This weekend, the Haymarket Cafe is returning to its roots. When David and Peter Simpson opened the Haymarket in downtown Northampton in 1991, the caf? served up more than just gourmet coffee beans and artisanal vegetarian fare. Also a bookstore (until all the good books kept getting stolen, according to David), the Haymarket hosted art openings, author readings, education forums and other community events. The Haymarket is reviving that tradition this weekend with an “ARThappening” presented by the Commonwealth Center for Change. A fundraiser for the burgeoning nonprofit, the evening also features visual art by Tasha Robbins and Dan Towers, music by DJ Brando and DJ Douglas Hernandez, poetry readings by Adam Gottlieb, Kerry O’Keefe, Niamah Petigny and others, as well as interactive and multimedia art by Dana Wilde, Bethann Shannon, Lea Donnan and members of the Northampton Community Television crew.
The cafe’s beginnings as an informal community center are what inspired David to found the Commonwealth Center for Change when he returned to the Valley in 2006 after a few years of teaching in the Boston area. He is no longer co-owner of the Haymarket, although every once in a while he slings coffee alongside the other baristas. After finding teaching was not to his liking—”I thought it would kill me,” said Simpson in a recent interview with the Advocate—he moved back to Northampton in hopes of creating a community center.
“I love what the cafe has been to the community,” said Simpson. “I have a particular fondness for those early days—the vibrancy of the community center feel. As I was thinking about what I wanted to do next, I came back to the idea of opening up a community center with arts, political, and community-building programs for youth and adults.”
Simpson met with a wide range of Valley residents involved in arts and nonprofit organizations in an attempt to suss out what roles a community center needed to fill. What Simpson found out, however, was that organizations were already in place, working towards the same goals he had.
“I started realizing that all the stuff I wanted to do, they were already doing,” said Simpson. “Instead of reinventing the wheel, I could try to help them do what they do more effectively… so they can remember the passion of why they’re in it and not just be bombarded with the ongoing financial crises all nonprofits face on a daily basis.”
After attending a Nonprofit Centers Network conference in San Francisco, Simpson’s vision began to crystallize into a community center that provides space and resources to other nonprofits, including providing fiscal sponsorship, which makes smaller organizations eligible for bigger grants. As C3 took shape, its basic mission—helping people working in the nonprofit sector—expanded to include storefront ART, which provides studio and gallery space to working artists and hosts community art events to foster dialogue.
The most important aspect of C3 is space. The organization has two full-time workers—Simpson and Julia Handschuh—who share donated office space on the second floor of A.P.E.’s new building at 126 Main Street. The goal is to rent and eventually own a building C3 can in turn rent out at a subsidized rate to other nonprofits. Since mid-2007, C3 has been in negotiations with Matthew McDonough, owner of the factory building in Florence that formerly housed Prophylactic Brush Company. C3 is proposing to lease approximately 22,000 square feet, comprising three floors. In order to make the space suitable for C3’s needs, a major buildout would be necessary, including conference rooms, wi-fi and phone access, postal services (including a mail room), a reception area and a kitchen. Although no official deal between C3 and McDonough has been brokered, Simpson remains optimistic that C3 will be able to move forward on the project soon.
“We’re still in the negotiations stage—it could fall through,” Simpson said. “But at this point it seems like we’re in enough of the same ballpark that this might work for both [McDonough] and for C3 and the tenant organizations.”
Numerous nonprofit organizations, including Land is Life, The Garden: A Center for Grieving Children and Teens, Casa Latina and the International Language Institute, have already written letters of support expressing interest in becoming tenants of C3’s nonprofit center. The biggest draw for tenants, according to Simpson, is sharing resources.
“Why pay for a space 24/7?” said Simpson. “Why not only pay for it when you need it? It’s better to have one set of stuff rather than 20 sets of stuff. [Nonprofits] can neither afford all of it, nor is it a good idea in terms of sustainability of the planet.”
C3 also plans to offer “capacity building” and media lab programs. The capacity building programs will focus in areas that fortify infrastructure while the media lab programs will take place in a design center and focus on helping organizations overcome the “digital divide” by improving technological skills.
“Nonprofits can really take advantage of the Internet,” said Simpson. “There are ways of outreach that involve more than going around with flyers and staplers.”
While C3 continues negotiations with McDonough, Simpson and Handschuh have concentrated on the other core aspect of their mission: storefront ART. Storefront ART generates programming and events, like this Friday’s event at the Haymarket, that facilitate broad discussions about the intersection of art and community. Storefront Art also helps artists connect with downtown landlords to use empty storefronts as studio and gallery space. This arrangement benefits many artists who would not otherwise have an outlet to showcase their work, according to program director Handschuh.
“There are a lot of artists in Northampton that don’t know how to go about representing themselves in the community,” said Handschuh in a recent interview with the Advocate. “A lot of stuff is being made in living rooms, bedrooms and kitchens [in Northampton] and it doesn’t get onto Main Street.”
In theory, storefront ART could benefit storeowners as well. Instead of looking into empty storefronts, passersby could watch artists creating work. The terms of the stay and what kind of art and artists will be suited to a particular space, Simpson says, are entirely up to the owners.
“Part of our job is to convince building owners that this brings positive attention to their empty space,” said Simpson. “There’s the risk of empty storefronts begetting empty storefronts. It’s in the [owners’] long-term interests… people hesitate to start a business in a place that appears to be going down.””
ARThappening: Nov. 14, 8 p.m.-2 a.m., Haymarket Cafe, 185 Main St., Northampton, (413) 522-1319. For more information on the Commonwealth Center for Change, log on to www. commonwealthcenter.org.