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davis_squareI did not take written notes, so this is just from memory:
Michele Biscoe: Som|Dog presentation about off-leash areas on bike path. The organization would like to build one or more small fenced-in off-leash dog runs along the Community Path, similar to the successful one at Nunziato Field near Union Square. Possible locations are Lexington Park, Cedar Street, or Willow Avenue.
Sara Rosenfeld about Community Servings: would like to recruit people to sell "Pie in the Sky" around Davis Square at Thanksgiving time. The organization prepares and delivers meals to people suffering from AIDS and other debilitating illnesses. Their website is servings.org.
Sign at Middlesex Bank: the sign is permitted by zoning, but is not allowed to advertise the bank's services. It is limited by law to time, temperature, and public service announcements. The bank's president(?) was there, and got an earful from people in the room who complained that it does not belong in the Square, is too bright, doesn't fit the building well, and is irritating to the eye. He says he wants the sign to promote community events and activities. We'll see if he listened to the feedback he got.
Someday Cafe and Mr. Crepe: All interested parties were present: Richard Fraiman (who owns the building), Gus Rancatore (who owns the Someday Cafe), Ian Judge (who manages the Somerville Theatre), Mr. Crepe himself (whose real name I did not get), and a whole lot of Someday employees and customers.
The basic facts, agreed upon by all: the Someday's lease expired in February, Rancatore neglected to renew it, and Fraiman did not notify Rancatore of his failure to renew. After several months of hearing nothing from Rancatore, Fraiman entered into negotiation with Mr. Crepe, and last week told Rancatore he needed to vacate by September 1. Mr. Crepe has not yet signed a lease with Fraiman but is close to doing so.
As you might expect, the next hour was quite emotional. Local residents were upset to see a beloved community space about to disappear. Someday employees were unhappy that the city learned of the cafe's fate (and announced it to the public) before they did. Some people said they would never patronize Mr. Crepe if he displaced the Someday. Rancatore apologized for overlooking the lease expiration. People asked if the two businesses could somehow divide the space, or time-share it, or otherwise work together.
In the meeting, Fraiman did not appear to offer much flexibility, but out of public view, there may soon be back-room negotiations involving Fraiman, Rancatore, Mr. Crepe, and Ward 6 alderman Rebekah Gewirtz.
Michele Biscoe: Som|Dog presentation about off-leash areas on bike path. The organization would like to build one or more small fenced-in off-leash dog runs along the Community Path, similar to the successful one at Nunziato Field near Union Square. Possible locations are Lexington Park, Cedar Street, or Willow Avenue.
Sara Rosenfeld about Community Servings: would like to recruit people to sell "Pie in the Sky" around Davis Square at Thanksgiving time. The organization prepares and delivers meals to people suffering from AIDS and other debilitating illnesses. Their website is servings.org.
Sign at Middlesex Bank: the sign is permitted by zoning, but is not allowed to advertise the bank's services. It is limited by law to time, temperature, and public service announcements. The bank's president(?) was there, and got an earful from people in the room who complained that it does not belong in the Square, is too bright, doesn't fit the building well, and is irritating to the eye. He says he wants the sign to promote community events and activities. We'll see if he listened to the feedback he got.
Someday Cafe and Mr. Crepe: All interested parties were present: Richard Fraiman (who owns the building), Gus Rancatore (who owns the Someday Cafe), Ian Judge (who manages the Somerville Theatre), Mr. Crepe himself (whose real name I did not get), and a whole lot of Someday employees and customers.
The basic facts, agreed upon by all: the Someday's lease expired in February, Rancatore neglected to renew it, and Fraiman did not notify Rancatore of his failure to renew. After several months of hearing nothing from Rancatore, Fraiman entered into negotiation with Mr. Crepe, and last week told Rancatore he needed to vacate by September 1. Mr. Crepe has not yet signed a lease with Fraiman but is close to doing so.
As you might expect, the next hour was quite emotional. Local residents were upset to see a beloved community space about to disappear. Someday employees were unhappy that the city learned of the cafe's fate (and announced it to the public) before they did. Some people said they would never patronize Mr. Crepe if he displaced the Someday. Rancatore apologized for overlooking the lease expiration. People asked if the two businesses could somehow divide the space, or time-share it, or otherwise work together.
In the meeting, Fraiman did not appear to offer much flexibility, but out of public view, there may soon be back-room negotiations involving Fraiman, Rancatore, Mr. Crepe, and Ward 6 alderman Rebekah Gewirtz.
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More notes from Davis Square Task Force Meeting
Date: 2006-06-29 05:01 pm (UTC)Iconic Davis Square coffeeshop The Someday Café is likely to close by August 1 as a result of their landlord, Chatham Light, declining to renew their lease and offering the space to a restaurant specializing in crepes.
Building owner Richard Freiman, who also owns The Somerville Theater and the Capitol Theater in Arlington, expected to bring his new tenant, the Mr. Crepe restaurant, to an uneventful presentation to the Davis Square Task Force. But the meeting, moderated by Ward 6 Alderman Rebecca Gewirtz, was packed with supporters of the Someday Café angry at what they saw as Freiman’s underhanded efforts to move the Someday out of his building.
“I know that this has turned into – what I hope is a tempest in a teapot – but maybe it’s just a tempest. We’re here to introduce a business that had left Davis Square, but is now returning, and we will believe will be a very fine business.”
Someday Café owner Gus Rancatore – who also operates the Toscanini’s ice cream shops in Cambridge – had an option to renew the lease that was due by February 1, 2006, claims Freiman. June arrived, but Rancatore didn’t signal his intention to renew the lease, and Freiman didn’t call to remind him but instead sought out other tenants.
“What Richard says is true,” says Rancatore. “I blew by, or didn't pay attention to, the renewal. Normally, in the 25 years I've been in small business, the landlord calls and says, your lease is due. It's a little disingenuous, although it is my legal responsibility. If Richard had asked me I would have told him that I want him to stay. I found out my lease was not being renewed the day I made my final payment to the former owners of the Someday. I would prefer to stay if at all possible.”
Supporters of the café point out the pivotal role the business had in the turnaround of Davis Square. This reporter remembers visiting the café when it opened, when most of the storefronts in the theater building were shuttered and boarded over, and a visitor’s general impression of Davis Square would have been one of empty storefronts and littered streets. The Someday opened in 1992 and attracted business and activity to the square --- and by 1994, Utne Magazine had named Davis one of the hippest urban locales in the nation.
Michael Sullivan, a Someday regular, talks about the mission of Jeff Hale, one of the café’s founders, who passed away after a long battle with leukemia in 2005: “Michael Sullivan: Jeff opened the place there, and he talked about his goal to be a place that you could get a really good cup of coffee and a place for the community to hang out...I had been working with Bread and Jams at that time, and the Someday donated a lot of baked goods and the best coffee the homeless they had ever had. There are people in recovery, people who are poor and have no other place to go, and they can go there and buy a cup of coffee, and it's been a very healing room in this community. To me the Someday cafe is more than just a place to go get a cup of coffee but a place to live in the community in a place where there's healing going on, there's art going on, and there's really great conversation going on.”
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Re: More notes from Davis Square Task Force Meeting
Date: 2006-06-29 05:01 pm (UTC)During the meeting it was revealed that the owner of Mr. Crepe had not yet signed a lease on the space. “I feel bad for the whole situation,” says Mr. Crepe owner Peter Creyf, “and I feel that I'm being put in a situation that I don't want to be in.”
But Freiman insists that the death knell for the Someday has rung and that he will not change his mind about dealing the death blow to the café. “I don't want anybody to have any illusions that anything we're going to do is going to change,” says Freiman. “Businesses come and go, and it's difficult and painful, but that's the way it is. I'm sorry, I can't please everybody.”
Disclosure: Although the author has striven to report the events of the meeting with the utmost accuracy, she feels it should be noted that she attended the meeting as an unabashed supporter of the Someday Café and also participated in the meeting, notably in an exchange with the owner of Mr. Crepe in which she offered her opinion that signing a lease resulting from an apparently legal yet unfair effort to remove a current tenant would be unethical.
Re: More notes from Davis Square Task Force Meeting
Date: 2006-06-29 05:33 pm (UTC)http://www.utne.com/pub/1999_84/view/948-1.html
I think Craig Swanson summed it up best "and it's the community that we're here for -- not the business"
Perhaps this is why the cafe allegedly wasn't making money.
Re: More notes from Davis Square Task Force Meeting
Date: 2006-06-29 05:13 pm (UTC)The alderman's first name is spelled Rebekah.
The Someday's closing date seems to be uncertain -- I've now heard August 1, August 15, and even September 1.
I thought Someday opened in 1993, but I could be wrong about this.
Re: More notes from Davis Square Task Force Meeting
Date: 2006-06-29 05:26 pm (UTC)Re: More notes from Davis Square Task Force Meeting
Date: 2006-06-29 05:27 pm (UTC)