Rally Against Artist Studio Evictions

By City Life/Vida Urbana

On Friday, October 26, at 2 pm at the Piano Factory Building, 791 Tremont Street, Boston,
City Life/Vida Urbana, a JP-based advocacy group will be joining artists facing displacement from their studios at the Piano Factory, along with more artists who have been displaced from across the city. All community supporters are invited to attend.

For over 40 years, visual artists at the Piano Craft Guild building—commonly known as the Piano Factory- have contributed to the artistic and commercial value of this building and the surrounding neighborhood. In November of 2017, these artists were informed that their studio spaces would be converted into luxury residential units and they would need to move out by January of 2019.

The Piano Factory artists are among many longstanding artist communities and workspaces currently being dismantled in Boston by increasing real estate development and policies that refuse to prioritize the arts. This rally is intended to call attention to this wrongful pattern of displacing and evicting artists throughout the city, and to advocate for this to change.

A group will assemble at the back parking lot of the Piano Factory in front of the neon sign windows, and will then deliver 500 petition signatures to the building's management office to urge The Shoreline Corporation and building owner Simeon Bruner to agree to negotiate fair settlements with the Piano Factory's remaining visual artists who have made the building what it is today.

More information and petition at www.clvu.org/piano_factory_petition