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MUGGING FOILED AT EAST WING; "Mrs. Kravitz's" Snooping Pays Off
In the early hours of Sunday, Feb. 2, David Mynott was in his apartment next to the east wing entrance with a bad cold, unable to sleep, when he heard what sounded like "a man bullying his girl friend".
Concerned about the violent tone of the man's voice, our favorite "nosey neighbor" pressed his nose against his window (which faces the parking lot) and saw a long-time resident of the building being threatened by a man with a hammer. The resident was returning from a night of celebrating, and was in a condition that made him what security supervisor Ken Budd described as "a perfect target."
Mr. Mynott immediately stuck his head out his apartment door and yelled at the mugger "Get out of here or I'll call the cops!" The man fled, and Ken and David helped the resident back to his apartment.
We applaud David's public spirit; if we all continue to look out for each other, this building will remain a place we can all be proud to live in.
On Saturday night, Feb. 1, TODAY'S YOUTH, TOMORROW'S WORLD on BNN Channel 3 aired a lengthy interview with six residents of the Piano Factory. Host Errol Cronin interviewed writer/therapist Dottie Guild (10 year resident), singer Chuck Smith (21 year resident), Beau Jest Moving Theatre artistic director Davis Robinson [14 years), pianist/teacher Fredericka King (14 years), photographer/hair stylist Debra Hassey (4 years), and production manager/designer Jon Rosbrook, who moved into the building the year it opened, twenty-three years ago.
For the benefit of our members who don't have cable, we present the following excerpts from the interview.
DOTTIE: It used to be the neighborhood where someone who made a great deal of money would live next door to someone who maybe did not make so much money, and that flavor -- there's a tremendous vibrancy to the South End as well as a tremendous arts community that is now going to be sacrificed. Its a very vital part of the city.
DAVIS: I brought my desire to do theatre to Boston and went right to the Piano Factory, because rumor had drifted out to Amherst, where I went to college, that there was this building in Boston where all these artists live and we sought it out as soon as we came to town. I needed high ceilings because I juggled and it seemed perfect. You applied with your resume and I thought "Wow! This is great! This is a dream come true!" And it really was, for about twenty years. Our rent went up when we did better, when we shifted income brackets -- it was really a rather phenomenal structure. But now the subsidies are being taken away on a national level and its a huge problem, its not just Boston.
FREDERICKA: The Piano Factory, being in the South End, has made a tremendous difference. Its brought a lot of life to the community where formerly the South End was considered a less than desirable area. When I first used to walk in the neighborhood on Columbus Avenue there used to be a lot of businesses that were owned by African Americans that were quite charming. Most of those have now been replaced by upscale housing or by art galleries. Not that there's anything wrong with art galleries, but the Paris Tonsure Mart, for example, was a charming piece of old-fashioned South End history that won't be replaced at all. Likewise, having the population change on Columbus Avenue, now having apartments with two and three students and young professional couples is quite different than having the older black population that knew the South End from its beginnings.
JON: The place was full of artists. In the beginning it was rented only to artists. You had to show a portfolio to get in, actually. The whole intent was that artists need certain types of spaces to be able to live and work and traditionally its very difficult to afford to live and work in separate places for artists who are "budding" and developing their talents, so to be able to do it all in the same location -- this place has theaters in it, it has art galleries, it has lots of the things that artists need right on the premises. That's the way it was designed and that's the way that the owners went to the BRA with their proposal in the beginning. The South End, as you know, had seen better days in the early Seventies, and there was a major effort to save one of the originally beautiful parts of the city of Boston from the downward spiral that it was in.
I think it's important to understand, though, that we're not trying to suggest that the South End has to remain what it always was. We understand time moves on, things change, cities evolve. You don't want something to stay the way it always was because then it would be out of step with the way people live their lives today. Change is welcome. But a short-sighted, greedy approach to change is what ultimately causes troubles down the road. What's eroding in the South End is the idea of a neighborhood, the idea of families; I've seen kids raised from birth to college in my building, they've spent their whole lives in the South End and they've loved it.
[Now,] I see developers coming in and stripping the roots from the South End and removing people from the situation that allowed the South End to blossom into the desirable place that it is to live in now. When I moved into the Piano Factory, I went there because I wanted a multi-ethnic, multi-tiered income level place to live. And I think its been wildly successful. When you talk to urban planners the one thing they always say is that the most successful developments are those that are multi-income. That's exactly what they put together in our building, that's exactly what the BRA was after, and then, given the option at the twenty-year point of a forty year mortgage, our landlord (who developed the building and is still in control of it), chose to pre-pay his mortgage, and change the rules in mid-stream. He released himself from any commitment to any kind of long-term development in the South End, and in the process could get rid of those in the building who were subsidized and go for whatever the market would bear, which in this case amounted to three to five hundred per cent increases in rent.
ERROL: So, can we say, Jon, that the major transitions that you see happening now in the South End may be attributable to greed? Just a little?
JON: I think it's greed coupled with shortsightedness.
ERROL: Chuck, how do you feel about this, now that you're [potentially] being displaced? How are the families that you know dealing with this issue?
CHUCK: Well, what I suggest is that every tenant in the whole city of Boston should have a tenants organization. If they haven't got one they should form one. Grassroots. And deal from there. A lot of people don't know what's going on, they just sit there, illiterate regarding what's going on, then when the bomb drops on them -- you've got to prepare yourself. And that's how you prepare yourself.
JON: I think its also important to point out: some people get a sense that when artists talk like this, that we just want. That we want to get all the time, and that we don't give. That's entirely a misperception. The artists in my building are working artists who make their living in this community and contribute extensively to the community. Davis and Fredericka are perfect examples: they teach at Emerson and at Boston University. These are working, producing artists. We are not just looking for a place to "flower" and enjoy our lives. We are part of the excitement and multiplicity of the South End and of the city of Boston. If you don't have the arts in a major metropolitan city like Boston, you lose the heart and soul of the city. The arts need to be supported -- not "coddled", not protected, but helped.
DEBORAH: I've been living in the South End community for about sixteen years, in all different neighborhoods, so I've had a great scope on what's going on around me. I just wanted to speak to what Jon was saying about giving to the community, because in my early twenties, as a hair stylist, I did a lot of volunteering in the community. I'd go to a homeless shelter or to a rehabilitation center and help those in need. I felt I had the skills to do that so I just extended it to the community. When I moved into the building I was fortunate enough to get a low income voucher and I used that opportunity to educate myself and get a degree in Human Services. Without that voucher there's no way that I would have been able to go on with my education, with my life as it was. Those of us who are low income tenants, it doesn't mean we don't do anything with our lives.
ERROL: I do believe that individuals in the community, especially creative people, are constantly giving. Creative people have a somewhat broad view about life and people. Music being the universal language, you can go anywhere on the planet, and people are one and the same.
FROM BOB'S PLACE TO OUR PLACE: Bob the Chef's Benefit a Success
On Monday night, March 3, 1997, Bob the Chef's owner Darryl Settles opened his doors to the PCGTA for a gala benefit evening, donating his beautifully renovated space and free appetizers. Organizer David Mynott, along with chef Debra Hamlet, presided over an evening of entertainment, the likes of which nobody else but the PCGTA could possibly gather for a mere $5 cover charge. State Representative Gloria Fox spoke before a packed crowd, who enjoyed the musical talents of Veronique Epiter-Smith, Rick Berlin, Marjorie McDermott (with Fritz Winegardener on piano), Arnie Cheatham, Suzi Parks with Phil Salkind, Myron Foxworth and Cesar Cal, Jim Abbott and Lambert Moss of RENT, the fabulous Sid the Kid, poet James decrescentis, and surprise guest the one and only Silvia Sidney, presided over by Master of Ceremonies Michael Nurse. Much needed funds were raised to help defer our on-going legal costs. If you weren't there, you were square.
State House Hears Housing Bill At Long Last
On Thursday, April 3, a hearing on the Home Rule Petition will be held at the State House from noon to 5 pm. The bill number of the HRP is 2113. All PCGTA members are urged to attend, wearing red T shirts, prepared to testify on how the threat to affordable housing affects you: this may be your only chance!
STRIKE TWO! Judge Sends Strong Message to Shoreline
On March 5, Massachusetts Housing Court Judge E. George Daher delivered a powerful blow to the Shoreline Corporation in a strongly worded Judgement that left little to the imagination as to the Judge's opinion of how Shoreline has waged war on the tenants of the Piano Factory. In brief, this decision means: the Tenants have won Possession - we cannot be evicted; Damages plus Attorney's fees - the Judge found Shoreline's actions to be unfair and deceptive business practices; and Damages - the Judge supported our claims of Shoreline's retaliatory actions against us. Here are excerpts from Judge Daher's 103 page decision: On April 30, 1996, this Court entered an Order, and on May 1, 1996, a judgement, in favor of eight of the PCGTA members who the landlord had attempted to evict in the first round of summary process actions. In its decision, the Court rejected the landlord's claim that it could summarily terminate the tenants' leases on account of the prepayment of an MHFA mortgage. In addition to the higher rents charged the tenants who had earlier fought the landlord, it is alleged that the form of lease offered to the tenants in May, 1996, contained numerous illegal provisions which were fundamentally contrary to the landlord-tenant law of the Commonwealth. The Court agrees with the tenants that the landlord's Motion for Summary Judgement must be denied. The court asked the plaintiffs' [landlords'] attorney whether the leases in question provided a specific termination clause by which the landlord could determine the relationship. Counsel could not provide that necessary clause for the court... simply because the anniversary date of the lease has arisen, does not mean that the term has expired. The landlord continues to mischaracterize the issue before the court... The arguments of the landlord that his putative right to terminate the lease must be implied, must fail at this point in time in this venue... Both parties received something of value for this agreement. The landlord received a public subsidy; the artist tenants receive stability and affordable housing. The fundamental problem which the landlord now confronts arises from his failure to seek an amendment of the lease prior to pre-paying the MHFA mortgage. The court recognized this in its decision in the earlier cases. Having disabled itself from being able to look to the MHFA for assistance by pre-paying the mortgage and eliminating the MHFA role, the landlord's only hope is through a civil action of reformation... Instead, the landlord chose to bring more summary process actions... The landlord has persisted in mischaracterizing the issue before this court as one turning on the existence... of a perpetual lease. The tenants have not asserted a perpetual lease. It is obvious that the landlord failed to have a provision for termination along the lines which he now seeks to have the Court imply, inserted in the lease at its inception or authorized by the agency as a modification to the document during its term... The landlord's argument is intellectually dishonest in view of the language of the lease which accorded no such right and explicitly required otherwise, as well as the constraints of the agency program under which the landlord operated and designed specifically to protect artists working where they lived... The original leases as drafted served to safeguard the artist by preserving the place of abode where the artist created the work. The new leases have stripped the artists of that protection... Relying upon its previous decision, which recognized the intent of the drafters of the lease, to provide the artist a secure home in which to work, the Court will deny the landlord's Motion for Summary Judgement that they have effectively terminated the tenants' leases. Instead, the Court will allow the tenants' Motion for Partial Summary Judgement that the leases have neither expired nor were properly terminated. The tenants assert that the leases which the landlord attempted to induce the tenants to sign, contained numerous illegal provisions. The landlord dismisses these assertions as being irrelevant... The tenants suggest "that the landlord attempted to make his thoroughly unlawful lease appear authoritative or less suspect by having it formatted to look like a pre-printed form in common use". Thus, in a letter dated Sept. 19, 1995 from Shoreline's Executive Vice President, Thomas Travers to Grove Bank,[...] Travers states: "... We have reformatted the lease so that it looks like a pre-printed form..." ...The standardized contract may be used by an enterprise with such disproportionately strong economic power that it can dictate its terms to the weaker party... The lease, in question, in order to cure a potentially sore finger, cuts off an arm; destroying, when it should be cultivating, the good will of its tenants... Some of the provisions of the November, 1995 lease that the tenants assert violated Massachusetts law are summarized below. Paragraph 11 ("TERMINATION") provided that all of the terms, covenants, and conditions of the lease to be performed by the tenants were: "independent conditions to be...performed by the tenant to entitle it to the use and possession of the unit. If, in the sole judgement of the landlord, any default is made in the payment of rent or in the performance of any conditions...on the part of the tenant...then this lease shall, at the option of the landlord, be terminated."... There can be no question but that the above language is a clear and calculated effort to further mislead tenants as to the very existence of [their] fundamental rights... An effort by the landlord to "cure" the false and deceptive quality of his drafting, by inserting in paragraph 11 of the lease a statement that "notwithstanding the above," the parties are "bound by the provisions of Massachusetts statutes as amended," was a ruse... [T]he language clearly conveys a lack of judicial process... Paragraph 19 ("TRUSTEES") states that "in the event the landlord is a partnership" - the case here - neither the General nor Limited Partners "shall be personally liable to anyone" under any obligation or term of for any claim, thus leaving absolutely no one potentially liable for the landlord's contractual obligations... Paragraph 21 ("REPAIRS") requires that the tenant "will at all times keep and maintain the unit and all equipment and fixtures therein repaired," and provides that if the tenant fails to make repairs "the landlord may (but shall not be obligated to) make such repairs." (Emphasis added). These provisions are contrary to the requirements of the State Sanitary Code... which imposes the obligation to make repairs on the owner... An extraordinary provision in the lease Addendum... made the tenant liable, upon any "default", for the undiscounted "Basic Rent" set forth in Paragraph 3, for a sum many hundreds of dollars in excess of the "discounted rent"... [T]he Addendum... demonstrate[s] that the landlords engaged in a pattern of conduct in drafting these leases which amounted to a willful or knowing violation of [law]. Such a provision is extremely oppressive and almost certain to chill, along with other terms described above, the exercise of tenants' rights... The clause as drafted is an unlawful rent acceleration clause which serves to impose a penalty, rather than to liquidate damages... The tenants argue that the thoroughly outrageous terms in the lease which the landlord attempted to have them sign in the Fall and Winter of 1995 - and which the landlord has very consciously continued to use with respect to those tenants who did sign the lease at the time, notwithstanding his redrafting of the document in May, 1996 - makes even more troubling the landlords' actions against the tenants for resisting his unscrupulous actions and ultimately prevailing in this court. While the lease the landlord forwarded to the tenants in May, 1996, was redrafted, numerous illegal provisions remained. Indeed, one illegal provision was newly inserted... [T]he landlord added a new provision to Paragraph 11 stating in the event the lease was terminated on account of the fault of the tenant, the landlord had no obligation to relet the unit... [But] "the tenant will pay to the landlord as damages a sum equal to the amount of rent due under the lease for the remainder of the term of the lease"... The Court agrees with the tenant that in looking at the two leases, and... that addendum, that the provisions complained of were as a matter of law illegal... Instead of recognizing or conceding its errors and seeking equitable relief, the landlord persists in attempting to pound square pegs into round holes... As the facts regarding the illegality were substantially beyond dispute, it was for the judge to rule as matter of law on the consequence... The question which the Court must address is whether the plaintiffs have been injured by the defendant's use or employment of a method, act or practice declared to be unlawful... It is evident that the landlord set out precisely to give the tenants second thoughts before insisting on exercising their rights... The Court is mindful that many landlords obey the laws as proscribed by the Commonwealth only because this Court stands ready, willing and able to see that the laws are enforced... These leases, plus the addendum... demonstrates a pattern of conduct that satisfies the penalty provisions of [law]. These provisions are symptomatic of the cavalier mentality that the landlords have displayed to this court since the MHFA mortgage was paid on Nov. 7, 1995, and shredded both that agency's control and ability to effectively modify the lease. That the landlord failed to anticipate that it was heading into quicksand, does not mean that it can go into a state of catatonic denial, and persist in its attempts to induce these tenants to sign new leases, which are in violation of law. Rather than confronting the problem candidly, the landlord has subjected the tenants to waves of threats, termination notices, and baseless claims, inappropriately packaged in summary process actions... The defendant-tenants have engaged in protected activity by joining and supporting the PCGTA in its funding of the litigation with the landlord and its other efforts on behalf of its members. The landlords were clearly aware of these particular defendants' membership in and support of the PCGTA, given their refusal to execute the new leases tendered in Nov., 1995, their participation in the collective re-tender of security deposits to the landlord, and the fact that their names appeared in a list of PCGTA members forward[ed] to the landlord by certified mail in Jan., 1996 as part of that action... There is thus a rebuttable assumption that the landlord's actions against the defendants are retaliatory... The landlord's reprisals against the tenants in attempting to force them to pay still larger rent increases and to accept other less advantageous terms of tenancy on account of their protected activity and resistance to the landlord's unwarranted and unlawful demands, clearly requires a finding of a violation of [law], based upon that conduct...
...[I]t is puzzling why the landlord chose to enter these three new summary process cases. The plaintiffs are asking this Court to, in effect, reconsider its original decision on April 30, 1996, upon which a judgement issued against them on May 1, 1996 on the issue of possession. This Court is not reluctant to grant a Motion for Reconsideration, within the original case, but, to commence a new case, when this Court has already determined the intent of the parties as to the lease terms, flies in the face of common sense... In the case at bar, it is impossible for this Court to believe that the plaintiffs have honestly brought these eviction actions because they thought them to be valid... the court will not allow the blatant and overt punishment of tenants who enforced their rights, and who did so collectively. Certainly the court will not tolerate the punishment... of tenants, who have engaged in protected activities, by being denied the same benefits or advantages afforded to those tenants who proved their complaint to the landlord's demand... Not simply has the landlord failed to rebut the presumption of retaliation, but the Court finds that the tenants have presented evidence of retaliation itself... The campaign by the landlord to continue to press these tenants to sign new leases, after the decision of this court, was reprehensible... Here there was a campaign to inflict terror to induce these tenants to sign the leases. That campaign was concluded by entering these summary process cases... Instead of recognizing or conceding its error and seeking equitable relief, the landlord persists in attempting to circumvent the law, first by claiming to have had the right to terminate the lease upon prepayment of the mortgage, and then by claiming an extraordinary implied right to terminate the tenancy for any reason on the anniversary date. The Court rejected these theories in the first round of cases. Rather than confronting the problem candidly, the landlord has instead subjected the tenants to waves of threats, termination notices and baseless claims... [T]he efforts of the tenants in organizing opposition to the landlord is protected activity; the efforts of the landlord to defeat that organization is not. Thus, under the rulings made by this Court, the tenants are entitled to an award of three months rent in damages, plus reasonable attorney's fees and cost, on account of the landlord's violation of [law]... Because the court finds the violation to be willful, the award will be the maximum allowed of three months... The MHFA realized that artists give form and force to a city and consequently the landlord received a very favorable mortgage - this was a symbiotic relationship, that can and should be preserved. -- signed E. George Daher, Chief Justice
Within days after this decision, Shoreline hired a new lawyer whose sole job is to open negotiations with the PCGTA; and they filed an appeal, they say in order to keep options for negotiations open.
CORRECTIONS: In our last newsletter, we inadvertently referred to Dennis Lee as "David". We also misspelled the last names of Tom Stankowicz and Kevin Scorgie, and left the "e" out and added an "s" to Volney Croswell. We apologize for the errors.
NEWSLETTER STAFF
Robert Deveau, David Mynott
CONTRIBUTORS
Christian Faust, Jeff Gould, Dottie Guild, David Mynott
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