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.
A satellite view of the area covered by the Allston Multimodal Project. At center from the bottom, the Boston-Worcester Commuter Rail line, Beacon Park Yard, the MassPike with entrance and exit ramps, and Cambridge Street. The Throat section of the Charles River is visible in the bottom right.
The Mass. Pike Extension has always been controversial. To some, it is an ugly source of pollution that divides communities and inhibits access to the Charles River. Transportation and environmental advocates castigate the “obsolete, failed transportation policy that placed a highway above the needs of neighborhoods and the environment.” Yet to others, it is a lifeline ensuring access to jobs, city culture, and low-density living. With a pre-COVID average of 150,000 trips per day, the interstate has been a critical link between Boston and western areas of the Commonwealth with little access to public transit. The current impasse around the Allston Multimodal Project, MassDOT’s planned realignment of the Pike, is the latest iteration of a debate that centers around questions of community preservation and equity.
By now, the project’s details are well-known. The Mass. Pike Extension would be straightened through the former Beacon Park Yard, and the wasteland of entrance and exit ramps turned into a new Harvard University-developed neighborhood. West Station would finally be built along the Commuter Rail’s Boston-Worcester line. Sun-scorched Cambridge Street would become a landscaped, bike-friendly boulevard. And the portion of the highway elevated on the crumbling Allston Viaduct would be either repaired or reconstructed at grade. Everyone agrees the project is necessary and would benefit, well, everyone. But nobody seems to agree on how to squeeze the Pike, Soldiers Field Road, the Commuter Rail, bike and pedestrian paths, and a modicum of grass into the section of the Charles River known as the Throat. The differences that have emerged between those who commute along the viaduct and those who live in its shadow raise a question that has plagued the Mass. Pike since its earliest days: who stands to gain most from the project?
MassDOT’s July 2019 proposal for the Allston Multimodal Project.
MassDOT’s July 2019 proposal for the Allston Multimodal Project.
It can be hard nowadays, amid Boston’s development boom and the looming climate crisis, to understand why transportation planners opted to separate communities from each other and the Charles River to accommodate an interstate. Yet their decision, damaging as it was, had context. By the 1960s, Boston was becoming known as a has-been city. Manufacturing was at an all-time low after forty years of decline. Work was drying up at the Boston Navy Yard, which would soon close after nearly two centuries of operation. Suburban development, driven by white flight and post-war American Dreams, spurred the construction of office parks and shopping malls that drew white-collar and retail jobs out of the urban core. The Charles River was already polluted from centuries of industry along its banks. Environmentally friendly transportation policies rarely factored into planning discussions at a time when the car was king and climate change relatively unknown. With U.S. News and World Report declaring that Boston was “dying on the vine,” planners seemed to face a stark choice: preserve neighborhoods or preserve a city. They chose the latter.
Typical of mid-century highway projects, the immediate beneficiaries were people with means, and the immediate victims, low-income and Black communities. Under the bull-headed leadership of William F. Callahan, the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority had purchased a right-of-way from the declining Boston & Albany Railroad, facilitating construction of the Mass. Pike from West Stockbridge to Route 128 between 1955 and 1957. The Turnpike Authority used the same right-of-way in 1962 to extend the road into Boston, connecting the western suburbs to the city. The project drew fierce opposition from communities in Newton and Allston-Brighton that were squarely in the bulldozers’ way. Though building the Mass. Pike Extension along an existing railroad reduced the need to seize land through eminent domain, those who were uprooted included society’s most vulnerable – people whose race or income forced them to live beside train tracks in the first place. Of the 350 homes and businesses demolished in Newton, ten percent belonged to the Hicks Street African-American neighborhood, which the Mass. Pike nearly eradicated. On top of the injustices common to all displaced community members (the Turnpike Authority gave locals merely two to four months’ notice to relocate and has been accused of insufficiently compensating them for lost property) racial discrimination prevented many evicted Black residents from buying new homes in the city. Meanwhile, highway construction in Allston-Brighton led the MBTA to discontinue the Green Line’s A-branch, rendering inefficient bus service the most accessible means of public transit for the working-class neighborhoods riven by the Pike. At least initially, the highway’s benefits were distributed unequally among the communities along its path.
Road construction in 1964 in front of the Old Main building related to the laying of the Massachusetts Turnpike. Newton Free Library.
Yet the idea that the Mass. Pike Extension has helped only the affluent and hurt only the vulnerable is simplistic. In the decades following its construction, Boston flourished. Improved transportation networks brought new industries to the city that attracted both high and low-skilled workers. Small businesses grew alongside increased foot traffic and disposable income. Urban residents enjoyed a more convenient travel route to locations outside the city. Even communities that disproportionately endured the highway’s negative impacts benefitted to some degree from the boost it gave to the regional economy. Now Boston’s prosperity has given way to gentrification. As historically working-class neighborhoods like Allston-Brighton grow prohibitively expensive, low-income people are moving to more affordable towns far from MBTA stations. The Mass. Pike – rightly criticized, by those who can still afford to live in or near Boston, for its chronic congestion, pollution, and damage to the neighborhoods it runs through – is often the most convenient way for residents of these western communities to commute to work in the city. And herein lies a great irony: the highway that helped resurrect Boston’s economy and facilitated suburban growth at the expense of working-class urban communities, today enables low-income people displaced by Boston’s soaring rents to reach jobs in the city at the expense of those same, now rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods.
The view from Cambridge Street in Allston isn’t pretty. To the southeast, a knot of entrance ramps and exit ramps, underpasses and overpasses, looping through construction sites and empty lots. The Mass. Pike slicing Allston-Brighton in half, eight high-speed lanes clogged with cars. Beacon Park Yard stripped of train tracks, bulging like a growth against the highway’s curving southern edge. This no-man’s land of heat, dust, and noise is what MassDOT’s Allston Multimodal Project seeks to fix. But whether the Mass. Pike is on a viaduct or on the ground will do little to solve the larger problems historically intertwined with the highway – income and racial inequality, environmental and transit injustice, gentrification and political disfranchisement. The time has come for project stakeholders to reach a compromise and to redirect their time, energy, and considerable talents to tackling the bigger issues.
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.
What if a vacant town hall in a small Massachusetts community were granted a new life as an arts center devoted to solving the national problem of rural isolation? For the Friends of the North Brookfield Town House, this vision holds the key to their community’s revitalization.
Not many people know about North Brookfield. Nestled among orchards and state forests, this town of 4,800 could, at first glance, be any rural New England village. Modest single-family homes line Main Street, which runs north to south through a small downtown. The white steeple of the First Congregational Church rises above a sprawling green, opposite the Romanesque bulk of the Haston Free Public Library. Dark storefront windows of low-rise commercial blocks turn blank stares to the street. The “For Rent” posters are offset here and there with “Open” signs that wink redly from the businesses that have managed to hold on: Angel Nails Salon, St. Jeans Country Package Store, Jim’s Pizza… Near the center of town, Vibram employs over two hundred in manufacturing rubber soles for outdoor boots – a modern incarnation of the Batcheller Shoe Factory, which fueled the community’s growth during the nineteenth century. And rising above it all is the North Brookfield Town House.
A For Rent sign in an empty storefront on Main Street.
“The center of everything.” That’s how North Brookfield residents characterize the Town House, whose tall, arched windows and Italianate bell tower reflect the importance that its nineteenth-century designers and subsequent users attached to it. Once a town hall, theater, retail venue, and jail, the building has been vacant since 2002, victim to the same forces that have challenged North Brookfield and other rural communities throughout the country: reduced industry, the success of big box stores at the expense of small businesses, an exodus of young people seeking opportunity elsewhere. For many residents, the Town House’s peeling paint and locked doors came to symbolize these problems. Restoring the building would have to be part of the solution.
The Town House still stands today thanks to a dedicated group of volunteers. The Friends of the North Brookfield Town House were founded in 2006 to raise awareness and money for preserving the building. During the first several years, they focused on stabilization, such as repairing the roof and bell tower following Hurricane Irene. Yet the building’s future use was a persistent question. The Friends wanted the Town House to become a community hub – a coffee shop or artisan bakery, something to draw people downtown. But how to accomplish this multimillion-dollar restoration project in a financially sustainable way?
A volunteer from the Friends of the North Brookfield Town House teaches a third grade class about the Town House.
Finding an answer required the Friends to transform their approach to the project from fundraising around a predetermined use to amplifying the building’s unlimited possibilities. In 2017, AHF began consulting for the Friends and soon discovered that the plans for a coffee shop and bakery were infeasible in the local economic climate. There was simply not enough traffic downtown or expendable income locally to support a dining establishment. Rehabilitating the Town House as a destination café, or any other commercial venue, would require a full-scale downtown development plan to create a more business-friendly environment.
Far from being discouraged, the Friends ran with AHF’s advice – and ran further even than they thought possible. They forged a strong relationship with the North Brookfield Board of Selectmen, Central Massachusetts Regional Planning Commission (CMRPC), and Main Street America, leading to the creation of a Downtown Development Committee. They broadened their vision for the Town House to encompass a wide variety of future uses, from commercial to cultural. They raised the visibility of the building online, in classrooms, and at community events. At AHF’s suggestion, they organized a community-wide effort to repaint the Town House façade, transforming what appeared to be a shabby building into one brimming with potential. And people noticed.
Repainting the North Brookfield Town House
Bonnie Milner, Owner and General Manager of local recording company Long View Farm Studios, was astounded when she saw the repainted Town House – a building that she had often passed, but seldom noticed. The Friends invited her to tour the building in hopes that she might furnish an idea for its reuse. She realized that it would the perfect location for her to fulfill a lifelong dream of establishing an arts center for rural at-risk youth. Several months of collaboration later, the Creative Life Center concept was born.
The Creative Life Center (CLC) at the North Brookfield Town House is intended to be a replicable model for addressing rural disfranchisement through the artistic reuse of cherished historic properties. Under Bonnie’s leadership and in partnership with Berklee College of Music, the CLC will offer educational programming in music, theater, and the visual arts for local youth and seniors, provide a performance venue for the broader Central Massachusetts community, and give emerging artists the opportunity to showcase their work. In so doing, the CLC will foster connection and stimulate economic development in an oft-overlooked rural region. Yet it’s only the beginning of North Brookfield’s revitalization.
Young performers at the Town House during MayFest, 2019
While the Friends and Bonnie were refining the CLC concept, the Downtown Development Committee was working with CMRPC and Main Street America to create a business-friendly environment around the Town House. Their plans include streetscape improvements, such as handicapped-accessible sidewalks, bike lanes, benches, and plantings; renovations to the Common, its playing fields, and playgrounds; and the rehabilitation of other vacant historic properties for commercial and nonprofit uses. These improvements will be driven by the Town House restoration and the expected increase in foot traffic downtown around the CLC.
By doggedly trying to preserve an historic building, the Friends catalyzed a downtown revitalization project. Their perseverance, diligence, and flexibility are putting North Brookfield on the map and giving other rural communities throughout the country reason to hope. Not even the pandemic has slowed them as they embark on a capital campaign to raise $2.5 million for the Town House’s rehabilitation. Each day brings them closer to their goal of reinvigorating rural communities through historic preservation and the arts.
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.
The Architectural Heritage Foundation is saddened to announce the loss of our founder and chairman emeritus Roger Webb. Roger was an early leader in Boston’s preservation movement at a time when urban renewal was in full swing.
This week, Worcester City Manager Ed Augustus offered his stamp of approval for the future sale of the Worcester Memorial Auditorium to AHF. His decision came four months after AHF submitted a final report to the City outlining a plan to redevelop the building as a cutting-edge educational and cultural center for for digital innovation, entertainment, entrepreneurship, and the arts.
