![\"Sophia](\"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/picSaveEMFProtestHarvardSqCambrige180616_0499w.jpg\")
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Help Wonderland keep producing our great coverage of local arts, cultures and activisms (and our great festivals) by contributing to Wonderland on Patreon<\/a>. And sign up for our free, weekly newsletter<\/a> so that you don’t miss any of our reporting.<\/em><\/p>\n In 2016, DiGiovanni quietly bought the three-story brick building thorugh his Trinity Property Management company for $4 million. A group of tenants and allies, which came to call themselves Cambridge Artist Coalition<\/a>, has objected to DiGiovanni\u2019s plans to oust them and appeared as Cambridge City Council meetings seeking help this spring.<\/p>\n Cambridge city officials helped negotiate an extension allowing tenants to say through May 31 as the city explored buying or leasing the building long-term from DiGiovanni to maintain it as an artists building. But the city backed away from the idea after a city inspection, saying the building was in too poor condition. Most tenants departed the building by the end of May, though a handful remained to force the issue.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been a long process. When we received the notices to quit the building, we ended up going to the City Council to get things done. That way wasn\u2019t particularly effective,\u201d says Steve Onderick, who rented a room for four years at the EMF building that he used as a video studio. \u201cWe did finally end up having a meeting with John DiGiovanni [during the first week of June]. That was a few days after we already were supposed to be out of the building. We had tried to meet with him repeatedly before that, but he didn\u2019t really respond to us. The meeting with him didn\u2019t really seem to be something that could lead to maintaining the building as an affordable music and arts community. From what I saw, he seemed like he was pretty locked into his business man\u2019s world view, he didn\u2019t seem willing to sacrifice any profit on behalf of the community. So the general point that I\u2019m trying to make is we went through all the official channels on this. We attempted to work with him. We attempted to go through the government. Basically none of those methods have resulted in what we want, which is to maintain the building as an affordable music and arts community. So we\u2019re out here [at the Make Music Festival Harvard Square<\/a>] expressing our First Amendment rights to try to put pressure on John DiGiovanni, the city, and the Harvard Square Business Association.\u201d<\/p>\n The Cambridge Artist Coalition organized today\u2019s \u201cOccupy The 11th Annual Make Music Harvard Square Festival\u201d<\/a> because the event is organized by the Harvard Square Business Association, where DiGiovanni serves as president, and the association also asks musicians to play for free at the event.<\/p>\n \u201cMake Music is an international event, however, its implications in Harvard Square are deeply upsetting to the EMF community. Every year, musicians play for free while the Harvard Square Business Association, headed by John P. DiGiovanni, reaps the benefits of the crowds we bring in. Not only is he actively evicting the music community, but he still expects to profit from our labor,\u201d organizers Stee Onderick, Ben Simon and Sophia Belle wrote on facebook. \u201cOccupy Make Music will be a peaceful demonstration to show Handouts organizers distributed at the rally listed four demands: \u201c1. Mr. DiGiovanni must return EMF to the community by selling it to the city of Cambridge. 2. The City of Cambridge must purchase the building. 3. Mr. DiGiovanni must refund the 12-months of rent he collected from EMF tenants while under what he himself called \u2018unsafe conditions\u2019 and \u2018inappropriate for any use.\u2019 4. HSBA must removed Mr. DiGiovanni from his position of power within their organization if he does not comply with these demands.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone can probably agree that what Mr. DiGiovanni is doing may be legal, but it\u2019s not right,\u201d says state Rep. Mike Connolly of Cambridge, who attended today\u2019s rally. \u201cI\u2019m in support of the demands that are being discussed here. There need to be refunds to tenants who have been paying their rent faithfully. I\u2019d like to see Mr. DiGiovanni sell the building to the city or a nonprofit. This building can be renovated, but it needs to be maintained as an affordable cultural space. \u2026 I hope Mr. DiGiovanni will come to the table and get faith and try to make something right.\u201d<\/p>\n Related:<\/strong> Help Wonderland keep producing our great coverage of local arts, cultures and activisms (and our great festivals) by contributing to Wonderland on Patreon<\/a>. And sign up for our free, weekly newsletter<\/a> so that you don’t miss any of our reporting.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cDisplacement is not business, it\u2019s disruption,\u201d Sophia Belle, who had been a tenant of the EMF building, told a crowd at the rally to \u201cSave EMF\u201d at Brattle Plaza in Harvard Square this afternoon. Since the spring, tenants of the building at 120 Brookline St., near Cambridge’s Central Square, and their allies have been fighting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7690,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[106,100,101,108],"tags":[398,394,399,395,396,397,376],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7698"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7698"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9738,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7698\/revisions\/9738"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\n– that we have eyes on the HSBA for being complacent in their president’s actions towards EMF
\n– that we are intent on fighting this cycle of displacement,
\n– that we expect our elected officials to definitively support artists and reject the donations\/courtship of developers
\n– that we are a kickass artistic community that refuses to be quiet.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a>
\n\u2022 Tory Bullock\u2019s \u2018Gentrification Game\u2019 Aims To \u2018Let You Feel What Gentrification Feels Like\u2019<\/a>
\n\u2022 Gentrification Is A Big Threat To Somerville In Dina Gjertsen\u2019s Tiny Dioramas<\/a><\/p>\n
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