A dilapidated house on Green Street in Jamaica Plain has become a canvas for street artists while its new owner figures out just what to do with the property.
Avenue of Art, a street artist's gallery and hangout run out of 333 Salon & Barbershop on Huntington Avenue, coordinated the external re-do for City Realty, which recently bought 197 Green St., between Washington and Amory streets. The company's CityPOP program lets artists use the buildings it buys for artwork until they're renovated or torn down.
Avenue of Art's Michael Baldino led an open house at the site on Saturday. He said it took about a month to re-do the house, and the City Realty hopes to incorporate some of the art in whatever it does on the site.
Of course, this being Jamaica Plain, there was a protest - in the form of a man with a clipboard from City Life/La Vida Urbana, who stood outside the house's driveway in opposition to City Realty's activities in the neighborhood. The group has been feuding with the company for more than two years now over what it says is the company's role in further gentrifying Jamaica Plain.
Instagram accounts of the Green Street artists:
https://www.instagram.com/aoasupply/
https://www.instagram.com/brandalizm/
https://www.instagram.com/goopmassta/
https://www.instagram.com/angelonce/
https://www.instagram.com/merkthose/
https://www.instagram.com/gofive/
https://www.instagram.com/problak/
https://www.instagram.com/loeylyfer/
https://www.instagram.com/jbeasly183/
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Comments
Adorable!
By Elmer
Sun, 11/20/2016 - 3:51am
Great idea
By anon
Sun, 11/20/2016 - 8:27am
Ggod idea but I wouldn't want to look at that particular painting. Art is a subjective thing.
Then don't look at it?
By anon
Sun, 11/20/2016 - 11:25am
n/t
question
By SwirlyGrrl
Sun, 11/20/2016 - 9:45am
How would these places prefer that houses be bought and sold? Managed and redeveloped? Other than hounding both bad actors and local businesses, what is their plan for affordability in a system where many are constrained by the larger economic and legal system?
Realtors contract with owners (who are sometimes under the orders of a probate court) and their job is to get top dollar for their clients. Furthermore, they aren't allowed to carefully select buyers from an "acceptable" pool of candidates or who propose an "acceptable" plan for use of a property.
One of the exponents of gentrification (and one that will be more potent as the baby boom ages) is that heirs have to sell the house to clear the probate process or settle debts to close the will. Unless these organizations are willing to address that trend (such as convincing people to have wills and structure them appropriately), they will have no control over the highest bidder driven process.
I say this as someone who was sympathetic to the neighborhood where my parents lived, but ultimately had little choice as to who I sold to and what they were allowed to do with the property. The best bid happened to come from a local family who was in a seasonal construction business and put their own money up to form a company with a mission to rehab homes in their neighborhood in their off months because they didn't like the way things were being built out. That's not to say that companies like City Realty aren't making a mess of things, but if there are people with more civic-minded interests in JP, maybe they need to get in the game. Heckling isn't going to change the situation.
Not Good Idea
By BlackKat
Sun, 11/20/2016 - 9:30am
Maybe it's just a tear down... but if I was looking to buy a house that needed to be renovated and now I would have to completely redo the exterior because of graffiti... you can bet that is not a house I would buy.
Take a look
By SwirlyGrrl
Sun, 11/20/2016 - 9:35am
They have to completely redo the exterior anyway.
It's a tear-down.
By Sally
Sun, 11/20/2016 - 10:38pm
No one in JP is renovating dinky single families--they're aiming to fit as many saleable units as they can in one space. This house is next to two old SRO hotels and an L-shaped piece of property that is already slated for redevelopment. As much as I kind of like it (there are two other similar houses across the street) they feel pretty dinosaur-ish.
The eviction of the tenants
By maria c
Sun, 11/20/2016 - 9:43am
The eviction of the tenants must have been swift. There was a older black gentleman who used to sit on the porch, waving to me and other passersby. He always working in the yard, sweeping the porch, etc. I hope he's okay and has another decent place to live. I was shocked to walk by one day just after seeing him a couple weeks prior to see all the bottom windows boarded up. Or should I be shocked? Sigh.
Does anyone live there now?
By SwirlyGrrl
Sun, 11/20/2016 - 12:23pm
If not, shouldn't it be sporting a big X on the outside?
Only if it's unsafe for the
By anon
Sun, 11/20/2016 - 2:24pm
Only if it's unsafe for the fire department to enter.
What makes you think this was
By Chester T.
Sun, 11/20/2016 - 2:27pm
What makes you think this was a decent place to live?
Any place is decent compared
By anon
Mon, 11/21/2016 - 12:54pm
Any place is decent compared to a men's shelter these days, or lack thereof.
Building has been vacant
By James O'Brian
Mon, 11/21/2016 - 10:37am
That building has been vacant for along time. I walk by there all the time.
You may wish to seek help if you continue having halucinations of people who aren't there
the guy was real
By anon
Mon, 11/21/2016 - 12:10pm
The old guy was real. He wasn't renting, he owned the place. He stayed in his home until he either died or was about to. Could have moved into a nice place for older people if he sold it, but he wanted to stay in his home. It has been vacant because it isn't up to code for a rental (single family house, no tenants involved). The kids don't live around here, and cleaned it out. They got the title and sold it a few months ago.
Thanks for the info.
By Sally
Mon, 11/21/2016 - 2:07pm
And yes, they were real, until a year or so ago. There were lights on and Xmas lights. Seemed like several older black men either sharing the home or just hanging out--always seemed very congenial. I imagined a lot of card games going on.
What makes you think that he was a tenant?
By anon
Mon, 11/21/2016 - 11:34am
He might have owned the place.
He wasn't the owner. The
By maria c
Mon, 11/21/2016 - 1:46pm
He wasn't the owner. The Cravens sold the house to City Realty in January according to the deed. The Cravens didn't live there when they sold the propertu. They lived in South Boston. Hope the tenant isn't on the street because that is NOT a decent place to live. That house was probably decent to him.
And what
By James O'Brian
Mon, 11/21/2016 - 2:35pm
And what makes you think the tenant is on the street? I appreciate you bravely taking the position that homelessness is bad, but let's not wildly speculate about the situation of a tenant who hasn't lived there in almost a year and probably wouldn't appreciate being used as a pawn in your anti-development agenda.
So What Do You Want?
By Cliff
Mon, 11/21/2016 - 3:39pm
You wanted the tenant to continue living in an unsafe, structurally unsound house? Then you would likely be the first person calling the landlord a slumlord.
Or, would you prefer that the new owner invest hundreds of thousands of dollars to fix up the property and make it safe for habitation? Then you'd probably yell at them for any attempt to raise the rents to recoup this expenditure and call them greedy landlords ruining the neighborhood.
Honestly, you can't win.
Sold last January for $2.25 million
By anon
Mon, 11/21/2016 - 11:40am
I'm betting that the guy you remember was the owner, and either he or his heirs cashed out.
Wrong. That house was only a
By maria c
Mon, 11/21/2016 - 2:22pm
Wrong. That house was only a miniscule part of that sale. If you look at the deed, 3371-3375 Wash. was included in the sale, as well as up thru 201 Green. The Cravens (Sellers) resided at 74 G Street in South Boston, not at 197 Green in JP.
Cravens bought all that
By anon
Tue, 11/22/2016 - 1:38pm
They weren't the sellers.
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