We are thrilled to share that Pioneer Valley Regional Ventures Center’s (PVRVC) has been awarded the Paul Bruhn Historic Revitalization Grant to support the creation of the Preservation Works in Western Mass subgrant program.
This is the fifth year of the program, honoring the late Paul Bruhn, beloved executive director of the Preservation Trust of Vermont for nearly 40 years. This also marks the fifth year that AHF has actively tracked the grant, working behind the scenes to bring it to Massachusetts’s rural communities that so acutely need this type of support. In our experience, successful historic preservation requires vision, patience, creativity, collaborative partnerships – and importantly, financial resources.
Time and time again, we find that in our rural communities, historic properties are typically smaller in scale, which is a challenge when paired against high construction costs. The small communities in Western Massachusetts have a limited ability to raise a grant match, placing most state grant opportunities out of reach. With limited grant and philanthropic assistance, investing in the town’s historic assets places an extraordinary financial burden on these small communities, disincentivizing them from utilizing their historic properties as a tool for cultural and economic growth.
The $750,000 grant will allow the state-designated regional planning agency to work with the Ventures Center to develop a subgrant program and select individual projects in rural communities for physical preservation projects that will contribute to economic vitality.
PVRVC’s new program will begin to close the funding gap for historic properties in rural communities and produce examples of the opportunity that exists to galvanize economic development by restoring and re-using National Register-listed community anchor buildings. The idea is to support economic development through the preservation of historic buildings in towns with fewer than 12,500 residents in Hampshire County, as well as small communities in Hampden and west central and southwest central Worcester counties.
It is the first time a Bruhn Historic Revitalization Grant has been awarded to a Massachusetts organization. We look forward to supporting this endeavor across the western part of our state!
With summer just around the corner, it’s time for an update on the Charles River Speedway!
It can be tough to point to anything anniversary-related around the Speedway, because we never had a “grand opening” moment. (Actually, we had several “grand openings”!) Part of that is because construction schedules are always tricky, but also because COVID brought big delays. The realities of small businesses going through a global pandemic translated to a very staggered start. Notch Brewing opened in July of 2021, Bellwether Salon and House of Art & Craft opened that fall, Koji Club opened in February of 2022, Super Bien in August and so on…
So, instead of focusing on one particular day, let’s say this: we are approaching a new summer season at the Charles River Speedway and we have a lot of really interesting things going on here. With a few new small businesses joining our community this spring, there is a feeling around these parts that we are entering into a new, exciting phase of vitality and creativity here at the Speedway.
Named Boston’s Best Brewery in 2022 by Boston Magazine, Notch Brewing’s Brighton taproom and biergarten is their take on a traditional Czech and German-style beer hall. Notch Brewing is well known for their classic session style beers from the Czech Republic, Germany, England, and Belgium. Notch Provisions has its own storefront facing the courtyard, and provides beer-friendly foods like sausages, cheese plates, pretzels and more.
The Speedway is lucky to be home to Master Stylist Melinda Brandt. This inclusive one-chair salon studio provides a one-on-one experience in a welcoming environment, amidst the backdrop of all the buzzing Speedway central courtyard.
Just opened! Long-time Speedway friend, collaborator, and maker of delicious things, Dan and Allie Spinale have just opened their first brick and mortar location here at The Speedway. The focus of their menu here will be on Sicilian slices and sandwiches, with inventive salads and specials coming soon.
Filled with soothing scents, beautiful hand-poured soy wax candles and aromatherapy products, this is the first permanent brick + mortar location for Steysy Clark. As well as being a resource for sustainable goods, Steysy also hosts regular workshops where participants learn to craft their own candles and soap.
THE place in Boston to enjoy all things sake. At award-winning Koji Club, guests can enjoy sake while also learning about its culture and history from industry leader and tastemaker Alyssa Mikkiko Dipasquale. A beautiful jewel box of a space, the experience here is immersive and intimate. The Koji Club was recently named to Conde Nast Traveler’s Hot List – Top 20 restaurants in the world and Esquire’s Best Bars in America, 2023.
This sparkling gem of a Latin American grocery store-meets-wine bar from the Buenas team features empanadas, sauces, and snacks galore. The food is fun and incredibly tasty, the South American natural wine list is one of a kind, and there are a ton of great food finds to bring home to keep the party going.
From Ran Duan and the award-winning team behind Blossom Bar, Baldwin Bar and Ivory Pearl, Birds of Paradise features thoughtfully-made cocktails and “airline snacks” inspired by the golden age of travel.
BWM is bringing a new concept to The Speedway this summer – an incubator shop with a rotating slate of local women-founded small businesses, makers, and artists. The Incubator Shop is open Thursday-Sunday.
Opening soon: Rite Tea & Espresso (opening June 2023)
The first dedicated bricks and mortar location for the Wicked Thrawl, which has been popping up inside The Koji Club for the past six months. Rite will feature a very special tea program, espresso drinks, pour over coffee and a really exciting rotating slate of seasonal drinks.
A former Garage building, today it is the flexible events space located within The Speedway complex. Garage B hosts weddings, corporate events and meetings, family celebrations, and frequent markets and community events.
ABOUT THE SPEEDWAY
The Speedway is a vibrant, dynamic marketplace in Brighton. Once the headquarters for the Charles River Reservation parkland, today the revitalized historic buildings and central courtyard are home to a unique collection of small businesses – including bars, restaurants, shops, a hair salon and a flexible event space.
Built between 1899 and 1940, the Charles River Speedway is considered one of DCR’s “origin properties.” Arranged around an interior courtyard, the buildings once served as police headquarters, Superintendent’s residence, horse stables, and maintenance garages for the Charles River Reservation, formerly under the authority of the Metropolitan District Commission. The complex was also a companion facility for the Speedway trotting park, a horse and bicycle racecourse that curved for a mile along present-day Soldiers Field Road.
Long underutilized, and then vacant for over a decade, the buildings fell into disrepair.
Through a unique public/private partnership called the Historic Curatorship Program, Architectural Heritage Foundation and DCR set forth on the redevelopment of the historic property in 2019, with the first tenant, Notch Brewing, opening their doors in July of 2021.
As we prepare for our first holiday season at The Speedway, we realized that so much has happened since we shared our last project update here. Though it can often feel like progress is happening at a snail’s pace, in truth, SO much has happened in a few short months.
Here are a few key highlights:
First, we completed our move from Old City Hall to our new, beautiful office space here at the Speedway. We are thrilled to be part of this community in Brighton!
Next up: this summer, in the middle of a heat wave, Notch Brewing threw open their doors to the beer-loving public. The Upper Courtyard was transformed into a biergarten with tables and shade sails. (We are thankful that we had plans in place to make the courtyard a comfortable place, no matter the season.) If there’s one thing that we have learned from COVID, our outdoor spaces are incredibly important.
After a months-long application and selection process, we are thrilled to report that we have found tenants for all of our “Shops at the Stables” retail spaces. These six small-scale retail storefronts have always been intended to become home to a collection of unique local businesses, making the Speedway the unique, richly layered destination that we set out to create from day one. We are so thankful to our leasing partners, Graffito SP, for their invaluable help making these connections, and we are so excited to welcome the following businesses to the stalls.
NOW OPEN! The House of Art and Craft, Steysy Clark, a scented candle and aromatherapy shop.
NOW OPEN! Bellwether Salon, a one-chair hair boutique by veteran stylist Melinda Brandt.
NOW OPEN! Cambridge Art Association, a satellite gallery and workshop space offering art classes and programs.
OPENING SOON: The Koji Club, Boston’s first sake bar from sake sommelier Alyssa Mikiko DiPasquale.
OPENING SOON: Hummus v’Hummus, a new “hummuseria” from Chef Avi Shemtov.
OPENING 2022: Tipping Cow Ice Cream, run by David Lindsey and Gerly Adrien.
OPENING 2022: Notch Provisions, a new culinary concept from the Notch Brewery team, featuring beer-friendly takeout options and merchandise.
OPENING 2022: Super Bien, a Latin American–inspired “grocery bar” concept from Melissa Stefanini, founder of Buenas.
We also welcomed two non-profit organizations – the Friends of Herter Park and the Fishing Academy – to the Speedway’s dedicated nonprofit office space. One of the key goals for the Speedway is to help facilitate the reconnection of the community to the broad recreational amenities of the Charles River, so we are particularly enthusiastic about the missions of the Friends of Herter Park and the Fishing Academy.
After a busy summer, we kicked things off with our first annual Labor Day Block Party at The Speedway, with live music, lawn games, and plenty of beer. Our tenants showed off their specialties and it felt SO good to welcome the world through The Speedway gates. A few weeks later, we welcomed many of our project partners to celebrate the official completion of the construction with a ribbon cutting ceremony in Garage B.
Rounding things out, we were so pleased to have the opportunity to talk about The Speedway as a historic preservation case study with Preservation Mass earlier this fall. AHF’s Kara Anderson and DCR’s Kevin Allen presented an in-depth look at the project, which can be viewed in whole here. We are hopeful that some of the lessons we learned over the course of the past few years prove to be useful to others seeking to take on a complex project of their own.
Last but not least, we are thrilled to share that the New England Real Estate Journal recognized the Charles River Speedway as their October project of the month, and we congratulate our partners at D.F. Pray and Bruner/Cott for this recognition.
There is so much more to come as we near the end of 2021 – but for now, we are feeling immensely grateful for all of our partners, tenants, and friends here at The Speedway. To progress! To preservation! To making things work and getting things done!
Architectural Heritage Foundation is a 501(c)3 dedicated to stimulating economic development in disinvested communities through historic preservation. Follow AHF and its projects on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
After a three-year strategic planning effort, the Architectural Heritage Foundation has rebranded as AHF, overhauled its website, and is in the process of relocating its offices from downtown Boston’s Old City Hall to the Charles River Speedway in Brighton. The changes reflect a shift away from historic property management to preservation-oriented development in under-resourced communities. AHF was fortunate to have the assistance of FireRock Marketing and Exponent Collaborative during the planning and rebranding process.
Speedway courtyard in January after snow. Courtesy of Jason Baker.
Over the five decades of AHF’s existence, the focus of historic preservationists has undergone a dramatic change. AHF pioneered adaptive reuse at a time when house museums dominated the preservation landscape and urban planners favored replacing historic structures with modern ones. In 1969, the organization redeveloped Boston’s Old City Hall into a thriving office and restaurant building, demonstrating that vacant historic properties could be reintegrated into the urban fabric. AHF managed Old City Hall for the next fifty years, during which time adaptive reuse grew increasingly popular as a community growth and empowerment strategy. While AHF occasionally departed from its primary role as a historic property manager to rehabilitate underutilized buildings, it was not until 1999, under the new leadership of Sean McDonnell, that the organization began to devote more attention to the trend it helped to initiate: stimulating economic development in disinvested places through historic preservation.
“This has been a long time coming,” says McDonnell of the rebranding. “The name Architectural Heritage Foundation no longer reflects the work we’ve been and are doing over the past two-plus decades to help communities ‘unstick’ preservation projects and generate economic development. People mistook us for an architectural firm or preservation philanthropy. We’ll always be the “Architectural Heritage Foundation” entirely, but referring to the organization consistently as AHF, not to mention the new website, will help us simplify and amplify our message as the go-to agency for historic preservation and economic development for critical community projects.”
Photos by Porter Gifford.
In addition to rebranding, AHF is moving its offices out of the basement of Old City Hall and into the newly rehabbed Charles River Speedway. This decision is partly an adaptation to the COVID economy, but also an effort to have a stronger presence in the communities AHF serves. Since 1969, Boston has experienced a surge in investment that has provided unprecedented resources for historic preservation downtown. In consequence, AHF has prioritized other parts of the city and the Commonwealth whose economies and historic resources are more vulnerable. The Speedway is the latest outcome of this shift in focus. Relocating to North Brighton will allow AHF to strengthen its ties with the local community while emphasizing its commitment making preservation an option of “first resort” in historically under-resourced areas.
“The field of preservation has grown so much since AHF was established, and we needed to rethink where we fit in” McDonnell observes. “A lot of people – from AHF Board members to our consultants – have helped us find our niche as a nonprofit developer and consultant. I’m incredibly grateful for their hard work and excited for the new chapter AHF has begun.”
Bob Salerno of the West Stockbridge Historical Society relaxes outside the Old Town Hall. Credit: Ben Garver, The Berkshire Eagle.
Nobody expected West Stockbridge to draw crowds. For most of its existence, the rural town was best known for its proximity to its namesake, from which it split in 1774, and for its location at the last exit along the Mass. Pike before the New York border. Surrounded by green hills and lily-padded ponds, West Stockbridge was the kind of quiet, out-of-the-way community where change came slowly. In the sixties, residents balked at the introduction of an orderly house numbering system deemed “Communist.” Twenty years later, many were reluctant to adopt 9-1-1 as an emergency telephone number – what was the point when the Fire Department already knew where they lived? West Stockbridge has always been a place where continuity and community mattered. Thus it is no surprise that when change did come to town, it was the result of one vacant historic building and the local people who saw its potential.
As president of the West Stockbridge Historical Society, Bob Salerno is deeply familiar with the decade-long effort to restore West Stockbridge’s Old Town Hall, which dates to 1854. The excitement in his voice is palpable as he recounts the building’s history over a telephone call in early November. For 150 years, the Old Town Hall functioned as a community center containing a large meeting area, town offices, a library, a police station, and commercial space. Age took its toll, however, and in 2004 the building was emptied of tenants. When the Select Board proposed demolishing or selling it to the highest bidder, alarmed residents banded together to save their local heritage. The long-inactive Historical Society revitalized itself and bought the building for a dollar (a fundraising brochure on the group’s website quips that it “seriously overpaid for the privilege”). Says Bob with no hint of weariness, “The Society has been working on restoring the building ever since.”
The West Stockbridge Old Town Hall hosted civic events, such as this “Grand Rally” for temperance in 1862. Courtesy of the West Stockbridge Historical Society.
For a community with a population of just 1,084, this is no small task. The rehabilitation initially was expected to cost between $300,000-$500,000; it is now estimated at $1 million. When the project began, the Historical Society struggled to get seed funding from most organizations. “Massachusetts is very Boston-centric and East Coast-centric,” Bob observes. “Every grant application we sent in, we’d get a letters saying it’s not going to work, why bother, you’re rural. It was very painful.”
To make matters worse, West Stockbridge had little to attract visitors who might have been inclined to invest in the Old Town Hall’s restoration, and still less to encourage those who did happen to pass through to linger. According to Bob, “West Stockbridge used to be a drive-by community where people picked up their beer on their way to Tanglewood.” The downtown stretched just three to four blocks, bookended by a Congregational Church and the Public Market, a grocery-turned-deli in continuous operation for nearly a century. There were (and still are) no traffic lights in the entire town. Yet the Historical Society was not deterred. Its members knew that the Old Town Hall could become a magnet not just for local residents, but for tourists ordinarily focused on well-established cultural destinations in Stockbridge and Pittsfield. The trick was to make others see the same thing.
The Historical Society began dusting off old relationships and building new ones. Board members wooed full-time, seasonal, and former residents with a vision of the Old Town Hall filled to capacity for performances and lectures. They won over businesses and foundations, and established a tiered annual membership system for the Historical Society that has yielded a reliable stream of funds for renovations. Over ten years, the Massachusetts Historical Commission and the Massachusetts Cultural Council contributed more than $200,000 in matching grants to the project – fully one quarter of the $780,000 that the Historical Society has raised for the building to date. Thanks to private and public philanthropy, the Old Town Hall now has a new basement, elevator, and plumbing system, and it will soon have a new roof as well. Each improvement raised awareness of the restoration and increased the community’s confidence that the Old Town Hall had a future.
The main hall and stage at the West Stockbridge Old Town Hall. Courtesy of the West Stockbridge Historical Society.
One fundraising strategy in particular had impacts that extended beyond the renovation efforts to the town as a whole. The Historical Society began to hold benefit concerts in the Old Town Hall soon after purchasing the building. Board members forged partnerships with the Berkshires’ thriving cultural community, filling the organization’s events calendar with performances, exhibitions, lectures, and holiday celebrations. Four members of the West Stockbridge Chamber Players who also performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra declared the auditorium “an acoustical jewel.” Audiences clearly agreed. Annual attendance at Historical Society events grew to 3,200 as word spread from West Stockbridge to Boston and Albany. Whereas established Berkshire performance venues attracted predominantly out-of-towners, the Old Town Hall consistently drew both visitors and locals – a fact that Bob noted with pride. This past year, when COVID shuttered theaters across the country, the Historical Society hosted socially distant outdoor concerts over the summer and virtual programs once cold weather set in – most recently, a presentation by Mass Audubon on how birds survive the winter. In just ten years, the Old Town Hall has become a community anchor, and West Stockbridge, a destination.
A large audience listens attentively at a concert in the Old Town Hall auditorium.
“The project has been the spark plug to revitalize the town,” Bob enthuses before launching into a list of attractions that have opened in West Stockbridge since the restoration began. TurnPark Art Space, a gallery and sculpture park founded by Russian immigrants. The Foundry, a performing and visual arts venue that provides “a safe space to create dangerous work” and “experience joyful creation.” Four restaurants that were thriving before the pandemic began, where patrons could indulge in dishes ranging from roast beef to pho. Unfortunately, the statewide economic shutdown dealt a blow to the burgeoning arts-based economy. “COVID’s impact caused West Stockbridge to slam to a halt,” laments Bob. “All the businesses are struggling.” The situation makes the Old Town Hall rehabilitation all the more urgent. When life returns to normal, this anchor institution will host many of the events that bring people and their disposable income back to Main Street. The more often the building can operate, the better.
Of course, much work remains to be done before the Old Town Hall reaches that point. The property requires ADA-compliant restrooms, as well as an HVAC system that will accommodate year-round use (winter and mid-summer temperatures in the building do not allow for prolonged visitation). The Historical Society also intends to insulate the attic, repair leaky windows and doors, and finish the interior. Last November, the organization requested another $100,000 matching grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council to complete many of these tasks. A generous donor gave the effort a boost by offering a $30,000 challenge gift to assist in raising a match, should the grant materialize. The community is even considering designating the downtown as a Historic District to aid fundraising and increase visitation, though this move remains controversial in a town that, until recently, saw little traffic.
West Stockbridge Old Town Hall. Courtesy of the West Stockbridge Historical Society.
West Stockbridge is the poster-child for what historic preservation and an empowered community can accomplish. To an outsider, the Old Town Hall might not have seemed a promising investment, but to residents, it was central to their heritage and local identity. Revitalizing a single historic building transformed Main Street from a has-been to a will-be. Socially, culturally, and economically, West Stockbridge is poised to rebound from the pandemic stronger than ever – all thanks to the fact that Historical Society members had the gumption to “seriously overpay” for the privilege of saving the Old Town Hall, and local voters had the vision to let them try.
Architectural Heritage Foundation is a 501(c)3 dedicated to stimulating economic development in disinvested communities through historic preservation. Follow AHF and its projects on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Backside of the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial with graffiti, June 1, 2020. Photo credit: Friends of the Public Garden.
When the sun rose above Boston on June 1, illuminating hand-lettered posters left behind from the previous day’s Black Lives Matter protests, it shone also on a different kind of sign. Spray-paint stood out like a scar on downtown Boston’s historic landmarks: Park Street Church, the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, the Women’s Memorial, the George Washington statue, the 9/11 Memorial, the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial, and many other historic statues and buildings had been graffitied overnight following the peaceful demonstrations. Like the rest of the preservation community, AHF was dismayed by the vandalism, yet still more dismayed by what it said about the perpetrators’ apparent estrangement from Boston’s cultural landscape.
For many of us, it is easy to take place for granted. The buildings, street names, and memorials that comprise a neighborhood can become so familiar that it is possible to forget how they came to be there. Those who feel at home in a particular area may never consider the meanings embedded in its cultural landscape, or may assume that those meanings ring true for everyone. Equally easy to overlook are the sociocultural markers that exist alongside those features, are relevant to their creation and retention, and no less subtly assert who belongs: shop prices, rental rates, the faces of residents and business owners. In Boston, these indicators are the result of policies and choices, from redlining to gentrification, that have blocked African-Americans and low-income residents from the economic and political opportunities so often prerequisite to telling one’s story publicly.
When one recognizes the impact of structural racism and inequality on preservation in Boston, it is no wonder that some people may feel little connection to many of the city’s historic sites. Consider the following:
The Freedom Trail, whose primary purpose is to celebrate the egalitarian ideals of the American Revolution, is one of Boston’s main tourist attractions. Marked clearly in red brick, it is impossible to miss and draws four million visitors each year. The Black Heritage Trail, which celebrates the achievements of Boston’s African-American community and calls attention to the systemic racism that undercuts our country’s ideals, attracts just ten percent of the Freedom Trail’s visitation. This is unsurprising, as it poorly marked and located in a quiet residential neighborhood – one that was historically black and immigrant, but is now largely white and unaffordable.
Faneuil Hall is widely known as the Cradle of Liberty. Since the construction of its predecessor building in 1742, it has hosted orations by Revolutionary leaders, abolitionists, and suffragists, as well as citizenship ceremonies and political events. It has
Faneuil Hall viewed from Quincy Market, Boston
rightly been celebrated throughout Boston’s history as a bastion of free speech. Yet its funder and namesake, Peter Faneuil, was a slaveowner who made much of his wealth through kidnapping and trading in African people. Today, hip-hop troupes regularly perform outside the building on the former site Dock Square, where, unbeknownst to the large crowds of spectators, human beings were sold alongside household goods. The continued existence of many of Boston’s historic neighborhoods is usually attributed to predominantly white and affluent preservation groups. In the past, less thought was given to the neighborhoods’ minority, immigrant, and working-class residents who, unable to afford relocating to the suburbs, cared for their urban homes and kept their neighborhoods intact. Former State Representative and preservationist Byron Rushing has noted that the poor are seldom recognized as the true preservationists of Boston’s residential working-class neighborhoods. Many of Boston’s historically designated neighborhoods are gentrified. Beacon Hill, the North End, and the South End have become prohibitively expensive to the populations who have inhabited them through time. Meanwhile, the no less historic, but undesignated areas where low-income populations currently live, such as Chinatown and parts of Roxbury, face development pressures that threaten not only to displace their current residents but to erase their heritage.
The things we choose to preserve and the way we preserve them sends a message about whose heritage matters, whose contributions to society are valued, and who is invited to the conversation; in short, who belongs. This message is glaringly obvious to those who are underrepresented in the cultural landscape. If iconic historic landmarks like the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial are vandalized, it is because the perpetrators are either ignorant of the sites’ meanings or alienated from the process that produced those meanings. Graffiti becomes the way that marginalized voices insert themselves into the city’s narrative. There is a link between the underpaid, undervalued, and martyred 54th MA Regiment, and the fury sprayed across the soldiers’ names.
In his book Place, Race, and Story, Ned Kaufman writes that preservation “is a social practice, part history and part planning. Its ultimate goal is not fixing or saving old things, but rather creating places where people can live well and connect to meaningful narratives about history, culture, and identity.” For too long, the preservation movement in Boston and the systems surrounding it failed the city’s most vulnerable. The more recent push to create a more inclusive cultural landscape, from the 1980 establishment of Boston African-American National Historic Site to today’s allocation of Community Preservation funds in Boston’s disinvested neighborhoods, is a laudable (if belated) effort to empower marginalized communities by helping them to tell their full story. Yet preserving the heritage of marginalized communities will fall short if the communities themselves are not preserved.
Addressing the structural inequities that destabilize Boston’s communities of color and low-income neighborhoods is a preservation issue. Converting historic buildings into affordable housing, partnering with community members on projects that enhance economic and social wellbeing, supporting local business owners, advocating for policies that stabilize neighborhoods – these are among the preservation movement’s responsibilities in the twenty-first century. Together, we can create a better Boston that honors all of its residents’ pasts while ensuring their futures.
Architectural Heritage Foundation is a 501(c)3 dedicated to stimulating economic development in disinvested communities through historic preservation. Follow AHF and its projects on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Historic preservation is tough under the best of circumstances. Add a global public health and economic crisis into the mix, and projects that normally would be considered difficult might seem downright impossible. However, the Coronavirus has also created opportunities for communities and nonprofits to address some of the thorniest and oft-overlooked obstacles impeding their preservation efforts.
