Mayor Michelle Wu visited the Strand Theatre on Tuesday to check out a digital art installation featuring the works of Vincent van Gogh, the 19th-century Dutch impressionist painter. The immersive exhibition has been in residency at the historic theatre since October, perhaps the longest stretch of time in recent memory that the Strand has been in use for one purpose. The Van Gogh exhibit is set to crate up and decamp for new digs soon.
The question of what’s to become next of Boston’s only municipally owned theatre, which dates to the waning days of the First World War, remains a looming question for the fledgling Wu team. The mayor has inherited a plan from the Walsh/Janey interregnum period that sought to enlist a single developer to operate the theatre and build out a new library branch in what is now an empty bank building next door. The plan also envisioned two levels of mixed-income housing above the library.
When the idea was first dangled last year, there was great hope for a successful match for this marquee project aimed at jump-starting civic and business life in Uphams Corner. But, as the Reporter’s Seth Daniel revealed last month, the outcome could not have been more disappointing. There were zero proposals filed with the city by the January deadline.
Not everyone was surprised. Councillor Frank Baker had cautioned against bundling the Strand, a library, and housing into one large “request for proposals”— or RFP. “It’s asking a lot,” Baker told the Reporter in January. “If we’re serious about getting this kind of development, then we have to be realistic.”
We might add that a dose of urgency and mayoral leadership are also key ingredients to get the Strand and associated projects from back burner to full boil. Given that, it was encouraging to see our piano-playing mayor walking the halls of this old movie house on Tuesday afternoon.
The mayor had this to say about her posture towards the Strand, according to Daniel: “The city still believes in the Strand, no question whatsoever. This is a priority, and this is a treasure that needs to have the investment and energy and love it deserves. This is a place that is, and now should even more be, the pride of our city.”
All good. But we hope to hear much more in the way of detail in the not-too-distant future. Wu’s team should be sure to consult with Councillor Baker and other leaders who’ve been tracking this process over the last decade and who found the last RFP wanting, particularly in regard to the Strand. Perhaps breaking up the next RFP into a few distinct pieces is the way to go. The mayor could also use her bully pulpit to enlist more guidance from city’s arts community—public, non-profit, and private.
The Strand has intrigued and confounded Wu’s predecessors going all the way back to Kevin White, who “saved” the shuttered facility from a wrecking ball in the 1970s by bringing it onto the city’s books. Wu’s mentor, Tom Menino, wanted the Strand to be Boston’s “Apollo”— a reference to the iconic Harlem theatre— and he pumped millions in to renovate it. Marty Walsh launched his first campaign from the Strand and rallied there on the eve of his first election in 2013. And his team moved, too-slowly perhaps, to organize a plan for a cultural district with the Strand as its heart and soul.
It’s Michelle Wu’s turn. We hope she’ll seize the chance to make it something truly special.
