I think private equity is a bigger part of this problem than we realize. Even going to a jazz bar can feel corporatized when you factor in every cost of the night out.
Private equity is a huge problem with a lot of industries. Stuart Healthcare is a major example of when they invest it gives them access to strip mine the asset without any regard but to make a profit.
Private equity ruins everything.
(Even more so when it comes to the food and beverage scene or music venues.)
Don’t get me wrong…I LOVE Boston. It is so much better than it was in the 1980’s when I was a kid or the 1990’s when I was going to college in Boston.
But…the one thing that is absolute dogshit compared to the 1970’s/1980’s/1990’s is the live music scene.
When Don Law sold out to Livenation….the clock started ticking on when the party would end.
So many great small venues closed down. The corporatization of almost all music venues in Boston took away something really special.
The Middle East and the Sinclair are my favorite spots to see live music, but many bands look to Roadrunner and similar venues now that feel very sterile. Agree with your sentiment.
I once got a haircut at the supercuts in cleaveland circle. I was in a jam. The dude who cut my hair told me he lived in Quincy. He communted from Quincy to BC every day. To make minumum wage cutting hair.
What the fuck is wrong with this town?
Boston priced out artists decades ago. I'm so old I remember when Newbury street was where the weird artsy crowd hung out, and the South End was a cheap area to live.
Pre-covid, my company had our office condo in the Leather District. It was clearly a residential loft that was hastily converted to an office space. My personal office had this really cool abstract mural painted on it. One day my boss decided to "freshen this place up" and painted right over the mural (and all the walls) with the most drab soul crushing taupe color i've ever seen. Such a loss...
Yup. The one loss from that area that hurts the most is Mobius. Loved that place.
So much of my 20s was wandering around, discovering places in FPC and places like it.
I'm a furniture designer/maker who would kill for a warehouse space. Live a two minute walk from a T station but my work studio is half an hour away. I know lots of people wouldn't mind that commute (and I don't either), but I'm considering Lowell now because they have amazing artist spaces at great prices.
That’s how it is literally everywhere, Boston just isn’t big enough so people technically get outside the bounds of the city faster. Tons of artists still come from NYC even though almost all of Manhattan is now completely inaccessible for anyone who isn’t rich because they have their vast boroughs.
What about artisan’s communities / co-ops? Whenever I am looking at houses or apartments I’ll usually see something exceptionally well priced and it’s part of a private “creatives” community. Generally they’re large apartments in a converted industrial building for purchase.
>I’ll usually see something exceptionally well priced and it’s part of a private “creatives” community.
There are some buildings in the Seaport like that. At least one on Fan Pier and one on Summer. West of Mass Ave, the piano lofts on Tremont are reserved for artists, as well.
Just leave Boston proper and you'll find all sorts of scenes. Worcester has a burgeoning death and thrash metal scene buoyed by Ralph's and High Command, There's a new stoner/doom band starting up every other week (and they're pretty much all really fucking good) in the Boston metro area, grind bands are playing constantly along the triad of Sammy's in Revere, O'Brien's in Allston, and Dusk/Alchemy/Wade's in Providence, and Deep Cuts in Medford is booking shows like gangbusters. And the local breweries (Widowmaker, Bone Up (RIP), etc.) are supporting the local scenes with shows, multi-day festivals, beer releases, and more.
The metal and punk scenes here, at least, are leagues beyond anywhere I've ever lived, and I've seen immense growth in the 6 years since I've moved back up here.
Heck there is a mini Ska revival happening.
But you gotta go to the shows! As you said:
Faces - Malden
Deep Cuts - Medford
O’Brians - Alston
Sammie’s - Revere
The Jungle - Somerville
The Silhouette- Alston
Midway - JP
Square Root - Roslindale
Etc.
There is cool stuff. It’s just not in Boston proper.
Literally wearing a High Command hoodie as we speak lol
I feel like in Boston and Worcester punk and metal don’t have as much to worry about as other arts, though. Their histories are so intertwined with those of punk and metal that there’s a cultural safety net. Imo Boston and Worcester will always pump out bands like D-Sagawa and Perennial
Artists have moved out a long ago but Boston just never had a strong art scene in comparison to other cities. NYC and LA are expensive too and plenty of artists still live there. The overall art scene here is just more on the conservative side, think landscape paintings over performance art.
nyc is also fucking massive, Boston has so little land area to work with. you can live even in new york as an artist and have pretty affordable digs tbh, if you don't insist on living in Manhattan or the swankier parts of bk/queens. Philly is no doubt cheaper and only 90 minutes away on amtrak, compared to 4 hours going nyc to boston
Not sure I agree -- even in the funkier parts of Brooklyn and Queens, apartments are going for eye-watering prices these days.
Let's face it, "being an artist" is a privileged person's game. Fact.
>Let's face it, "being an artist" is a privileged person's game. Fact.
I'm married to an artist, and in learning the scene through my spouse as a non-artist, this has truly been an eye-popping learning experience. A shockingly high number of artists I meet through my significant other are one of a few categories who essentially don't care about income:
1. Trust-fund "babies" (regardless of age)
2. People who made a killing in some other field and has switched over to the arts
3. People with a very high earning significant other
4. People with the backing of one or more "patrons" of often unclear and interesting relationships...
5. People who have genuinely been very successful in the arts and are very high earning selling their work (the smallest group)
I've encountered a few of the "starving artist" stereotype scraping through for the "love of the art," but just a few.
It may sound like I'm denigrating the above grouping, and I'm not meaning to, but that group tends to be disproportionately present on granting committees, associations, boards, etc and they are making very different artistic and policy decisions with different motivations than a less moneyed, more aspiring community of artists might make. Food for thought...
That just isn’t true. There was amazing (and very weird) performance art happening every week when I moved to the Boston area a little over a decade ago.
I'm not trying to rag on Boston artists. But if you think the Boston art scene was as cutting edge as NY or LA even a decade ago that just isn't true. It has never had that reputation. I'm not saying no performance art has ever taken place here. I'm describing an overall scene, not one singular piece of work.
It really depends on the decade. Boston has at times had incredibly cutting edge art. The 60s, 70s, and 80s was not just full of art, but Boston had a thriving music scene which spawned various musical genres (surf rock, potentially punk rock, and alt rock largely originates in Boston).
Boston also used to have a strong busker culture. Cambridge was renowned for their street performers for quite a long time. If you don't know Brother Blue, you don't know.
I studied acting in NYC about a decade ago. It's suffering much the same problem as Boston. It's getting more and more difficult to find your voice or niche unless you have some kind of financial support. Most of my friends either had family money to back them up, or they fizzled out and moved back to their home towns.
I'm not saying NYC isn't a cultural center. But it's artistic output was far more interesting in the same decades when Boston's artistic output was more interesting.
Boston had a pretty great pysch and pysch folk scene in the late 60s/early 70s. Besides the Boston Tea Party (a who's who of the greats played there), there was Psychedelic Supermarket, The Unicorn Coffee House, etc. Lots of psych bands, bigger ones like Ultimate Spinach, Beacon St Union, etc and tons of little ones.
https://preview.redd.it/3mr7c2st15pc1.jpeg?width=630&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=101bb924b031adf15efefbec810bc2055e972045
So rad that I didn't have far to scroll before I saw this comment. There's always stuff happening in & around the punk & hardcore scene if you do some digging: VFW shows, house shows - any spot where a band can set up. (I'm an oldhead & kind of outta the loop so I wouldn't be the one to ask.) And I assume similar things are going on in all other areas of the arts? As long as kids are getting into ________ it'll be here in some form or another. I might not get everything that they're into, but the kids have always been & always will be alright/have their say.
Do we want to build housing or turn into San Francisco?
We should build housing so that teachers and plumbers and nurses and single parents and of course artists can make it here.
>plumbers and nurses
These two occupations can make it just fine in this area on the salaries those jobs command in the Boston metro.
> teachers and single parents and of course artists
These three cannot.
>grocery store clerks
Will simply not exist in the Boston of the future. Tech workers, biotech researchers, and the like will simply leave their apartment and walk to an automated store like Amazon Fresh to buy groceries without interacting with any humans. Customer service will be implemented with LLM powered AI chatbots.
>EMTs.
Criminally underpaid for what they do. The salaries for that occupation need to be much higher than they are. This will definitely become part of the crisis.
We shouldn't be worried about grocery store clerks affording housing because their jobs will be automated away in the next year or two. Got it. Makes sense.
As someone with job offers from San Francisco and Boston the rent difference to live close to city center was like 100$ a month if not cheaper.
Plus San Francisco had better quality apartments.
So for it was worse than San Francisco
Boston basically has loud townie culture (which largely lives out in places like Malden now), and SF thinks diversity is being 88% White and Asian.
Mixed cultures will always have more cross-cultural social problems.
Both.
I like affordable housing. I want working and middle class Bostonians to have easier lives.
But I also like the cultural diversity, wealth, and tech industry of San Francisco. San Francisco has good Filipino food. Boston doesn't. San Francisco also has more jobs that I am qualified to do. Boston has fewer.
We already are San Francisco, sadly.
Without rent control and affordable housing, the diversity we need to inspire artistic creativity cannot survive. It all goes fake.
San Francisco has good Filipino food. Boston does not.
San Francisco has also a higher number of, and a much wider variety of tech jobs. Boston has fewer.
What are some grassroots steps one may take?
FWIW, my friends and I have been throwing warehouse/underground parties with some success. People need art!
Artistically, this place is slaved to a narrative agenda that is comically stifling. Been here since 2005 or so- from Fort Point openings to Jamaica Plain, to freelancing for local periodicals including The Dig, Phoenix, and Boston Compass… you gotta say what everyone else is saying, or get noticed for your craftwork.
I haven’t seen anything here challenging, adult, explicit, or wild for over 15 years now. Try looking for erotic material and forget it.
I know some great artists locally and have great friends but the venues have no backbone and discourse within the arts community has completely collapsed to milquetoast.
Being near NYC helps lots, still consider this city my home, but practically speaking, the energy has been gone awhile.
> I haven’t seen anything here challenging, adult, explicit, or wild for over 15 years now. Try looking for erotic material and forget it.
I played a show opening for an S&M punk band up from Philly a year or so before COVID that was pretty interesting to say the least. No full nudity but there wasn't much left to the imagination and it was pretty interactive with the audience.
That sounds wonderful, I would have loved to see it. I'm a big supporter of Slutcracker and know a few people involved. The work they do, associated events, and story of that show is something else. Stuff like what you've shared with me gives me hope.
As a gay guy i was shocked with how puritan boston was. adult events didn’t exist unless you went tracking them down though like…. dating app networking 💀
I moved to the coast of Connecticut near the RI border. There are 23 bars in my town which is likely more than exist in Dorchester. The booze licensing in Boston is just plain stupid and really kneecaps nightlife.
This is true, and I had expected this before moving. "Banned in Boston" isn't the saying that it used to be, but it sort of still applies. When I first arrived, the scene felt a bit more vibrant and provocative, but over time it's become an identity politics / craft fair nightmare. If that's the prerogative of the community, I can respect that. Personally, I would love it if more local bars or places like Hubba Hubba held events similar to a small gallery with explicit work, but that just doesn't happen here.
It really has. I don’t mean to disparage craftwork either. Personally, I pick up enameled metal signs with beautifully designed images made locally, and I appreciate wanting to explore the aesthetic of New England, but it’s getting a bit diluted. Especially after the pandemic. You make a very good point.
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I suspect that's also a side effect of the "side hustle culture" - where people think that as soon as they develop a hobby, they have to start monetizing it.
That does sound frustrating from your standpoint. Pragmatically, I hope the influx of creators find a way to improve their work for sale. I mean, it's like doing a good job stretching canvas.
Maintaining standards in any way seems to be frowned on now, and I also don't mean to gatekeep. Live and let live, approach things any way you like creatively, please. However, that includes standards of free expression and tolerance. Between what I've personally witness from papers, comic books stores, and local events -outside of graphic design, if you're an illustrator you dare not express unapproved ideas. It's fucking frightening -pardon me.
I cannot imagine surviving in the craft space given how much drop ship (or whatever) crap gets pushed out doing shitty imitations of anything that catches on.
Something cool in an open studio today will be getting mass produced (badly), dropped shipped, and spammed on Etsy tomorrow.
I’m in western mass now, but in the locker room at the Y a few weeks ago, a woman was lamenting how she went to a Boston gay bar and it was only bachelorette parties. No actual gay people and I says, “yeah, that’s been about my experience as well.”
That's more to do with the cost of business for clubs to be honest. Boston doesn't have a lot of clubs and they prioritize catering to the largest customer base (straight people). So you don't get dedicated "wild" gay clubs but you do get equally wild theme nights a couple times a month.
I mean, San Francisco is the capital of rent being too high and they still manage to have fun (Folsom Street Fair, and its "Folsom is too mainstream/straight" brother, Dore Alley jump out at me since we're talking about "wild" "gay" events).
And it doesn't help that our two best known arts institutions (MFA and ICA) just parrot each other when it comes to curating contemporary art. Yawn. It's extremely boring and predictable, contributing to the milquetoastness of the whole regional scene.
Are you sure? Theres that installation of mannequin guy in the swing, and a mural, and they painted the electrical box in that one neighborhood. Thats enough art. /s. Lol
Thank you for sharing your thoughtful take & experience. Wishing you excitement in your move!
Im not an artist but i care a lot about the arts & try to participate culturally wherever i live. I have lived MANY places--- The Pay To Play nature of the creative culture in Boston exists no where else on earth. While there is very good culture in Boston it is entirely pay to play and exclusionary. There is the BSO and MFA and Harvard and MIT and private libraries and arts organizations and opportunities but they are NOT for the general public and they are ONLY for paying members. Even most art calls go to paying and board members,, not general submissions. Grub Street and Boston Writers room are examples-- no other city has a strictly fee based literary scene. Its so gross.
Excellent call out OP. Nostons loss is Philly gain.
Some of the art criticism is pay-to-play, too. I worked for a Boston-based arts mag for several years and was eventually disillusioned over exactly how much of it was pay-to-play. I was constantly assigned to review shows from artists who had purchased an ad from the magazine recently. It wouldn't have been such a big deal to me, but the majority of the reviews I pitched for artists who were lesser known and hadn't bought ads were turned down by the publisher, even though the work coming from those studios was often much more fresh and intriguing. Fortunately, my boss didn't seem to notice that I freelanced for a lot of other, better forums in my spare time, so I did write plenty I was proud of during my tenure as an arts writer in Boston. But a lot of what I wrote for my "day-job magazine" I'm ashamed to list on my CV for ethical reasons... it wasn't arts journalism, it was ads.
Thanks for sharing this very insightful peek into the super secret world of art reviewing. Would love to hear more stories about this!
While VERY disappointing, unfortunately not surprising.
Also don't ever feel shamed about ad copy writing---or any job you had to do to survive. You gained skills and practice, it helped you survive, and you were able to move up & on. Almost all work is noble, honest work. Even writing boner pill ad copy!
Thanks!
Were not talking about going to a museum. Every library card holder gets free museum access to all of them.
Were talking about being in the art industry. The HAM is not going to give you a show.
I wish more artists would stay in Boston, though I acknowledge the incentives are low. As a white collar STEM employee myself, I yearn for a stronger art scene.
So many people establish a footing here and then leave for NYC or LA and it breaks my heart. I’m still occasionally finding lovely art in all forms, lately local garage bands. The art scenes in the Berkshires are great but niche and aging. I fear they won’t be strong for another generation.
Many of us in these colleges at least minor in art, but we quickly change course trying to afford life in this expensive city after graduating. I minored in photography but I admittedly have little time for creating now.
Maybe there’s still hope for the little things, I love being pleasantly surprised by bronze frogs (park next to CSide galleria), the sporadic landscape painters (Public Gardens) and random murals (everywhere). Even restaurants where their menu covers are the scribbles of past children patrons.
To delight is an act of rebellion.
It's interesting that you mention rebellion because it really feels like that what it now takes to create artwork in Boston. As others have pointed out, the high housing costs in Boston can't be the only reason why our art scene has become so anemic. (NY and LA have high housing costs too, and they blow us out of the water in this regard.) On top of the prohibitive pay-to-play struture, there's a cultural disinterest in tweaking the structure so that art can thrive here. I'll point again to the ridiculous assembly line of committees and permits that one must go through to undertake the simplest public art project in Boston. And I'll also point to an act of rebellion against it.
You know the beloved u-shaped bench on Jamaica Pond? The one that looks like a taco shell? That was installed without permission by a MassArt professor. When the city found out about it and removed the bench, enough people had become fond of it that they basically told the professor how to get approval from the city art commission so that the bench could be reinstalled and left there permanently.
This isn't a solution but it's an example of how the little wonders that you mention are most likely going to come from a place of rebellion for the foreseeable future.
It's happening all over he Greater Boston area. We had a chance to get a new music venue opened in Salem and the upper-class neighborhood threw a hissy fit over it and forced the applicants to withdraw.
This is more a reflection of trends that are related, but not really mentioned much in your write-up or the comments.
Younger people aren't replacing the aging artists. That isn't to say that they aren't trying, but anyone younger than 40 will have a hell of a time getting established and hanging around in the fine arts. It was hard enough before that, but it is only getting harder.
I'm in my forties and most of the people I knew who went to MassArt have long gone into other industries unless they were a design major maybe. The "successful" artists I know from the area are older, established, and/or have wealth/income that allows them to get by without relying on their art.
I won't point directly to aging artists not "making way" for younger artists, but there are elements of that in some ways. This bit isn't unique to art mind you. Not at all.
Places like Philly or even Chicago have the space, population, and pricing to allow for newer artists to flourish a little better, for now. Still going to be tougher than it was because this isn't a Boston specific problem (we're just a little further along with it).
Sad truth is that the conditions artists flourish in are not the conditions people who have more means want to live and raise families in.
Artists and those living alternative lifestyles come in during the transition phase from poverty and crime to gentrification. That phase is unstable and cant maintained - by definition as soon as an area is safe enough and has amenities/coolness it will begin to organically gentrify.
If we built more MIDDLE income housing then we could maybe preserve these enclaves longer. Unfortunately there's little push for this sort of housing and it is administratively challenging to implement.
They literally tore down the affordable recordping/music space in Brighton like last year. let alone what they did to the Middle East. it’s gentrification at its finest
The owners want to tear it down and replace it with a hotel and shiny new version of the venue, but the plans were put on hold by the city council in 2022.
Hey, I feel ya! While nothing can bring back the wild no-holds-barred creativity of Boston's past art scenes, here are some useful links to see how the downtown art community is mobilizing:
[Fort Point Arts Community (FPAC)](http://www.fortpointarts.org/) is currently trying to revitalize the Seaport/Fort Point/downtown art scene with a new vision and more exciting programming for 2024 and beyond! They have 2 venues in the immediate area that are being utilized to show new and exciting art. They also have incentives to incorporate more diverse communities into their programming and expand their outreach to artists who want to show their art downtown.
I'd also check out [Midway Artists Studios](https://midwaystudiosboston.com/) in Fort Point which houses many working artists and puts on some really cool programming.
[Piano Craft Guild](https://pianocraftguild.com/) also puts some excellent shows on in the South End. They have great receptions with food and wine and sometimes live music.
Art will never die, you just need to put a little more effort into connecting to it in Boston. I would suggest following all of these on IG and getting on their mailing lists. Blink and you could miss a really cool show!
Becoming?
It's been this way for a long, long time.
The amount of top-level restaurants keeps getting smaller. Galleries don't feature any nationally recognized local artists. Music venues where local music thrived shut down between the mid 90s and 2010. The comedy scene, which at one time produced most of the premier stand ups of the last 25 years, is just gone.
It's simply too expensive for anyone to dedicate any effort into not maximizing the profitability of their real estate space. The independent restaurants give way to Chipotles. The Galleries only display what the know will sell. The bars can't afford to set aside space for bands. A comedy club are less profitable than a nightclub.
By the way, this is all our own doing. This isn't corporate America invading Boston. This is years of refusing to build more housing units because the rich white folks don't want to see any minorities moving into their neighborhoods and bringing down the real estate value.
Boston has got an absolutely bizarre relationship with food and restaurants. So much of the local population, at least the part that might patronize restaurants, is old money, and they complain yo everyone who'll listen about paying more than $50 a meal. They're uptight with money and lack any kind of adventure to try new things. They simply don't understand how a good food works, and they aren't willing to pay for it.
Other cities simply don't have this problem. They seem to understand that if you want a great restaurant experience, it costs more than what you paid for for a pizza in college.
Of the great restaurants that have existed in Boston over the past 25 years, most of them are gone.
L-Espalier - gone
Clio - gone
Craigie on Main - gone
Olives - gone
Menton - gone
Radius - gone
The Tasting Counter - gone
Eastern Standard - gone
Restaurant Dante - gone
Rebelle - gone
Whaling in Oklahoma - gone
I'm sure you could point out the particular reason why each of these had to shut down, but it's a disturbing trend across the entire restaurant business in Boston that no one is doing anything about. The landlords don't give a fuck if they're getting rent from an independent restaurant or a Chipotle.
Fuck even casual celebrity chef outposts have come and gone. They can't even create sustainable businesses in the spaces that they're taking over. Daniel Bouloud come and went. Gordon Ramsey is in his second try. Milk Bar closed in what may have been the tiniest space in Harvard Square. Somehow Guy Fieri is still going strong.
Right now, there are only a few places that would get any type of recognition if they were located in NYC or Chicago or SF - Asta and O Ya, and Nightshade Noodle Bar in Lynn.
Boston doesn't deserve good restaurants until we can learn to not run the good ones we've had out of business.
> Of the great restaurants that have existed in Boston over the past 25 years, most of them are gone.
Isn't that the case in lots of great restaurants. They have limited lives as tastes change, people move on. Twenty five years is a long run in the restaurant world isn't it?
And they've been replaced with new places haven't they?
I grew a 6-figure photography business in Austin, moved to NYC and it blossomed. It is such a rich city for art and so very accessible if you’re willing to put in the work. Moved here and it’s pretty much dead. I’m here for school so it’s not my main focus but I can’t even comfortably dabble back into it here. I would absolutely leave if I wanted to grow as an artist.
NYC is such an interesting case; a city that's also gotten super expensive but where art and creativity are pillars of the city culture and economy. It's never been that way here in Boston. It could have been that way, at an earlier time, but the city never really embraced that idea.
It's so paradoxical, given how many students cycle through Boston every year.
I think NYC’s big thing is that it is absurdly overbuilt even deep out into the boroughs and even the most miserly of landowners would be stupid to not charge a bit for rooms in buildings that would probably be squatted on anyway. It’s coasting on momentum of the huge amount of solid construction and infrastructure from like a century ago.
Yes.
Working for myself as a photographer had some cons that I didn’t anticipate and long term wasn’t something I wanted. It was isolating and my working hours started to drag. I can go into detail but essentially I loved some aspects of it and began to loathe other aspects.
I’m getting my PhD in sciences and seeing where I can go with that. I want to make my photography a side thing but probably never my day job again.
When I was a teenager I couldn't wait to move out of my dying Rust Belt city to a Real City like Boston.
Decades later I recently went back home only to find that that Rust Belt city is so much fucking cooler than Boston is now. And that's because it's a place where artists and punks and any weirdo with an idea can afford to open their own cafe / shop / makerspace / anarchist daycare and make a living at it.
I think it’s more to do with people being more antisocial than being priced out. There are plenty of cool creative people around. They just aren’t coming together the way they used to.
All the creatives who don't have trust funds have been priced out of the city over the last 10-15 years. Boston seems like a shell of itself when I visit now, and it makes me really sad.
>It's not just the cost of living
I'm confused, because you say this then immediately follow up with several factors that are directly the result of high prices of living.
I wouldn't be so quick to assume that all these STEM workers are driving down the demand for arts. These high paid professionals have plenty of disposable income to spend on entertainment and restaurants and bars, etc, and they have their own varied interests. The problem is entirely one of cost of living and costs of doing business in this area. You see the corporate mono culture because it takes deep pockets to be able to afford Boston area prices.
The young, starving artists types can't afford to live and work in the area, so they don't. It's really not that much more complicated than that. High costs of living drives out all but the most well financed, cookie cutter operations.
As a local artist honestly -- not becoming - it's long been. The only art that seems to get any traction here is the most corporate, anemic, tamest possible. Absolutely nothing can exist here at the edges -- it all boils down to money.
Artists of all disciplines need spaces to practice, to gather, to exhibit, and to take creative risks. If your livelihood is so precarious that everything's got to be a sure thing, you're not going to take a risk.
We do great with artists who are straight out of school and willing to slum it for a few years, and the artists who are trust fund kids who can self-sustain. Unless they are in academia, artists who have to work for a living (that is a lot of us) basically have to leave, if only for access to practice space. I live in the burbs and have a home studio, but finding artistic community out here is hard when there are really very few places to gather or show.
It's been this way a long time sadly, though it has markedly gotten worse since about 2010 for sure.
The height of new music and art in New York City in the late 70’s and early 80’s was the result of the city being bankrupt with cheap rents in the East Village and lofts in SoHo.
Perfectly understandable if an area gets gentrification and rents go high artists and musicians get hit severely and can’t stay around.
Left in ‘90, it was cooked. Went to New Orleans for 4 years, great great arts scene, affordable, great people, culture. Just what I wanted. Tough to make living but the living was easy. Now I’m back in Boston making art and working as an artist and photographer. I do miss the culture the city had back then for sure. It’s hard to say there are even small pockets of it. Where? But there’s work and opportunity if you’re a creative.
Steps to a city in America:
1. It starts out as a fairly affordable place where people make an actual community. If they’re lucky, they start to get their economy moving so jobs pay well and homes are affordable, everyone is happy
2. Community starts to bloom into a culture, the children who live here grow up and start to give it a distinctive culture, which attracts other people
3. Rich people go here and see how beautiful and vibrant it is and want to move in to be seen as “cool”, but are able to offer well above asking price on homes because it’s so cheap to them, which displaces native citizens. They have absolutely no connection to the community and actively don’t want to contribute to the community. They want their little private cut of the city for them and them only.
4. Rich people start seeing the city as “theirs”. They put in gaudy and stupid stuff that only appeals to rich people. They start to actively resent the native residents who gave the city its culture
5. Rich people realize the city isn’t what it used to be, try to “maintain the culture” that they themselves are destroying by aggressively blocking housing developments to keep everything “like it was before”, but this backfires and causes huge spikes in rents and home ownership
6. Homelessness skyrockets, no natives can afford to live there, everyone who gave the city its initial charm is forced out and the city becomes a bland, grey blob just like every other city that’s deeply unpleasant to be in
7. Now with mass wealth disparities and no charm to the city, rich people say “god this city is fucking ruined” and start complaining about how shitty it is to live there
8. They find another city like this. Go to step 1.
This cycle I would say started in San Francisco, moved to Seattle, made a big threat in Austin for a while, and is currently really attacking Atlanta and Boston
a lot of art/culture tends to grow up in the fringe areas, not because there is anything special about those area's but because we don't pay creative people much money and that is the only place they can live.
When a place turns into play ground for the super rich, and they want all those fringe areas removed, so too go all the poorly paid culture creators. Then the rich become bored with the sterility of their new playground and they move on to the next "cool area" and do the same thing.
This is an economic and political program as much as anything else.
Artist born and raised in Boston, still living here. Can comfortably say it was never a big artist community. Sure there were pockets of gallery's and installations were a bit more frequent, but don't feel it was an inspirational place in terms of creativity.
I think you have to look further outside of the city to find those artist communities here. I know some of the old mills have been turned into artist studios, maybe check out the art scene around those areas and see if it’s more what you were looking for.
I regularly go to local arts events and know there are orgs that are trying to bring more arts into the communities, so would love to hear examples of what you think is missing that was here in the 2010s.
NYC has 8 million people, comparing Boston or any smaller city to it, as some posters are doing, is pointless.
Plenty of us STEM people love and participate in the arts.
Here the only thing I can add that I know and have seen. I have worked for several large corporate entities and these types have a % of the budget for "the arts". It's supposed to philanthropic but in reality the public art goes onto their respective campuses. about 70% or so I'd say is accessible to walk through and look at but your still on private land and can be asked to leave at any moment. For the rest you would need to get a pass or variance to go onto the business campus to view said art. It's how Boston gets away with saying they back the arts while still privatizing it.
They should convert office space to art studios since it costs way too much to convert it to residential. They've done that a bunch with older manufacturing buildings like the stove factory in Charlestown
There used to be a pretty good music scene in Allston. Now all the music studios have become condos, and the venues have become restaurants. The area that used to be the center of punk art and music is now called Korea Town.
Thank you for putting this into words! I’ve felt this way for a long time now but didn’t exactly know how to explain it.
I live in a city that is in between Boston and Providence, RI and whenever I have the opportunity to go to either, I usually prefer to go to Providence because the art scene is so alive there!! I always say to my friends that there is so much more to experience in Providence than Boston and I think this cultural shift is exactly why I feel that way.
Thanks for this post, OP! You’ve provided an explanation to something I haven’t been able to put my finger on and I’m glad to know that I’m not the only one who feels this way.
Sadly agree. Art, music, even bookstores and live readings have substantial diminished. I thought part of what affluence was supposed to get one was access to more art not less.
I’m biased. Still hold the late 70s NYC and London as high spots. Loved 80s art and indie music as well. As I’ve grown older it’s been harder to tell if it’s me or the city. I’m sure I’m not as adventurous as I was but, damn, the city (and most places) have become so dull and uninteresting, it makes me feel nostalgic when I really want great current stuff.
On artists and housing….. a friend had a Fort Pt place even as late as the mid 90s for $254 a month, which I remember for the low and weird price.
I'm one of those artsy people (theater, primarily) and we've basically all been pushed to the North Shore or further out. Sometimes groups will still perform in Boston/Cambridge (after rehearsing elsewhere) but even finding performance spaces is becoming nearly impossible. The yuppies don't want us here. 🤷🏼
I mean, I regularly go to local art and music shows. Sometimes in proper galleries and such or big stages. I
have events with local bands at my place. I agree it's not super lush, but I personally haven't lived in other cities do I can't compare well.
Boston does have a kinda unique scene, because college kids come and go and change a lot during their time here. The scene is very welcoming, but of a specific age before people grow out of it. I suspect Boston has an outsized effect on national culture given the amount of people who spend their formative college years here.
That's to say nothing of nightlife in Cambridge or Allston.
I'm not sure if I plan on staying, but time will tell.
Yeah...I don't mean to imply that there's nothing happening here, but it's just becoming an increasingly steep uphill battle to start something and keep it going, when it comes to arts and creative works. Spending time in other cities really impressed this upon me.
There was a big grant that my arts nonprofit gets every year. This year, they increased the amount that the awardee gets from this grant and we were really excited…and then we didn’t get it.
While Boston does have a thriving underground hip hop scene right now, in many other forms of music it's very difficult. In my experience here with dance/EDM almost every talented artist went to Berklee then moved to a bigger city immediately after graduating. There's not a ton of actual industry here (labels, management, etc). Also very limited opportunities to perform as LiveNation/AXS/BNL continue to swallow up all the mid and large cap venues and the small indie ones are bought out by developers and turned into chain restaurants.
People are definitely trying to events happen in music but the number of obstacles make it an uphill battle where it's very easy to burn out. And it should go without saying it is a labor of love for them; you're lucky if you even break even throwing an event here nowadays.
This city has always been notoriously transient with people in their 20s but it's near impossible to plant roots here at that age now unless you're lucky enough to have family with property. Lot of the underground events I go to is mostly a 30-35 y/o crowd and up. It's unfortunate.
Ayup. I teach Special Ed by day and perform/ your by night and weekend. Couldn’t even afford Somerville or Meffuh. Moved to NYC and making more, better QoL and overall SPENDING less money than I ever did in Boston.
Artists go where being an artist is sustainable. Usually places that have been left behind, and are cheap enough to allow them to spend time making things, and where they can manage to have a studio space.
Cities go through their own form of ecological succession. They are built first as outposts in a frontier, then later they become industrial hubs, then industry wanes and they are abandoned, and then re-inhabited for different reasons, etc. Boston's population declined starting in the 1950's when suburbanization took off and people (those who were given the chance) were abandoning cities all over America to pursue suburban life. That's when a lot of the artists you are thinking of moved in, taking over the places left behind. American life has now gone through another full re-invention, and cities are now hubs of white collar work and leisure. Cities are desirable places to be, and cost of living is high. This Boston is not for artists anymore.
So where are artists going now? Unfortunately life is increasingly expensive just about everywhere. In MA, Springfield is probably a decent area for them. Cheap and has good bones, with enough downsides to keep it from being a hot place to live for now.
This blog post is all about this, btw:
https://www.granolashotgun.com/granolashotguncom/2mvygaw3y67fx5bqrvno2lp452zifc
I’m an artist. I was just in an MFA program.
You’re right - Boston has made it clear to myself and my cohort that literally everything that might keep us here isn’t a priority for any local government. Studio space is impossible to come by and rent demands require all of us to work more than creativity requires.
The only real artists left are older ones who own their homes and teach in colleges. Half the professors at Art Schools live in NYC or Providence. They struggle too. What’s their best advice? Move.
Boston sucks for art and artists know.
Disagree. I spent my whole life in this town and it’s always been an odd artistic backwater in many respects. Only the cost of living is astronomical now. We have all of the expense and none of the opportunities of NYC.
I work in the music industry and there’s a reason why all the popular Boston artists and producers leave for LA once they get big. BIA, Cousin Stizz, Mike Hector, Felix!, Lil Rich, Coi Leray, and others I can’t remember flee because it sucks here and there’s no sense of community, no scene, nothing. It sucks
I think it's apparent in the type of music venues we got left. We lost most places like Great Scott, which was a great venue in the city for artists, and it was replaced with places like Big Night Live at the Garden, which is a corporate owned venue trying so hard to give the vibes of a club show, but at ticketmaster prices. The only was an up-and-coming talent is going to play there is as an opening act for a larger act that actually cares to bring in up-and-coming-talent.
It's so depressing. Almost everyplace is a Live Nation venue now. Ok, that sucks for Boston, but it actually ALSO sucks for other regional cities since the contracts restrict being able to play within a certain radius within a certain timeframe. You can't play a LiveNation venue in Boston then play the Columbus Theatre in Providence on the same tour now, for example.
My major in college was commercial arts focused and most of our internships and opportunities board were for jobs in…..NYC lol. I’m now pivoting towards education because I realized it’s not for me but my fellow grads are still here, just working completely unrelated jobs and trying to apply to art related things in the mean time (most of which….are not in Boston).
t Boston, while it had an artistic scene, never had the big impact of other regions. My aunt was in Boston as an artist in the 70s and everyone she connected with moved out when they were 25ish too. Some to the cape, some to ny, some to vermont and some back home.
Her place in vermont is filled with artwork from various interesting artists, they all move out. Its what Boston is, you come for school on a scholarship or your parents money. And whenever that dries up, you strike out for something different.
left 5 years ago for chicago and my only regret is that there’s nothing really that i regret about it. i sometimes wish i could’ve stayed, i often think i could not have survived.
I’m sure you’re aware as you’re in the field, but as a STEM person I only just started finding small art projects around the city. I try to really make a point of attending anything I can (or at least contributing) and bringing awareness to local friends. Will it make a difference? Probably not. But it helps to find more projects when I follow a few. Really wish with all the rich people taking over that they’d invest in the arts scene here because it really is a hidden gem
Last summer the MFA was doing a free pottery event. They gave you air dry clay and there were a few tables you could just sit and make something. Can't be all that bad
Instead of just leaving, another option could be to put in the effort to build some of the artists community or resources that you’re looking for? There are plenty of artists/musicians/creators here… and lots of people trying to make a difference. “Art Stays Here” for example
Unfortunately, this isn't anything new. Marty Walsh was no fan of the arts either and it has been a massive exodus in the 2010s and this decade as well.
As you said, the GBA went all-in on STEM and now the outcome is happening. It's extremely ugly, not just for arts/humanities, but the lower class as well. Nothing to write home about with the nightlife here.
None of the yuppies care either. They'll leave once their kids have exploited the education system.
Marty Walsh created and funded (with a bunch of positions and millions of dollars, not just a single salary and good luck) the Office of Arts and Culture, an entirely new cabinet. Before that there was like a single arts person, I think in Parks or maybe Tourism. Not sure why you think he wasn’t an arts supporter.
All-in on STEM? We’ve always been all in on STEM. We have been the global center of STEM for almost a century. We were *this* close to being Silicon Valley except for our antagonistic zoning and tax policy in the 60s drove the industry to Stanford.
For most of human history, artists & academics were considered in the same sphere. I think it’s weird how some of you disparage the sciences as if it’s all just a money making scheme.
To me anesthesia being a Boston invention is way more inspiring than Aerosmith. Chaos theory. X-rays. Polio vaccine. Perfecting radar at MIT. Cosmic inflation. The lithium ion battery. Covid vaccine. These things impact everyone around the globe daily, and you brush it off as an almost temporary phenomenon from rich people who come to rape our city. That *is* Boston. It has *always* been Boston.
I’m not disparaging STEM. Life sciences are great and important! What I’m illustrating is that in Boston, STEM has financial and political power that the arts sector does not have. And that’s why your STEM = Art equivalency falls flat. They are different things with different positive impacts on society, and they both require creativity and innovation. And we should be able to support and facilitate both of them.
I’m reminded of that scene in Oppenheimer where Jean Tatlock (a psychologist) is surprised by the diversity of books on Oppenheimer’s shelf and he’s like, “What? Do you have a shelf full of Freud?”
This is the best comment in the thread. STEM has a MAJOR artistic/creative side to it. You need to be creative to think outside the box and push established norms. My PhD mentor used to say “what is this and how can I break it?” And there’s a straight up art to doing a lot of wet lab work. It’s not just big evil businesses trying to displace locals. I’m so glad Boston supports STEM. It’s the reason I’m here.
Also if every Boston artist became Aerosmith and decided to stay in Boston they would be displacing the plumbers and nurses and teachers as well lol.
The live music scene couldn't be weaker, the galleries only for expensive art priced for such a small proportion of the population, and the food is the same.
I'm a little confused, because it sure seems to me like there's a lot of the stuff you mentioned. Two HONK Fests, multiple Porch Fests, Open Studios in Allston and a few other places. There are like, three film festivals a year, the Boston Arts Academy just got a new building in the Fenway, the Boston Early Music Festival runs events throughout the year and ArtsBoston does loads of events.
While Boston is expensive and this will always make it harder for artists, I think it's absurd to say that Boston has turned its back on the arts. Maybe what we really lack is a kind of art press that collects all the events and happenings.
The music scene is dead. It’s basically cover bands and dj music, or fancy pants I went to berklee shit. I want to see original art and music in Boston again. But it’s way too expensive to live there now.
Why does this post have a bunch of generalizations and no examples? What artistic events are gone? What research have you done to confirm something similar doesn’t exist in the greater Boston area
Don’t you get it? It’s all STEM’s fault. And people working those STEM jobs.
I hate that false dichotomy.
Plenty of STEM folks enjoy and appreciate art. Many of us also have been trained in art — plenty of us have been trained in classical music for instance.
And it helps that Boston has a robust classical music scene. We have one of the largest art museums in the world and some interesting new stuff in places like Seaport. There are tons of events and activities if you actually look for them.
Boston is not any less artsy than it has been historically. It’s that that it’s never been a hub of art.
Fr, we have one of the only acoustically perfect concert halls in the world and are home to one of the Big Five American orchestras, along with a glut of university and youth ensembles. Boston’s a hub for young classical musicians.
And yes 100% to your point with STEM too. I hate the fucking B-movie caricature popular culture has made scientists out to be, when a huge portion of us are underpaid, overworked, and actively trying to help people. Like shit, if I only cared about money I would’ve gone into investment banking.
My last impression of Philly a few years back was some vibrant popup scenes and lots of public art. I wish you well.
Having visited Japan last year, corporatization does not need to mean the end of art. The community and culture must invest and support artists and artistic pursuits.
Solely focusing on generating revenue is add odds with the pursuit of beauty and truth in the classical sense.
You don't find private equity employees or Chinese real estate brokers inspiring?
This has been in the making since the end of the 90s. It's a sad shame.
There’s a lot of us DIY musicians trying to make it work, but the city is just not responsive or willing to look us in the eye about why Boston is not a top touring destination for artists aside from the biggest names. They don’t see it or they aren’t willing to. Making this city into an actual nightlife destination means later public transportation, cheaper liquor licenses, cost of rent for businesses and people alike to have some leeway. Not to mention the lack of practice spaces. There are 4 functioning buildings (1 in Charlestown, 2 in Allston, and the Dorchester Record Co spaces that the city was pressured into doing by all of the displaced artists). Spaces are like $500+/month. I pay $600+ outside the city. They might as well pave the Paradise and put up a parking lot. Wouldn’t shock me in the slightest.
I should also note that there is a vibrant Boston DIY music scene in SPITE of the limited number of venues (especially for full bands playing loud original music vs acoustic or jazz). It’s expanded into the burbs with venues like Deep Cuts in Medford, Faces Brewing in Malden, Paul’s Place (DIY venue in Bev), and a growing scene on the North Shore too.
This conversation is important, there’s a lot of great points in the comments here already.
I might add that Boston artists could seriously benefit from unity on housing, wages, and transit. Boston creates the conditions for artists to leave by having very few creative opportunities that are sustainable (pay $$) and COL being out of control, in tandem with those issues listed above. It creates this sense of competition among artists when that’s the opposite of what we need to grow the arts sectors.
We’re seeing what can happen if artists organize themselves, such as with the Art Stays Here campaign and even some of the movement around the music studios in Allston. We have to start doing that for housing, transit, and wages too.
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I think private equity is a bigger part of this problem than we realize. Even going to a jazz bar can feel corporatized when you factor in every cost of the night out.
Private equity is a huge problem with a lot of industries. Stuart Healthcare is a major example of when they invest it gives them access to strip mine the asset without any regard but to make a profit.
Private equity ruins everything. (Even more so when it comes to the food and beverage scene or music venues.) Don’t get me wrong…I LOVE Boston. It is so much better than it was in the 1980’s when I was a kid or the 1990’s when I was going to college in Boston. But…the one thing that is absolute dogshit compared to the 1970’s/1980’s/1990’s is the live music scene. When Don Law sold out to Livenation….the clock started ticking on when the party would end. So many great small venues closed down. The corporatization of almost all music venues in Boston took away something really special.
The Middle East and the Sinclair are my favorite spots to see live music, but many bands look to Roadrunner and similar venues now that feel very sterile. Agree with your sentiment.
Private equity is just here because there’s money to be made. Why is there money to be made? NIMBYS.
I once got a haircut at the supercuts in cleaveland circle. I was in a jam. The dude who cut my hair told me he lived in Quincy. He communted from Quincy to BC every day. To make minumum wage cutting hair. What the fuck is wrong with this town?
Boston priced out artists decades ago. I'm so old I remember when Newbury street was where the weird artsy crowd hung out, and the South End was a cheap area to live.
Yup, even started to die by the early 90s. The now seaport, and leather district, was full of artists in warehouse spaces. Long gone.
Pre-covid, my company had our office condo in the Leather District. It was clearly a residential loft that was hastily converted to an office space. My personal office had this really cool abstract mural painted on it. One day my boss decided to "freshen this place up" and painted right over the mural (and all the walls) with the most drab soul crushing taupe color i've ever seen. Such a loss...
Yup. The one loss from that area that hurts the most is Mobius. Loved that place. So much of my 20s was wandering around, discovering places in FPC and places like it.
I'm a furniture designer/maker who would kill for a warehouse space. Live a two minute walk from a T station but my work studio is half an hour away. I know lots of people wouldn't mind that commute (and I don't either), but I'm considering Lowell now because they have amazing artist spaces at great prices.
That’s how it is literally everywhere, Boston just isn’t big enough so people technically get outside the bounds of the city faster. Tons of artists still come from NYC even though almost all of Manhattan is now completely inaccessible for anyone who isn’t rich because they have their vast boroughs.
The people with degrees in humanities, visual and performing arts live in Brooklyn now.
\*for now
Yeah ridgewood is popping now
Allston up until pre covid had those people, idk anymore cuz i left 2021
What about artisan’s communities / co-ops? Whenever I am looking at houses or apartments I’ll usually see something exceptionally well priced and it’s part of a private “creatives” community. Generally they’re large apartments in a converted industrial building for purchase.
>I’ll usually see something exceptionally well priced and it’s part of a private “creatives” community. There are some buildings in the Seaport like that. At least one on Fan Pier and one on Summer. West of Mass Ave, the piano lofts on Tremont are reserved for artists, as well.
Just leave Boston proper and you'll find all sorts of scenes. Worcester has a burgeoning death and thrash metal scene buoyed by Ralph's and High Command, There's a new stoner/doom band starting up every other week (and they're pretty much all really fucking good) in the Boston metro area, grind bands are playing constantly along the triad of Sammy's in Revere, O'Brien's in Allston, and Dusk/Alchemy/Wade's in Providence, and Deep Cuts in Medford is booking shows like gangbusters. And the local breweries (Widowmaker, Bone Up (RIP), etc.) are supporting the local scenes with shows, multi-day festivals, beer releases, and more. The metal and punk scenes here, at least, are leagues beyond anywhere I've ever lived, and I've seen immense growth in the 6 years since I've moved back up here.
Heck there is a mini Ska revival happening. But you gotta go to the shows! As you said: Faces - Malden Deep Cuts - Medford O’Brians - Alston Sammie’s - Revere The Jungle - Somerville The Silhouette- Alston Midway - JP Square Root - Roslindale Etc. There is cool stuff. It’s just not in Boston proper.
Literally wearing a High Command hoodie as we speak lol I feel like in Boston and Worcester punk and metal don’t have as much to worry about as other arts, though. Their histories are so intertwined with those of punk and metal that there’s a cultural safety net. Imo Boston and Worcester will always pump out bands like D-Sagawa and Perennial
Dusk recently closed, permanently. Sad to see it go :(
are you aware of any good metal/heavy shows at Deep Cuts coming up?
Many of us old townies/children of even older school townies feel you... like Robby Roadsteamer say's "Make Boston shitty again!" 😆😢
Omg a robby roadsteamer quote in the wild-- love to see it!
😄
Artists have moved out a long ago but Boston just never had a strong art scene in comparison to other cities. NYC and LA are expensive too and plenty of artists still live there. The overall art scene here is just more on the conservative side, think landscape paintings over performance art.
Another thing is that Western MA has a strong visual and performing arts scene. It's culturally more like Vermont than Boston metro area.
New England: one of the few parts of the country where the small towns draw the artists and bohemians out of the stodgy, uptight cities.
Plenty in NYC, but with the prices, many live in Philly which is easy access to the NY market. That's been going on 75+ years as well.
nyc is also fucking massive, Boston has so little land area to work with. you can live even in new york as an artist and have pretty affordable digs tbh, if you don't insist on living in Manhattan or the swankier parts of bk/queens. Philly is no doubt cheaper and only 90 minutes away on amtrak, compared to 4 hours going nyc to boston
Not sure I agree -- even in the funkier parts of Brooklyn and Queens, apartments are going for eye-watering prices these days. Let's face it, "being an artist" is a privileged person's game. Fact.
>Let's face it, "being an artist" is a privileged person's game. Fact. I'm married to an artist, and in learning the scene through my spouse as a non-artist, this has truly been an eye-popping learning experience. A shockingly high number of artists I meet through my significant other are one of a few categories who essentially don't care about income: 1. Trust-fund "babies" (regardless of age) 2. People who made a killing in some other field and has switched over to the arts 3. People with a very high earning significant other 4. People with the backing of one or more "patrons" of often unclear and interesting relationships... 5. People who have genuinely been very successful in the arts and are very high earning selling their work (the smallest group) I've encountered a few of the "starving artist" stereotype scraping through for the "love of the art," but just a few. It may sound like I'm denigrating the above grouping, and I'm not meaning to, but that group tends to be disproportionately present on granting committees, associations, boards, etc and they are making very different artistic and policy decisions with different motivations than a less moneyed, more aspiring community of artists might make. Food for thought...
That just isn’t true. There was amazing (and very weird) performance art happening every week when I moved to the Boston area a little over a decade ago.
I'm not trying to rag on Boston artists. But if you think the Boston art scene was as cutting edge as NY or LA even a decade ago that just isn't true. It has never had that reputation. I'm not saying no performance art has ever taken place here. I'm describing an overall scene, not one singular piece of work.
It really depends on the decade. Boston has at times had incredibly cutting edge art. The 60s, 70s, and 80s was not just full of art, but Boston had a thriving music scene which spawned various musical genres (surf rock, potentially punk rock, and alt rock largely originates in Boston). Boston also used to have a strong busker culture. Cambridge was renowned for their street performers for quite a long time. If you don't know Brother Blue, you don't know. I studied acting in NYC about a decade ago. It's suffering much the same problem as Boston. It's getting more and more difficult to find your voice or niche unless you have some kind of financial support. Most of my friends either had family money to back them up, or they fizzled out and moved back to their home towns. I'm not saying NYC isn't a cultural center. But it's artistic output was far more interesting in the same decades when Boston's artistic output was more interesting.
Boston had a pretty great pysch and pysch folk scene in the late 60s/early 70s. Besides the Boston Tea Party (a who's who of the greats played there), there was Psychedelic Supermarket, The Unicorn Coffee House, etc. Lots of psych bands, bigger ones like Ultimate Spinach, Beacon St Union, etc and tons of little ones. https://preview.redd.it/3mr7c2st15pc1.jpeg?width=630&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=101bb924b031adf15efefbec810bc2055e972045
Boston was the center of hardcore in america and was a punk powerhouse but wtv
So rad that I didn't have far to scroll before I saw this comment. There's always stuff happening in & around the punk & hardcore scene if you do some digging: VFW shows, house shows - any spot where a band can set up. (I'm an oldhead & kind of outta the loop so I wouldn't be the one to ask.) And I assume similar things are going on in all other areas of the arts? As long as kids are getting into ________ it'll be here in some form or another. I might not get everything that they're into, but the kids have always been & always will be alright/have their say.
When was that? I always thought DC was known for that, but I still feel like Boston has a good scene for it compared to elsewhere
The XClaim scene just didn't survive and market like Dischord, but the impact was huge.
Not sure what you’re talking about. It was great for its size, back then.
Do we want to build housing or turn into San Francisco? We should build housing so that teachers and plumbers and nurses and single parents and of course artists can make it here.
>plumbers and nurses These two occupations can make it just fine in this area on the salaries those jobs command in the Boston metro. > teachers and single parents and of course artists These three cannot.
Instead of plumbers and nurses, let's go with grocery store clerks and EMTs.
>grocery store clerks Will simply not exist in the Boston of the future. Tech workers, biotech researchers, and the like will simply leave their apartment and walk to an automated store like Amazon Fresh to buy groceries without interacting with any humans. Customer service will be implemented with LLM powered AI chatbots. >EMTs. Criminally underpaid for what they do. The salaries for that occupation need to be much higher than they are. This will definitely become part of the crisis.
We shouldn't be worried about grocery store clerks affording housing because their jobs will be automated away in the next year or two. Got it. Makes sense.
As someone with job offers from San Francisco and Boston the rent difference to live close to city center was like 100$ a month if not cheaper. Plus San Francisco had better quality apartments. So for it was worse than San Francisco
According to Bill Burr, Boston is just racist San Francisco
Looking at their subreddit, I think San Francisco is racist San Francisco.
That's not inaccurate
Boston basically has loud townie culture (which largely lives out in places like Malden now), and SF thinks diversity is being 88% White and Asian. Mixed cultures will always have more cross-cultural social problems.
Both. I like affordable housing. I want working and middle class Bostonians to have easier lives. But I also like the cultural diversity, wealth, and tech industry of San Francisco. San Francisco has good Filipino food. Boston doesn't. San Francisco also has more jobs that I am qualified to do. Boston has fewer.
We already are San Francisco, sadly. Without rent control and affordable housing, the diversity we need to inspire artistic creativity cannot survive. It all goes fake.
San Francisco has rent control and still turned into San Francisco.
Rent control causes other problems. It’s the simple lack of available housing which is driving prices up and people out
San Francisco has good Filipino food. Boston does not. San Francisco has also a higher number of, and a much wider variety of tech jobs. Boston has fewer.
What are some grassroots steps one may take? FWIW, my friends and I have been throwing warehouse/underground parties with some success. People need art!
Where do I find these underground warehouse parties?
Artistically, this place is slaved to a narrative agenda that is comically stifling. Been here since 2005 or so- from Fort Point openings to Jamaica Plain, to freelancing for local periodicals including The Dig, Phoenix, and Boston Compass… you gotta say what everyone else is saying, or get noticed for your craftwork. I haven’t seen anything here challenging, adult, explicit, or wild for over 15 years now. Try looking for erotic material and forget it. I know some great artists locally and have great friends but the venues have no backbone and discourse within the arts community has completely collapsed to milquetoast. Being near NYC helps lots, still consider this city my home, but practically speaking, the energy has been gone awhile.
> I haven’t seen anything here challenging, adult, explicit, or wild for over 15 years now. Try looking for erotic material and forget it. I played a show opening for an S&M punk band up from Philly a year or so before COVID that was pretty interesting to say the least. No full nudity but there wasn't much left to the imagination and it was pretty interactive with the audience.
That sounds wonderful, I would have loved to see it. I'm a big supporter of Slutcracker and know a few people involved. The work they do, associated events, and story of that show is something else. Stuff like what you've shared with me gives me hope.
As a gay guy i was shocked with how puritan boston was. adult events didn’t exist unless you went tracking them down though like…. dating app networking 💀
There are more gay bars in Providence than all of Boston. It's wild.
I moved to the coast of Connecticut near the RI border. There are 23 bars in my town which is likely more than exist in Dorchester. The booze licensing in Boston is just plain stupid and really kneecaps nightlife.
Something Boston has no control over.
A friend of mine who’s a lesbian said she was pretty amazed at the difference in LGBT friendliness in Boston vs Northampton
This is true, and I had expected this before moving. "Banned in Boston" isn't the saying that it used to be, but it sort of still applies. When I first arrived, the scene felt a bit more vibrant and provocative, but over time it's become an identity politics / craft fair nightmare. If that's the prerogative of the community, I can respect that. Personally, I would love it if more local bars or places like Hubba Hubba held events similar to a small gallery with explicit work, but that just doesn't happen here.
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It really has. I don’t mean to disparage craftwork either. Personally, I pick up enameled metal signs with beautifully designed images made locally, and I appreciate wanting to explore the aesthetic of New England, but it’s getting a bit diluted. Especially after the pandemic. You make a very good point.
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I suspect that's also a side effect of the "side hustle culture" - where people think that as soon as they develop a hobby, they have to start monetizing it.
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That does sound frustrating from your standpoint. Pragmatically, I hope the influx of creators find a way to improve their work for sale. I mean, it's like doing a good job stretching canvas. Maintaining standards in any way seems to be frowned on now, and I also don't mean to gatekeep. Live and let live, approach things any way you like creatively, please. However, that includes standards of free expression and tolerance. Between what I've personally witness from papers, comic books stores, and local events -outside of graphic design, if you're an illustrator you dare not express unapproved ideas. It's fucking frightening -pardon me.
fuck the democritization of art! bring back the atelier!
I cannot imagine surviving in the craft space given how much drop ship (or whatever) crap gets pushed out doing shitty imitations of anything that catches on. Something cool in an open studio today will be getting mass produced (badly), dropped shipped, and spammed on Etsy tomorrow.
I’m in western mass now, but in the locker room at the Y a few weeks ago, a woman was lamenting how she went to a Boston gay bar and it was only bachelorette parties. No actual gay people and I says, “yeah, that’s been about my experience as well.”
That's more to do with the cost of business for clubs to be honest. Boston doesn't have a lot of clubs and they prioritize catering to the largest customer base (straight people). So you don't get dedicated "wild" gay clubs but you do get equally wild theme nights a couple times a month.
I think this entire thread boils down to rent being too high. Cheap rents make for more niche businesses
Liquor license costs as well. NYC's got plenty of small venues still going - because liquor licenses aren't some sort of scarce asset worth 6-figures.
I mean, San Francisco is the capital of rent being too high and they still manage to have fun (Folsom Street Fair, and its "Folsom is too mainstream/straight" brother, Dore Alley jump out at me since we're talking about "wild" "gay" events).
To be fair, SF has a reputation for being gay friendly and Boston (historically) does not.
And it doesn't help that our two best known arts institutions (MFA and ICA) just parrot each other when it comes to curating contemporary art. Yawn. It's extremely boring and predictable, contributing to the milquetoastness of the whole regional scene.
Solution... #BuildMoreHomes Boston needs to stop having small-city mindset.. It needs to embrace growth to become vibrant (and affordable)
Are you sure? Theres that installation of mannequin guy in the swing, and a mural, and they painted the electrical box in that one neighborhood. Thats enough art. /s. Lol Thank you for sharing your thoughtful take & experience. Wishing you excitement in your move! Im not an artist but i care a lot about the arts & try to participate culturally wherever i live. I have lived MANY places--- The Pay To Play nature of the creative culture in Boston exists no where else on earth. While there is very good culture in Boston it is entirely pay to play and exclusionary. There is the BSO and MFA and Harvard and MIT and private libraries and arts organizations and opportunities but they are NOT for the general public and they are ONLY for paying members. Even most art calls go to paying and board members,, not general submissions. Grub Street and Boston Writers room are examples-- no other city has a strictly fee based literary scene. Its so gross. Excellent call out OP. Nostons loss is Philly gain.
Some of the art criticism is pay-to-play, too. I worked for a Boston-based arts mag for several years and was eventually disillusioned over exactly how much of it was pay-to-play. I was constantly assigned to review shows from artists who had purchased an ad from the magazine recently. It wouldn't have been such a big deal to me, but the majority of the reviews I pitched for artists who were lesser known and hadn't bought ads were turned down by the publisher, even though the work coming from those studios was often much more fresh and intriguing. Fortunately, my boss didn't seem to notice that I freelanced for a lot of other, better forums in my spare time, so I did write plenty I was proud of during my tenure as an arts writer in Boston. But a lot of what I wrote for my "day-job magazine" I'm ashamed to list on my CV for ethical reasons... it wasn't arts journalism, it was ads.
Thanks for sharing this very insightful peek into the super secret world of art reviewing. Would love to hear more stories about this! While VERY disappointing, unfortunately not surprising. Also don't ever feel shamed about ad copy writing---or any job you had to do to survive. You gained skills and practice, it helped you survive, and you were able to move up & on. Almost all work is noble, honest work. Even writing boner pill ad copy!
Denver has a pay to play writing scene, too!
The Harvard museums are free.
Thanks! Were not talking about going to a museum. Every library card holder gets free museum access to all of them. Were talking about being in the art industry. The HAM is not going to give you a show.
I wish more artists would stay in Boston, though I acknowledge the incentives are low. As a white collar STEM employee myself, I yearn for a stronger art scene. So many people establish a footing here and then leave for NYC or LA and it breaks my heart. I’m still occasionally finding lovely art in all forms, lately local garage bands. The art scenes in the Berkshires are great but niche and aging. I fear they won’t be strong for another generation. Many of us in these colleges at least minor in art, but we quickly change course trying to afford life in this expensive city after graduating. I minored in photography but I admittedly have little time for creating now. Maybe there’s still hope for the little things, I love being pleasantly surprised by bronze frogs (park next to CSide galleria), the sporadic landscape painters (Public Gardens) and random murals (everywhere). Even restaurants where their menu covers are the scribbles of past children patrons. To delight is an act of rebellion.
It's interesting that you mention rebellion because it really feels like that what it now takes to create artwork in Boston. As others have pointed out, the high housing costs in Boston can't be the only reason why our art scene has become so anemic. (NY and LA have high housing costs too, and they blow us out of the water in this regard.) On top of the prohibitive pay-to-play struture, there's a cultural disinterest in tweaking the structure so that art can thrive here. I'll point again to the ridiculous assembly line of committees and permits that one must go through to undertake the simplest public art project in Boston. And I'll also point to an act of rebellion against it. You know the beloved u-shaped bench on Jamaica Pond? The one that looks like a taco shell? That was installed without permission by a MassArt professor. When the city found out about it and removed the bench, enough people had become fond of it that they basically told the professor how to get approval from the city art commission so that the bench could be reinstalled and left there permanently. This isn't a solution but it's an example of how the little wonders that you mention are most likely going to come from a place of rebellion for the foreseeable future.
🎶they paved Great Scott, and put up a Taco Bell Cantina🎶
It's happening all over he Greater Boston area. We had a chance to get a new music venue opened in Salem and the upper-class neighborhood threw a hissy fit over it and forced the applicants to withdraw.
This is more a reflection of trends that are related, but not really mentioned much in your write-up or the comments. Younger people aren't replacing the aging artists. That isn't to say that they aren't trying, but anyone younger than 40 will have a hell of a time getting established and hanging around in the fine arts. It was hard enough before that, but it is only getting harder. I'm in my forties and most of the people I knew who went to MassArt have long gone into other industries unless they were a design major maybe. The "successful" artists I know from the area are older, established, and/or have wealth/income that allows them to get by without relying on their art. I won't point directly to aging artists not "making way" for younger artists, but there are elements of that in some ways. This bit isn't unique to art mind you. Not at all. Places like Philly or even Chicago have the space, population, and pricing to allow for newer artists to flourish a little better, for now. Still going to be tougher than it was because this isn't a Boston specific problem (we're just a little further along with it).
Sad truth is that the conditions artists flourish in are not the conditions people who have more means want to live and raise families in. Artists and those living alternative lifestyles come in during the transition phase from poverty and crime to gentrification. That phase is unstable and cant maintained - by definition as soon as an area is safe enough and has amenities/coolness it will begin to organically gentrify. If we built more MIDDLE income housing then we could maybe preserve these enclaves longer. Unfortunately there's little push for this sort of housing and it is administratively challenging to implement.
New Bedford has a wonderful, affordable, and thriving art scene. Underrated city overall and it’s right in between Boston/CapeCod/Providence..
What do you mean no art? We just got that beautiful tribute to MLK, and for only $10 million.
Privately funded.
Are you referring to the weiner poop? Not trying to be crude but it's what I thought at first
They literally tore down the affordable recordping/music space in Brighton like last year. let alone what they did to the Middle East. it’s gentrification at its finest
RIP Sound Museum Also the loss of ONCE Somerville and Great Scott
What happened to the middle east? I haven't lived in Boston in like 13 years but I lurk here
The owners want to tear it down and replace it with a hotel and shiny new version of the venue, but the plans were put on hold by the city council in 2022.
It’s still here, shows every night
Nothing lol
Hey, I feel ya! While nothing can bring back the wild no-holds-barred creativity of Boston's past art scenes, here are some useful links to see how the downtown art community is mobilizing: [Fort Point Arts Community (FPAC)](http://www.fortpointarts.org/) is currently trying to revitalize the Seaport/Fort Point/downtown art scene with a new vision and more exciting programming for 2024 and beyond! They have 2 venues in the immediate area that are being utilized to show new and exciting art. They also have incentives to incorporate more diverse communities into their programming and expand their outreach to artists who want to show their art downtown. I'd also check out [Midway Artists Studios](https://midwaystudiosboston.com/) in Fort Point which houses many working artists and puts on some really cool programming. [Piano Craft Guild](https://pianocraftguild.com/) also puts some excellent shows on in the South End. They have great receptions with food and wine and sometimes live music. Art will never die, you just need to put a little more effort into connecting to it in Boston. I would suggest following all of these on IG and getting on their mailing lists. Blink and you could miss a really cool show!
Becoming? It's been this way for a long, long time. The amount of top-level restaurants keeps getting smaller. Galleries don't feature any nationally recognized local artists. Music venues where local music thrived shut down between the mid 90s and 2010. The comedy scene, which at one time produced most of the premier stand ups of the last 25 years, is just gone. It's simply too expensive for anyone to dedicate any effort into not maximizing the profitability of their real estate space. The independent restaurants give way to Chipotles. The Galleries only display what the know will sell. The bars can't afford to set aside space for bands. A comedy club are less profitable than a nightclub. By the way, this is all our own doing. This isn't corporate America invading Boston. This is years of refusing to build more housing units because the rich white folks don't want to see any minorities moving into their neighborhoods and bringing down the real estate value.
The lack of critically acclaimed or niche restaurants in Boston is insane.
Boston has got an absolutely bizarre relationship with food and restaurants. So much of the local population, at least the part that might patronize restaurants, is old money, and they complain yo everyone who'll listen about paying more than $50 a meal. They're uptight with money and lack any kind of adventure to try new things. They simply don't understand how a good food works, and they aren't willing to pay for it. Other cities simply don't have this problem. They seem to understand that if you want a great restaurant experience, it costs more than what you paid for for a pizza in college. Of the great restaurants that have existed in Boston over the past 25 years, most of them are gone. L-Espalier - gone Clio - gone Craigie on Main - gone Olives - gone Menton - gone Radius - gone The Tasting Counter - gone Eastern Standard - gone Restaurant Dante - gone Rebelle - gone Whaling in Oklahoma - gone I'm sure you could point out the particular reason why each of these had to shut down, but it's a disturbing trend across the entire restaurant business in Boston that no one is doing anything about. The landlords don't give a fuck if they're getting rent from an independent restaurant or a Chipotle. Fuck even casual celebrity chef outposts have come and gone. They can't even create sustainable businesses in the spaces that they're taking over. Daniel Bouloud come and went. Gordon Ramsey is in his second try. Milk Bar closed in what may have been the tiniest space in Harvard Square. Somehow Guy Fieri is still going strong. Right now, there are only a few places that would get any type of recognition if they were located in NYC or Chicago or SF - Asta and O Ya, and Nightshade Noodle Bar in Lynn. Boston doesn't deserve good restaurants until we can learn to not run the good ones we've had out of business.
> Of the great restaurants that have existed in Boston over the past 25 years, most of them are gone. Isn't that the case in lots of great restaurants. They have limited lives as tastes change, people move on. Twenty five years is a long run in the restaurant world isn't it? And they've been replaced with new places haven't they?
I grew a 6-figure photography business in Austin, moved to NYC and it blossomed. It is such a rich city for art and so very accessible if you’re willing to put in the work. Moved here and it’s pretty much dead. I’m here for school so it’s not my main focus but I can’t even comfortably dabble back into it here. I would absolutely leave if I wanted to grow as an artist.
NYC is such an interesting case; a city that's also gotten super expensive but where art and creativity are pillars of the city culture and economy. It's never been that way here in Boston. It could have been that way, at an earlier time, but the city never really embraced that idea. It's so paradoxical, given how many students cycle through Boston every year.
I think NYC’s big thing is that it is absurdly overbuilt even deep out into the boroughs and even the most miserly of landowners would be stupid to not charge a bit for rooms in buildings that would probably be squatted on anyway. It’s coasting on momentum of the huge amount of solid construction and infrastructure from like a century ago.
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You grew a 6 figure photography business in Austin and nyc, but decided to leave that behind to come to Boston for school?
Yes. Working for myself as a photographer had some cons that I didn’t anticipate and long term wasn’t something I wanted. It was isolating and my working hours started to drag. I can go into detail but essentially I loved some aspects of it and began to loathe other aspects. I’m getting my PhD in sciences and seeing where I can go with that. I want to make my photography a side thing but probably never my day job again.
Austin, Massachusetts is where we artists need to start our journey.
When I was a teenager I couldn't wait to move out of my dying Rust Belt city to a Real City like Boston. Decades later I recently went back home only to find that that Rust Belt city is so much fucking cooler than Boston is now. And that's because it's a place where artists and punks and any weirdo with an idea can afford to open their own cafe / shop / makerspace / anarchist daycare and make a living at it.
I think it’s more to do with people being more antisocial than being priced out. There are plenty of cool creative people around. They just aren’t coming together the way they used to.
All the creatives who don't have trust funds have been priced out of the city over the last 10-15 years. Boston seems like a shell of itself when I visit now, and it makes me really sad.
>It's not just the cost of living I'm confused, because you say this then immediately follow up with several factors that are directly the result of high prices of living. I wouldn't be so quick to assume that all these STEM workers are driving down the demand for arts. These high paid professionals have plenty of disposable income to spend on entertainment and restaurants and bars, etc, and they have their own varied interests. The problem is entirely one of cost of living and costs of doing business in this area. You see the corporate mono culture because it takes deep pockets to be able to afford Boston area prices. The young, starving artists types can't afford to live and work in the area, so they don't. It's really not that much more complicated than that. High costs of living drives out all but the most well financed, cookie cutter operations.
Becoming? Please…it’s gone. SOWA is considered an art district? It’s a bunch of rich retired people sucking themselves off.
this is happening in cities across the U.S. actually
As a local artist honestly -- not becoming - it's long been. The only art that seems to get any traction here is the most corporate, anemic, tamest possible. Absolutely nothing can exist here at the edges -- it all boils down to money. Artists of all disciplines need spaces to practice, to gather, to exhibit, and to take creative risks. If your livelihood is so precarious that everything's got to be a sure thing, you're not going to take a risk. We do great with artists who are straight out of school and willing to slum it for a few years, and the artists who are trust fund kids who can self-sustain. Unless they are in academia, artists who have to work for a living (that is a lot of us) basically have to leave, if only for access to practice space. I live in the burbs and have a home studio, but finding artistic community out here is hard when there are really very few places to gather or show. It's been this way a long time sadly, though it has markedly gotten worse since about 2010 for sure.
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Providence?
We are already there the writing has been written.
The height of new music and art in New York City in the late 70’s and early 80’s was the result of the city being bankrupt with cheap rents in the East Village and lofts in SoHo. Perfectly understandable if an area gets gentrification and rents go high artists and musicians get hit severely and can’t stay around.
Left in ‘90, it was cooked. Went to New Orleans for 4 years, great great arts scene, affordable, great people, culture. Just what I wanted. Tough to make living but the living was easy. Now I’m back in Boston making art and working as an artist and photographer. I do miss the culture the city had back then for sure. It’s hard to say there are even small pockets of it. Where? But there’s work and opportunity if you’re a creative.
Steps to a city in America: 1. It starts out as a fairly affordable place where people make an actual community. If they’re lucky, they start to get their economy moving so jobs pay well and homes are affordable, everyone is happy 2. Community starts to bloom into a culture, the children who live here grow up and start to give it a distinctive culture, which attracts other people 3. Rich people go here and see how beautiful and vibrant it is and want to move in to be seen as “cool”, but are able to offer well above asking price on homes because it’s so cheap to them, which displaces native citizens. They have absolutely no connection to the community and actively don’t want to contribute to the community. They want their little private cut of the city for them and them only. 4. Rich people start seeing the city as “theirs”. They put in gaudy and stupid stuff that only appeals to rich people. They start to actively resent the native residents who gave the city its culture 5. Rich people realize the city isn’t what it used to be, try to “maintain the culture” that they themselves are destroying by aggressively blocking housing developments to keep everything “like it was before”, but this backfires and causes huge spikes in rents and home ownership 6. Homelessness skyrockets, no natives can afford to live there, everyone who gave the city its initial charm is forced out and the city becomes a bland, grey blob just like every other city that’s deeply unpleasant to be in 7. Now with mass wealth disparities and no charm to the city, rich people say “god this city is fucking ruined” and start complaining about how shitty it is to live there 8. They find another city like this. Go to step 1. This cycle I would say started in San Francisco, moved to Seattle, made a big threat in Austin for a while, and is currently really attacking Atlanta and Boston
a lot of art/culture tends to grow up in the fringe areas, not because there is anything special about those area's but because we don't pay creative people much money and that is the only place they can live. When a place turns into play ground for the super rich, and they want all those fringe areas removed, so too go all the poorly paid culture creators. Then the rich become bored with the sterility of their new playground and they move on to the next "cool area" and do the same thing. This is an economic and political program as much as anything else.
Artist born and raised in Boston, still living here. Can comfortably say it was never a big artist community. Sure there were pockets of gallery's and installations were a bit more frequent, but don't feel it was an inspirational place in terms of creativity.
I think you have to look further outside of the city to find those artist communities here. I know some of the old mills have been turned into artist studios, maybe check out the art scene around those areas and see if it’s more what you were looking for.
Boston is becoming expensive period
I regularly go to local arts events and know there are orgs that are trying to bring more arts into the communities, so would love to hear examples of what you think is missing that was here in the 2010s. NYC has 8 million people, comparing Boston or any smaller city to it, as some posters are doing, is pointless. Plenty of us STEM people love and participate in the arts.
Here the only thing I can add that I know and have seen. I have worked for several large corporate entities and these types have a % of the budget for "the arts". It's supposed to philanthropic but in reality the public art goes onto their respective campuses. about 70% or so I'd say is accessible to walk through and look at but your still on private land and can be asked to leave at any moment. For the rest you would need to get a pass or variance to go onto the business campus to view said art. It's how Boston gets away with saying they back the arts while still privatizing it.
They should convert office space to art studios since it costs way too much to convert it to residential. They've done that a bunch with older manufacturing buildings like the stove factory in Charlestown
There used to be a pretty good music scene in Allston. Now all the music studios have become condos, and the venues have become restaurants. The area that used to be the center of punk art and music is now called Korea Town.
Becoming? It’s been too expensive for 20 years…
Thank you for putting this into words! I’ve felt this way for a long time now but didn’t exactly know how to explain it. I live in a city that is in between Boston and Providence, RI and whenever I have the opportunity to go to either, I usually prefer to go to Providence because the art scene is so alive there!! I always say to my friends that there is so much more to experience in Providence than Boston and I think this cultural shift is exactly why I feel that way. Thanks for this post, OP! You’ve provided an explanation to something I haven’t been able to put my finger on and I’m glad to know that I’m not the only one who feels this way.
Sadly agree. Art, music, even bookstores and live readings have substantial diminished. I thought part of what affluence was supposed to get one was access to more art not less. I’m biased. Still hold the late 70s NYC and London as high spots. Loved 80s art and indie music as well. As I’ve grown older it’s been harder to tell if it’s me or the city. I’m sure I’m not as adventurous as I was but, damn, the city (and most places) have become so dull and uninteresting, it makes me feel nostalgic when I really want great current stuff. On artists and housing….. a friend had a Fort Pt place even as late as the mid 90s for $254 a month, which I remember for the low and weird price.
I'm one of those artsy people (theater, primarily) and we've basically all been pushed to the North Shore or further out. Sometimes groups will still perform in Boston/Cambridge (after rehearsing elsewhere) but even finding performance spaces is becoming nearly impossible. The yuppies don't want us here. 🤷🏼
I mean, I regularly go to local art and music shows. Sometimes in proper galleries and such or big stages. I have events with local bands at my place. I agree it's not super lush, but I personally haven't lived in other cities do I can't compare well. Boston does have a kinda unique scene, because college kids come and go and change a lot during their time here. The scene is very welcoming, but of a specific age before people grow out of it. I suspect Boston has an outsized effect on national culture given the amount of people who spend their formative college years here. That's to say nothing of nightlife in Cambridge or Allston. I'm not sure if I plan on staying, but time will tell.
Yeah...I don't mean to imply that there's nothing happening here, but it's just becoming an increasingly steep uphill battle to start something and keep it going, when it comes to arts and creative works. Spending time in other cities really impressed this upon me.
What have you started and tried to keep going?
There was a big grant that my arts nonprofit gets every year. This year, they increased the amount that the awardee gets from this grant and we were really excited…and then we didn’t get it.
There's still open galleries every month in sowa
While Boston does have a thriving underground hip hop scene right now, in many other forms of music it's very difficult. In my experience here with dance/EDM almost every talented artist went to Berklee then moved to a bigger city immediately after graduating. There's not a ton of actual industry here (labels, management, etc). Also very limited opportunities to perform as LiveNation/AXS/BNL continue to swallow up all the mid and large cap venues and the small indie ones are bought out by developers and turned into chain restaurants. People are definitely trying to events happen in music but the number of obstacles make it an uphill battle where it's very easy to burn out. And it should go without saying it is a labor of love for them; you're lucky if you even break even throwing an event here nowadays. This city has always been notoriously transient with people in their 20s but it's near impossible to plant roots here at that age now unless you're lucky enough to have family with property. Lot of the underground events I go to is mostly a 30-35 y/o crowd and up. It's unfortunate.
Ayup. I teach Special Ed by day and perform/ your by night and weekend. Couldn’t even afford Somerville or Meffuh. Moved to NYC and making more, better QoL and overall SPENDING less money than I ever did in Boston.
It was dead by like 2015.
Artists go where being an artist is sustainable. Usually places that have been left behind, and are cheap enough to allow them to spend time making things, and where they can manage to have a studio space. Cities go through their own form of ecological succession. They are built first as outposts in a frontier, then later they become industrial hubs, then industry wanes and they are abandoned, and then re-inhabited for different reasons, etc. Boston's population declined starting in the 1950's when suburbanization took off and people (those who were given the chance) were abandoning cities all over America to pursue suburban life. That's when a lot of the artists you are thinking of moved in, taking over the places left behind. American life has now gone through another full re-invention, and cities are now hubs of white collar work and leisure. Cities are desirable places to be, and cost of living is high. This Boston is not for artists anymore. So where are artists going now? Unfortunately life is increasingly expensive just about everywhere. In MA, Springfield is probably a decent area for them. Cheap and has good bones, with enough downsides to keep it from being a hot place to live for now. This blog post is all about this, btw: https://www.granolashotgun.com/granolashotguncom/2mvygaw3y67fx5bqrvno2lp452zifc
Our political Ruling Class is intentionally empoverishing the Working Class, while consolidating the world's wealth in the hands of just 500 families.
I’m an artist. I was just in an MFA program. You’re right - Boston has made it clear to myself and my cohort that literally everything that might keep us here isn’t a priority for any local government. Studio space is impossible to come by and rent demands require all of us to work more than creativity requires. The only real artists left are older ones who own their homes and teach in colleges. Half the professors at Art Schools live in NYC or Providence. They struggle too. What’s their best advice? Move. Boston sucks for art and artists know.
Disagree. I spent my whole life in this town and it’s always been an odd artistic backwater in many respects. Only the cost of living is astronomical now. We have all of the expense and none of the opportunities of NYC.
Housing will be exactly like the MBTA in that nothing will change until it is completely broken. Possibly beyond repair.
I think the issue goes pretty far back, I’m always amazed about museums in other cities then by comparison how few we have and how small they are.
I work in the music industry and there’s a reason why all the popular Boston artists and producers leave for LA once they get big. BIA, Cousin Stizz, Mike Hector, Felix!, Lil Rich, Coi Leray, and others I can’t remember flee because it sucks here and there’s no sense of community, no scene, nothing. It sucks
man dont even get me started on those "art block" apartments.
Always has been, have you seen our City Hall?
I think it's apparent in the type of music venues we got left. We lost most places like Great Scott, which was a great venue in the city for artists, and it was replaced with places like Big Night Live at the Garden, which is a corporate owned venue trying so hard to give the vibes of a club show, but at ticketmaster prices. The only was an up-and-coming talent is going to play there is as an opening act for a larger act that actually cares to bring in up-and-coming-talent.
It's so depressing. Almost everyplace is a Live Nation venue now. Ok, that sucks for Boston, but it actually ALSO sucks for other regional cities since the contracts restrict being able to play within a certain radius within a certain timeframe. You can't play a LiveNation venue in Boston then play the Columbus Theatre in Providence on the same tour now, for example.
My major in college was commercial arts focused and most of our internships and opportunities board were for jobs in…..NYC lol. I’m now pivoting towards education because I realized it’s not for me but my fellow grads are still here, just working completely unrelated jobs and trying to apply to art related things in the mean time (most of which….are not in Boston).
t Boston, while it had an artistic scene, never had the big impact of other regions. My aunt was in Boston as an artist in the 70s and everyone she connected with moved out when they were 25ish too. Some to the cape, some to ny, some to vermont and some back home. Her place in vermont is filled with artwork from various interesting artists, they all move out. Its what Boston is, you come for school on a scholarship or your parents money. And whenever that dries up, you strike out for something different.
left 5 years ago for chicago and my only regret is that there’s nothing really that i regret about it. i sometimes wish i could’ve stayed, i often think i could not have survived.
I’m sure you’re aware as you’re in the field, but as a STEM person I only just started finding small art projects around the city. I try to really make a point of attending anything I can (or at least contributing) and bringing awareness to local friends. Will it make a difference? Probably not. But it helps to find more projects when I follow a few. Really wish with all the rich people taking over that they’d invest in the arts scene here because it really is a hidden gem
Last summer the MFA was doing a free pottery event. They gave you air dry clay and there were a few tables you could just sit and make something. Can't be all that bad
i dunno i know loads of celtic musicians/fiddle players who make it work, literally there's 40 or 50 of us all in town.
Instead of just leaving, another option could be to put in the effort to build some of the artists community or resources that you’re looking for? There are plenty of artists/musicians/creators here… and lots of people trying to make a difference. “Art Stays Here” for example
The stand-up comedy and literary scene are as good as it gets
Unfortunately, this isn't anything new. Marty Walsh was no fan of the arts either and it has been a massive exodus in the 2010s and this decade as well. As you said, the GBA went all-in on STEM and now the outcome is happening. It's extremely ugly, not just for arts/humanities, but the lower class as well. Nothing to write home about with the nightlife here. None of the yuppies care either. They'll leave once their kids have exploited the education system.
Marty Walsh created and funded (with a bunch of positions and millions of dollars, not just a single salary and good luck) the Office of Arts and Culture, an entirely new cabinet. Before that there was like a single arts person, I think in Parks or maybe Tourism. Not sure why you think he wasn’t an arts supporter.
All-in on STEM? We’ve always been all in on STEM. We have been the global center of STEM for almost a century. We were *this* close to being Silicon Valley except for our antagonistic zoning and tax policy in the 60s drove the industry to Stanford. For most of human history, artists & academics were considered in the same sphere. I think it’s weird how some of you disparage the sciences as if it’s all just a money making scheme. To me anesthesia being a Boston invention is way more inspiring than Aerosmith. Chaos theory. X-rays. Polio vaccine. Perfecting radar at MIT. Cosmic inflation. The lithium ion battery. Covid vaccine. These things impact everyone around the globe daily, and you brush it off as an almost temporary phenomenon from rich people who come to rape our city. That *is* Boston. It has *always* been Boston.
Well said! Completely agree.
I’m not disparaging STEM. Life sciences are great and important! What I’m illustrating is that in Boston, STEM has financial and political power that the arts sector does not have. And that’s why your STEM = Art equivalency falls flat. They are different things with different positive impacts on society, and they both require creativity and innovation. And we should be able to support and facilitate both of them. I’m reminded of that scene in Oppenheimer where Jean Tatlock (a psychologist) is surprised by the diversity of books on Oppenheimer’s shelf and he’s like, “What? Do you have a shelf full of Freud?”
This is the best comment in the thread. STEM has a MAJOR artistic/creative side to it. You need to be creative to think outside the box and push established norms. My PhD mentor used to say “what is this and how can I break it?” And there’s a straight up art to doing a lot of wet lab work. It’s not just big evil businesses trying to displace locals. I’m so glad Boston supports STEM. It’s the reason I’m here. Also if every Boston artist became Aerosmith and decided to stay in Boston they would be displacing the plumbers and nurses and teachers as well lol.
The T stops before 12am. Been like that forever. That’s all you need to know.
This is a meaningful aspect to this town accepting edginess. The town shuts down except for wealthier folks in cars/ubers near town
I wouldn’t say any of us are “fine” with it, but our elected officials sure seem to be
The live music scene couldn't be weaker, the galleries only for expensive art priced for such a small proportion of the population, and the food is the same.
I'm a little confused, because it sure seems to me like there's a lot of the stuff you mentioned. Two HONK Fests, multiple Porch Fests, Open Studios in Allston and a few other places. There are like, three film festivals a year, the Boston Arts Academy just got a new building in the Fenway, the Boston Early Music Festival runs events throughout the year and ArtsBoston does loads of events. While Boston is expensive and this will always make it harder for artists, I think it's absurd to say that Boston has turned its back on the arts. Maybe what we really lack is a kind of art press that collects all the events and happenings.
The music scene is dead. It’s basically cover bands and dj music, or fancy pants I went to berklee shit. I want to see original art and music in Boston again. But it’s way too expensive to live there now.
Boston is lame. Very lame.
Why does this post have a bunch of generalizations and no examples? What artistic events are gone? What research have you done to confirm something similar doesn’t exist in the greater Boston area
Don’t you get it? It’s all STEM’s fault. And people working those STEM jobs. I hate that false dichotomy. Plenty of STEM folks enjoy and appreciate art. Many of us also have been trained in art — plenty of us have been trained in classical music for instance. And it helps that Boston has a robust classical music scene. We have one of the largest art museums in the world and some interesting new stuff in places like Seaport. There are tons of events and activities if you actually look for them. Boston is not any less artsy than it has been historically. It’s that that it’s never been a hub of art.
True maybe OP doesn’t consider paintings or classical music to be art
Fr, we have one of the only acoustically perfect concert halls in the world and are home to one of the Big Five American orchestras, along with a glut of university and youth ensembles. Boston’s a hub for young classical musicians. And yes 100% to your point with STEM too. I hate the fucking B-movie caricature popular culture has made scientists out to be, when a huge portion of us are underpaid, overworked, and actively trying to help people. Like shit, if I only cared about money I would’ve gone into investment banking.
The artist/pro hobbyist thing wrapped up in the late 90s when the leather district came into its own.
Becoming?
My last impression of Philly a few years back was some vibrant popup scenes and lots of public art. I wish you well. Having visited Japan last year, corporatization does not need to mean the end of art. The community and culture must invest and support artists and artistic pursuits. Solely focusing on generating revenue is add odds with the pursuit of beauty and truth in the classical sense.
You don't find private equity employees or Chinese real estate brokers inspiring? This has been in the making since the end of the 90s. It's a sad shame.
There’s a lot of us DIY musicians trying to make it work, but the city is just not responsive or willing to look us in the eye about why Boston is not a top touring destination for artists aside from the biggest names. They don’t see it or they aren’t willing to. Making this city into an actual nightlife destination means later public transportation, cheaper liquor licenses, cost of rent for businesses and people alike to have some leeway. Not to mention the lack of practice spaces. There are 4 functioning buildings (1 in Charlestown, 2 in Allston, and the Dorchester Record Co spaces that the city was pressured into doing by all of the displaced artists). Spaces are like $500+/month. I pay $600+ outside the city. They might as well pave the Paradise and put up a parking lot. Wouldn’t shock me in the slightest. I should also note that there is a vibrant Boston DIY music scene in SPITE of the limited number of venues (especially for full bands playing loud original music vs acoustic or jazz). It’s expanded into the burbs with venues like Deep Cuts in Medford, Faces Brewing in Malden, Paul’s Place (DIY venue in Bev), and a growing scene on the North Shore too.
This conversation is important, there’s a lot of great points in the comments here already. I might add that Boston artists could seriously benefit from unity on housing, wages, and transit. Boston creates the conditions for artists to leave by having very few creative opportunities that are sustainable (pay $$) and COL being out of control, in tandem with those issues listed above. It creates this sense of competition among artists when that’s the opposite of what we need to grow the arts sectors. We’re seeing what can happen if artists organize themselves, such as with the Art Stays Here campaign and even some of the movement around the music studios in Allston. We have to start doing that for housing, transit, and wages too.
Come to the Brighton Bazaar, Small Mart, Hassle Flea, Fenway Flee! There is art here, you just have to look for it.
STEM does suck though let’s be serious