disincentives for employers up to and including criminal penalty penalties of jail and fines for employers to minimize. First it limits their access to certain information you only get the information on convictions none of this. You know I just had a case filed against me and there's no disposition of the case. I was not found guilty the Cori reform bill takes care of that because the kind of

information that a person will get can only be convictions on misdemeanors and felonies. So there are also criminal penalties for intentionally it disseminating or using gaining it by false by false pretenses. Again the access of the information by false pretenses disseminating it improperly. There are tons of incentives in there for employers to make their approach to Korea whatever it is that they do receive To be fair. There are tons of checks and balances in how the criminal history systems board will deal with the information will educate those that have access to criminal records. I mean it's important to to not demonize the criminal history systems board and to remember that this is a data gathering system the system was put in place to gather data about arrests in the way a case goes through the criminal justice system. I don't fault the fact that we gather the data. What we need to look at which is what the kauri reform bill does is how we maintain that data who we disseminate that data to and who we limit access to whose access we limit that data

to. And I think it's the latter that the more there seems to be a lot of concern I mean all of it is obviously of concern but the latter seems to be it seems to be open to possible exploitation is it can you for example can it be used punitively. Well you have two kinds of groups that have this information. And people think that every time someone has access to their criminal history it's coming through the criminal history systems board. There were tons of private data aggregators these people are in business just like collection agencies are they are in business to simply aggregate data from public records and disseminated to the to whoever is willing to pay them you can go online and you can get it. There is no regulation. The data aggregate is a lot of these private employers I suspect it's quite possible that the person that the first caller was talking about with the middle age not New Hampshire that if he's doing regulatory checks he's probably using the services of a private data aggregator. They are unregulated and what the Cory Bill wants to do is to regulate that information not just with the criminal history systems but to make the criminal history systems board

the reliable go to place to get accurate information on someone's criminal history versus these data aggregators who often give inaccurate not updated information and they give it as long as you're willing to pay 995 however much it is online. Well sure but let's go to David and I think Eason Webster if I correct David. OK David. Yes I'm here. Yes and your point is you've just heard the sheriff you've heard Jeff Ross and State Representative Elizabeth talk about Corey how does a how does this impact you. Well I'm glad that there are efforts on the way to protect people who might be impacted and shouldn't be impacted. But my question was how effective is Cory if as I understand it that Cory only within the Commonwealth. What does it do about convictions are life threatening convictions that could be from neighboring states from neighboring states.

Yes. I think it's very close to New Hampshire very close to Rhode Island and when you're getting that mail you my understanding is that it's what the legislation we're working on in fact specifically Massachusetts I mean the existing system you know again down the road we have a lot of work to do in terms of addressing. What goes on you know across across the country in terms of the fact that there is a sheriff pointed out. You know there's a business of aggregating this data. If we begin to has established norms and standards and begin to control the information we have at the state the chances of that information being used appropriately and effectively and fairly are improved greatly. Well let's say you got just from a legal point of view as an attorney how can this be. Can this be basically how can you eliminate the disparity between between states.

That's a very interesting question I mean that would go to the question of whether states are sharing information or not and clearly Massachusetts cannot regulate behavior of a neighboring state but I think that it's an interesting issue that should probably you know be looked at if if somebody is now residing in Massachusetts then it gives rise to the question of you know what do what does our state what how are we entitled to have information about a person who is residing here who may have a history in another place. OK so we I'm afraid we're running out of time but Sheriff brawl what's next what are the next steps the next step this is to hopefully get the bill through the house I guess there are a couple of options it's in the Judiciary Committee right now and that committee can report it out. I think favorably or the speaker can simply accept the Senate version of the bill. Sometimes you know the different chambers will use their opportunities to add amendments or change the bill and then they'll conference it out and get a bill hopefully that both both houses can can agree on.

I just want to mention to the point about the out of state records for your caller. It's a different sort of records one that's called an NCIC. The in-state one comes from the quote they welcome the criminal history systems board but the NCIC is the records check that you do for out of state records and you really don't you get what they give you with regard to that it is I think ultimately unless we decide to federalize the system which that may be down the line you have to rely on the good recordkeeping of each individual state. OK well thank you very much. This is a great segment and I'm sorry that's all the time we have for it. We've been discussing Corey reform with State Representative Elizabeth Malea. Our last speaker Suffolk County Sheriff Andrew brawl and local human rights lawyer Jeff Ross. Thank you all. When we come back. When we come back the quest by two designers to remake Boston one storefront museum at a time. That. With. With.

With. With. With the. With. With. With the. Support for WGBH comes from you. And from the New England mobile book fair in Newton. For 53 years. New England's independent bookstore. The New England mobile book fair. Find them online at any book fair dot com. That's an e-book fair dot com and from Hannaford and Dumas commercial printers built on referrals sustained on trust and committed to fulfilling the printing needs of New England businesses since 1976. You can explore their range of printing capabilities at Hanaford Dumas dot com and from wild and scenic environmental film festival. Opening with a film tapped Plus 8 shorts with supper desserts and auction. Saturday March 20th. You can be prepared to be inspired. Eat dash action dot us on Monday March 22nd.

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trusted voices and local conversation with FRESH AIR and the Emily Rooney show. The new eighty nine point seven. WGBH. I'm Philip Martin filling in for Kelly this is the Kelly Crossley Show. Today marks the launch of Design Museum Boston. Its goal is to create a network of virtual and physical exhibit spaces online in Boston and across New England. In other words to make the city hip or more colorful and indeed more cosmopolitan Joining us to talk about this initiatives are two of the founders of Design Museum Boston Samak well-known and Derrick CASSIO. Now let's talk to let's talk about the key design concept and and how you expect to implement it. In this I guess in many ways this conservative corner of New England. You're yet so Pleasure to be on the show. Thanks for having us. So I think really the key of the whole thing it's just shoot just

you. Just one other question yeah. Before you even get into that. Yeah. Why did you guys why did you come about with this as a good story on this. So for about the last five or six years Sam and I have worked together as officers with the IDSA Boston which is that industrial designers Society of America Boston chapter. And during that time we interface with a lot of other professional organizations and other designers across the Boston area and realized that you know we could we have this all of this this these resources this potential here and we're really only catering to a very small segment of designers. There's about 45000 designers in Massachusetts. And we said you know we think we can we think we can do more we think we can can target a larger audience and include the public in that. And that's really where that came from and I think you know at one point in time we said you know we would like to do this design exhibit or this festival and it was really focused more on industrial design and was going to be across Massachusetts we're going to call it design Massachusetts. And. You know we said you know this is this got some legs I think we can do. I think we can do it more and expand this to every discipline

and we actually have it on the back of a sketch on the back of a pizza box that we still have that that sort of detail about this idea. That's how creative ideas begin. Yeah that's a rather than actually sort of trying to have a napkin so you see we had a pizza box that was a messy night. So I think I think once we kind of hit on that we said you know we we should try and take this take this full scale and see what we can do and originally we said you know would be great to be able to get a building and have a building of this whole building and people come to integrate and then we said well you know we're in the middle of a recession now. So this is this is silly we can't raise that kind of money do we want to raise that kind of money and is that going to get us to where we actually want to be which is in the face of the public. And that's those are the people that we really want to be interfacing with right so we don't want to just be serving other designers. That's half of it. But we really want to educate. And that's that was really the crux of the whole mission and the ideas that bring design to people where they already are as you mentioned retail spaces and galleries. So they're already there they're already they're interacting with design whether they know it or not they're buying products

you know their user services Yeah they're entering you know large buildings they're you know designed and so we can kind of for lack of a better word trick them into learning about design and appreciating them. And was there something about Boston about New England current edifices outdoor sculptures indoor art spaces or other designs that sort of this inspiration or call your idea in some way I think is just a large breath of what's happening here I mean there's there's architects there's interior design there's Entertainment Design There's industrial design graphic design web design video game design. I mean it just runs the gamut and it's all happening in Boston and Massachusetts and around and it's been here for a long time too. I mean there's a history there. Those those are some of the design firms that are in Boston have been around for a very long time and they've been doing fantastic work that people. No all over the world now I characterized it as somewhat conservative and it's not a mischaracterization but I've certainly heard that from enough architects. Yeah we've talked a lot about you know why isn't design kind of part of the

culture in Boston. More and in New England and it's definitely one of the pieces that we want to educate folks about. And we you know is talking to the producer your producer about this and you know is there already so much going on in Boston with you know academia in the life sciences and New England. Like is it conservative but also very highbrow very intellectual and I think many people may think of design as not being very intellectual but really it is a lot of what you know research and thinking that goes into design. It's not just well you know I love Project Runway and TV it's not just you know which. Styling it's very it goes very deep into into understanding user needs and solving really solving problems. Well talk about some of the designs currently in Boston. I mean if you go down by the by the waterfront these days there are a few sculptures here and there. They don't seem to have a name. Someone once told me they don't seem to have a place. I mean what what do you what do you see in Boston that you could point out that really

identifies the city in terms as a as a future or as a current design center. I think I mean I think you know first and foremost the actual design firms themselves the design organizations that are that are here that's number one. And I think that as far as something that is tangible to the individuals we use the Gillette razor for example as product designers I tend to go immediately to product but you know Gillette is here the Gillette razor that you use in the morning every day is designed here. The Bose Wave Radio Sam Sams. Works of Bose's during the day and the Bose Wave Radio is done in Massachusetts and millions of people on that. And they may not even think that OK somebody actually thought about this that we have converse right. The conversation is huge. That was done here that started here they put they had Moon Shoes Yeah that's right on the moon's version of it so people don't know these stories though and they don't know the work that went into them upfront and they don't know the impact that they had at the end so that's really the goal.

Well let's try to let's try to visualize for the listeners what it is that you're trying to create. You know two young designers you're trying to create a different type of design landscape. What would it look like in Boston in Massachusetts in New England and online. If someone is what would it look like beyond this point. So we're really using the web as sort of our hub in lieu of a physical right we can raise the millions of dollars right now that it takes but we can certainly have a presence online that kind of groups everything together and kind of serves as the as the doorway into this larger network of exhibits and then you know we may have we're going to our first exhibit at City Hall in Boston. In May so we're going have a hallway exhibit. We're also going to an exhibit in the fall in Downtown Crossing and some empty retail stores and so on as we perpetuate this and have more exhibits in galleries and in malls. We kind of see this kind of network you start to see a sort of a physical web design exhibits that's all kind of united by our Website Design Museum Boston org. Well certainly people are paying attention you've got the cover of the Calendar section of the balls yeah that was

very definitely you will hear there's an appetite for design right now. I think you see it with you know Apple and Target really pushing design and to talk about you know like Sam said Project Runway on HGTV and those shows as well I think that's that's served a good purpose to get to start getting that conversation started people are starting to understand what this is a little bit more. So I think as we make it more public more apparent that hunger grows and we have seen that we've been we've been very surprised and pleased that we've had such a great reception especially with you know with our. And I'm sure we'll get to this a little bit later but with our launch tonight. You know we were overwhelmed by how many people responded to that that invitation was unbelievable we're going to have I think over 400 people showing up tonight so we're you know throughout the Boston area and in Cambridge certainly you find a few places where there are storefront museums that type of thing that you're trying you're trying to create. What what we see inside these places in which communities are we talking about forget that about the online for a second what

about the the the real the physical. What's the saying. Yeah. So if I think about if we talk about the Downtown Crossing exhibit where it's a window or a series of windows where you can't really walk in it's awfully more of a diorama sort of feel and kind of the beginning thinking of that is that the actual designed object is is the actual artifact that we have an exhibit but we give it context and sort of say I'm a white museum pedestal. We give a context and say all right if it's a convert to and it's you know walking on cement we have this white piece of concrete and the white serves as like the blank canvas that this design is sitting on. And on the other side of that Converse sneakers and you know Chuck to Chuck Taylor for example but everyone knows it has to be also the all star. We have the design work that went into designing that object so the sketches and all the great thinking and research that went to that the manufacturing on one side at the beginning. We have the object that everyone knows understands. On the

other side we have the impact the economic impact the social impact environmental impact and what jobs that should Larry eight years because that was done here at that kind of thing. And you know there are there been these starts and stops in terms of design concepts on a grander scale. Now for for a long time I mean you I guess even the emerald necklace was which seems to be on hold right now. Certainly was was a grand design and you're talking on a smaller scale beyond Boston where might we see see these store fronts and what type of designs. Art what we see in there the type of artist for example. So one of the one of the. I think the best channels that we're going to have success with if all goes as planned would be would be models. And there are a number of empty stores within malls and this would provide us an opportunity to actually be able to go into the spaces as well which is very appealing to us but you know walls are everywhere and the ones are empty ones are everywhere and so to us that was the really that's one of the key the key areas that we want to explore and as far as the work that

goes into it I mean we're talking about again everything so that we're talking about fashion that's done here. We're talking about the fashion that like Sam said before is being sold in that mall. So the idea that somebody could go in see a piece of clothing or stereo that they like or again jump straight to product but even even websites that have been done here that people can go and leave that mall and go back home and interface with go leave that store front in that mall and go and purchase that product with an understanding of how good the quality is or what makes good design. That's that's pretty pretty cool. I don't know if you want to spend a little bit similar to the kind of stuff that goes in it. Specifically it's not so much artists but they are artists. Yeah I mean you know straddles the line of. Oh you are a zero Yeah definitely Oh I don't know about that definitely consider us artists but also the other kind of factors we need to take into account right. Users and you know technical feasibility and manufacturing all those sort of things and we really want to. It's not just you know the product or the billing it's that like I said before is the before and after that we want to

show. So I see you're also reaching out to a lot of young aspiring artists from Rizzi from mass art from a sergeant of her worth. You know all over and have you done that already have you been in touch with these people definitely we have our online community. It's a social network we call designing a museum dot org. And it's basically it's a lot like Facebook except it's it's a bunch of designers and also interested public who are going online and chatting and posting on message boards and posting photos about what could a Design Museum be in Boston. And that's just been fantastic it's like come it's come alive. He has how many months. We had a number of members joining every last one of the 50 members who are on there discussing actively contributing to that conversation and those who might not know about this who might be listening for the first time. How would they I guess how would they get in touch with you. Go to our website. Yes you can in Boston Design Museum Boston dot org. And if you do info at Design Museum Boston dot org that will go to both of us if you have any any questions or would like to help. Help sponsor us or or donate I know earlier today from two students they

said look we're coming to Boston for the summer you know what. But it's the work. Yeah and of course you know it's not just of course it's not just students you have people who've been working for years in Yesod and haven't had a place to put that. Yefim would you be open to accepting school sculptures or paintings or fashion from people that sort depending on the design obviously. Yeah well fashion more so I mean we're we're staying a little away from more contemporary art. I certainly consider design being a temporary art I mean I think this water bottle is a piece of of art there was you something had to Warhol was going to get your instruction. Think about I mean that designer spent time thinking about what this bottle was going to look like in its utility and the strength of it and how it feels to hold it and the label that was on it. So we're definitely more on kind of the utilitarian side of of art and how you're laptop your ear your Apple laptop how that was designed and what a designer did what the sessions he or she made to make it look and feel the way

it was and elicit the emotional response that you get when you see it and say you know one of the things that is happening of course is I see a for example a must do they serve as a as an example for you are you looking beyond that type of institution no example. Definitely an inspiration for us it's I mean it's a great museum and they had a great exhibit. The design triennial a few years ago that was put on by the Cooper-Hewitt. We definitely want to expand on that. Kind of like when I was mentioning about design is contemporary art design being shown and I say is being shown on a museum pedestal alone and to be kind of admired as as a singular artifact but what we want to do is give context to those objects and buildings and fashion to say Look like I'm saying here's a here's how it was created and manufactured here and all the great research and thinking that went into it. And then on the flip side here is all the economic and social benefits and how it impacts their life on an on a daily basis what I think I see is an interesting interesting model just because of its roots. That's the inspirational side of that for salmon eyes the fact that you know it started with a very

small building. And now look what they've become. And so for us to say we could we could we could be pretty big Sunday night when I speak of some day and thinking future specked What would you like to see this five years from now and what would you like to see inside of the store front front museums physically across the across the state. People five years from now people feel like the people inside the store for us coming to see the exhibits. I think. I mean five years ago to be honest with you I mean right now we're we're moving pretty quickly and you know just to see what we've done in the last six months to think five years from now I think the sky's the limit really. If we I mean I'd like to see us in galleries and in malls across the state and across New England. And like Derek said the whole idea is to reach out to the general public and educate them and all this great work that's happening here. So I think the more places we can get into the better the larger that web the better the idea of having just one singular central location is appealing but as of right now and even

maybe five years from now I don't know if it's you know the light at the end of the tunnel I don't know if that's really our end goal because it's sort of counterintuitive counter to what we what are our because design is everywhere. You know people are interacting with us and we're interacting with designer you know these microphones are designed. This laptop was designed so it's all around us so let's take design into the place where people already are and not ask them to come to a special place to learn about it. We're given this vision what I'd like to see I'd like to hear from some from some of my friends in New York in Soho and where. Call in and say we're in this. Yeah that would be that would be an incredible moment because I think it's funny we just had a we just had a correspondence recently from somebody who said you know we've been losing a lot of people to New York or to other areas that you know they've been enticed for whatever reason one way or the other and they like the fact that we're trying to you know keep that here to some degree and and highlight the work that's being done here I thought that was that was you know one of our sponsors and come on bring Boston into the 21st century as far as design because we're just you know sitting back and just watching what

your Congress and your boss didn't know. That's a good question I don't know. I think we're expanding a couple right now. Yeah so Boston's not quite in the 21st century in terms of design and I think I think as far as the work that's being done you know and the work spans the entire globe so it's happening here and kind of being export it's a great export for Boston. But I think what our mission is is that the public isn't aware of all the great designers here in the 21st century. You're an OK guy the way the rest of them aren't going to give you props. All right thanks so much you know or you know we've been speaking with the founders of Design Museum Boston Samak we are only in the dark. Thank you both. Thank you. I'm Philip Martin sitting in for Kelly. You can keep on top of the Kelly Crossley Show by visiting our website to be GBH dot org slash Kelly Crossley This is the Kelly Crossley Show. Today's program was engineered by Alan Madis and produced by Chelsea Mertz. Our production assistants and white knuckle be we our production of WGBH radio Boston's NPR station for news and culture.