EASTWORKS
_______________________
A history
We begin with an idea, big and bold. Don't just build a business. Create
community.
This is in the mind of Will Bundy. The thought arises in 1996, and it comes in
stages. There's no eureka moment, just a slow evolution. A curiosity becomes a
want. A want becomes a need - to make a difference and to take a chance.
So Bundy does. He takes a chance.
The rest, as they say, is history - successful and significant, not just for Bundy,
but for countless others: merchants, entrepreneurs, nonprofit workers, residents
and a small army of artists. All of Easthampton benefits from what Bundy
creates: Eastworks.
2017 marks its 20th anniversary. Many have reason to celebrate.
A building that was once empty is full. And a mill district that was once
dormant is vibrant. Almost all its buildings, accounting for millions of square
feet, are now under development: retail, commercial, industrial, residential. Call it
mixed-use. Shortly after Easthampton changes its zoning in hope of reviving its
moribund mills, Bundy takes a chance. He buys the biggest building of the
bunch, a behemoth more than 1/10th of mile long, five floors with 500,000
square feet.
It's an act of daring for a developer. But Bundy isn't a developer, not in 1996.
He's just a man with a mission and a vision, and no development experience.
But he doesn't let something like stop him. He's first in line to put
Easthampton's new zoning to use, undertaking the biggest project this small city
has ever seen.
You imagine a community of developers holding their collective breath, waiting
and watching. They see him leap and plunge. Then they see him stay afloat.
Bundy leads. Others follow. It's game on.
You know the outcome. But there are periods when that's in doubt, because
the expenses and difficulties of such an enormous project are numerous and
great. But Eastworks overcomes. Here's its history.
BIRTH OF A NOTION
It’s 1996. Bundy's living and working in Northampton. Years after graduating
from New York University with a degree in film and video, he moves to Pioneer
Valley, "which is a crazy place to come if you want to work in video."
Bundy wants to work in video. He establishes a video business and pursues a
project recording poets reading their works. This leads nowhere. But a video he
creates about the deinstitutionalization of mental hospitals leads somewhere: to
a job.
Bundy works as a service coordinator for a client with developmental
disabilities. He's also a self-employed furniture designer, renting a studio in the
Arts & Industry Building in Northampton. His income is modest. His growth
potential is limited. He's feeling a little unchallenged and unfulfilled. He’s
unmarried. And he's approaching midlife.
Cue the epiphany.
"I lived inside safe parameters and I ventured out. If you're not taking many
risks, you're not getting much back. I'm thinking, `Oh, my God. I've missed out.
I've taken no risks in life.'"
This is when Bundy has "the thought," the one that eventually yields
Eastworks. At Arts & Industry, a former factory redesigned for artists, Bundy
sees what he calls the early stages of "a community. There was a sense of place
being created by the people themselves."
He likes what he sees. After itinerant years living at three different schools in
three different states, and living in New York, Boston and D.C., Bundy has
"maybe an over-observant need for a place, a community, a home."
Not only does Bundy want to be a participant in a community, but a principal.
So with what money he's amassed, he approaches the partners of Arts &
Industry. He makes an offer to join.
Thanks, but no thanks. That's the short of the meeting.
And that's great, according to Bundy's father, the now late, great McGeorge
Bundy, the former National Security Advisor to President Kennedy and President
Johnson. He gives his third son advice: Go for it.
That's the essence of the father's letter: don't join someone else's project,
pursue your own. Bundy heeds the advice, which he calls "helpful and
centering.” So when Milton Howard, an Arts & Industry principal, offers to help
Bundy look for another building and another project, Bundy accepts.
The search is on.
WHERE'S EASTHAMPTON?
Bundy joins Howard, a former college professor with a real estate license.
They’re in search of a building. They cross the Northampton line. They enter
Easthampton, which, curiously, is south. Yet they find their way. And Bundy finds
something he's never seen: Easthampton.
"I was so provincial to Northampton. The first thought I had was, `Wow, I don't
get out enough. The setting of Easthampton is beautiful."
The city's mill district isn't hard to find and neither is the building for sale. It's
colossal: five floors, 665 feet long and 120 feet wide. And that's just the main
building. Seven outbuildings abut it like barnacles on a really big boat.
Bundy’s awestruck. So’s Howard.
"We both just fell in love with it," Bundy says.
Standing on the roof of the building, Bundy looks south over the Manhan Rail
Trail and Long Mill Pond at Mount Tom, which puts on a nightly show, capturing
the colors of a setting sun. Inside the building, Bundy, an architectural
enthusiast, sees 14-foot ceilings on four floors, and an 18-foot ceiling on the top
floor. He sees hundreds of windows, 8 feet by 11 feet.
"What makes this place is the architecture. Part of it is the light, the openness
and the bones. They're all pretty fantastic. I've always had an irrational like of
interesting spaces."
Speaking of irrational, you you might still wonder. Bundy, he has no
development experience, yet he wants to undertake one of the biggest
redevelopment projects in the state?
Yes.
Some call him a trailblazer, a maverick, a white knight. He, however, in his selfeffacing, humorous way, calls himself “clueless.” But we know better, and know
about his sudden lust for life and its often-avoided, and, until now, unrewarded
risks.
"I was scared to the point I felt like this was something I should pursue. For a
guy who had no risk, I was a little over the top about taking risk. If it doesn't
scare me a little, what am I getting out of it? I was a little bit inoculated to the
good sense of critical thinking about this."
Besides, Bundy says, what he lacks in development experience, his partner
has. But little does Bundy know, in a few years, he and his partner will part. Then
it’s just him, with all the risk, and the reward.
LOTS OF LEGACY
When Bundy takes the stairs in the northwest corner of his building, he sees
his initials, step after step: W.B. But the letters stand for W. Burton & Co., the
original developer of the building.
The whole mill district was established for another W.B.: the West Boylston
Manufacturing Company, beginning in 1899. The company constructed nearly
two dozen buildings, turning cotton into cloth. Across Long Mill Pond, in an area
known as New City, the company created three villages for its workers, who
commuted to work over two former footbridges.
Cars were rare and costly; so were watches. So in addition to footbridges, the
mills used bell towers, signaling the start and end of shifts.
The Eastworks building was originally called Mill No. 6, reports Ed Dwyer in his
2000 book "Easthampton." It was three floors, built in 1915, with the entrance
facing the pond and the former railroad tracks. During World War I, the mill
produced parachutes. In 1919, it added two floors.
In 1927, West Boylston was in decline and seeking a buyer, Dwyer reports. In
1931, the company vacated its buildings and moved to Montgomery, Ala. In
1942 and 1943, the Cardanic Corporation occupied the Eastworks building as a
back-up plant for bomb making. For the next two years, General Electric used
the building to manufacture vacuum tubes.
Then came Stanley Home Products. It owned the Eastworks building from
1947 to 1997, manufacturing brushes, degreasers, cleaners, perfumes and
colognes, which it sold through house parties. Bob "Moose" Jensen of
Southwick, worked at Stanley 22 years. He says he was "the last guy out the
door."
Believe him. He isn't called Moose for nothing: 6'4", 225, with big arms and
huge hands.
"No one could beat me in arm wrestling."
The building drew thousands of workers daily and thousands of tourists yearly,
Jensen says. Women who pitched the Stanley products visited the building “on
a pilgrimage to see how the products were made."
Jensen, who once worked on the machine that made the mold for “Mr. Potato
Head,” worked many jobs: mechanic, group leader and manager. But mostly, he
worked as a mechanical engineer, designing Stanley machines. He remembers
its last years in Easthampton. House-party sales withered. Business declined.
So Stanley cut costs, bought out employees and hired temporary workers.
In 1995, Stanley closed. Jensen received a retirement plaque and a watch.
Before he left the building, his office phone rang. It was the auction house
contracted to sell and install Stanley's machinery.
"I was retired for 15 minutes."
Jensen worked another year in the building until the building was empty and a
buyer found.
"I'm extremely happy to see the building being used. It has a lot of history."
THE FISH ARE BITING
It’s September 1996, Bundy and Howard prepare to make an offer. The only
reason they can is the year before, Easthampton changed its zoning, out of dire
necessity.
"There were a lot of empty storefronts," says Robert "Bob" Pinkos, a lifelong
Easthampton resident and former planning board chairman. "Once the factories
leave, a lot of the people leave, and everything else goes down hill."
Pinkos, who worked in the mill district as a young man, served on the
conservation commission, too, and, notably, 26 years on town meeting. That’s
the organization that helped shape the zoning changes. This is before 1996
when the town adopted a city form of government with a strong mayor.
Michael Tautznik was the first mayor, and the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth,
seventh and eighth, serving from 1996 to 2013.
"I was one of the more vocal folks for progressive stuff in town," Tautznik says.
Tautznik is a third-generation Easthampton resident, who lives in the same
house he was born in. He remembers “when Long Mill Pond was whatever color
dye the textile mills were using.” Before being mayor, Tautznik also served on
the conservation commission and town meeting.
"Zoning was so restrictive it would not allow the reuse of these buildings."
So the zoning changed, permitting residential and retail in a previously
industrial zone. The proposals were made in the early '90s and passed in 1995.
"They passed pretty easily," Pinkos says. "There wasn't much resistance.
These buildings were standing empty."
"The zoning passed was for its time some of the most progressive going in
Massachusetts," Tautznik says. "We're still pointed to as the poster child for
creative use of old industry."
So everything was set: empty buildings, new zoning. The city cast a line into
unfamiliar waters, and waited.
"We were hoping someone would take the bait," Pinkos says. "Will and his
partner were the first."
YOU WANT HOW MUCH?
Bundy and Howard decide to make an offer, and get financing.
"A waltz to the bank it wasn't," Bundy says.
Bankers evaluate risk based on the type of a project: residential, commercial
retail, office, manufacturing. They also want to see a history of the proposed
project type in the area. But Eastworks is a new enterprise under never-beenused zoning.
"The bankers' heads exploded," Bundy says. "There was no context to
mitigate all the risks they were trying to evaluate."
Bundy and Howard get their loan, but, Bundy says, they’re “on a short leash."
"God bless Easthampton Savings Bank. The reason it got involved is someone
was taking a chance on Easthampton and it felt it should be in on that."
Bundy and Howard make an offer. It’s September 1996. And their offer's
rejected. The buyer reports it accepted another offer.
This is when you expect Bundy and Howard to slump away into obscurity. But
fret not. Heroes can’t rise until they fall. The process begins.
A month later, when Howard hears nothing about the building sale, he calls the
seller. He says if the buyer is having trouble, he and Bundy are still ready.
Offer accepted. Bundy and Howard close on a purchase-and-sale agreement
in November 1996: $650,000, down from the asking price of $2 million.
Now Bundy and Howard need to get their plans approved by the Planning
Board. They expect the worst. They get the best. The Planning Board’s on their
side, literally.
Bundy remembers the first meeting. He and Howard enter the old town hall.
They see six planning board members sitting in six folding chairs at one folding
table. Bundy and Howard take seats across the room.
"We faced off in this formal way," Bundy says. "They said, `Why don't you pull
up your chairs. Let's sort this out.'"
The process took many meetings over many weeks. That, Pinkos says, is only
because the board "wanted to make sure we did it right. We wanted to make
sure this place worked. That was very important."
The plans are approved. The building sale closes. It’s March 23, 1997.
COMING AROUND THE MOUNTAIN
It's May, 1997, Bundy's driving his mother to Easthampton. He wants her to
see the building he bought. They're cresting Mount Tom from the south. As they
round the mountain and begin their descent, Bundy points across the valley to a
huge patch of white, the roof of his building, clearly visible a mile away.
"That's my building," he says.
Mary Bundy widens her eyes, opens her mouth and raises her hands.
"It was like she had just come over the top of a roller coast and was going
down the other side."
Mary Bundy says nothing, perhaps because she can’t. She’s reeling from
shock. But Bundy knows what she's thinking: "Oh my God, what has my son
done?"
Well, according to media reports, what Bundy has done is enter Easthampton
like "a white knight." But now Mary Bundy's thinking her son's a white knight on
a white elephant.
So much money must be spent upgrading and modifying the building before it
generates revenue. Since we're on the topic of expense, this is a fine time to talk
about Eastworks' steamy history: its heating system.
Modern, efficient and easy to operate it’s not, not in 1997. Meet Charlie Dzialo,
now living in Florida. He operated the antiquated heating system for Stanley
Home. For several years, he carries on for Eastworks.
"He came with the building," Bundy says.
The old boilers, which were replaced in 2004, "made Mike Mulligan's steam
shovel look like a Tonka Toy." The boilers were big, Bundy say, bigger than "train
engines."
To the boilers, add another unexpected early expense: the building's new
white roof.
"It was not rubber but a polymer," Bundy says. "And they discovered this roof
broke down in sunlight."
And how did Bundy learn this?
"We had leaks all over the place."
GET AN ARCHITECT
Siegfried "Ziggy" Porth is an obvious choice for the Eastworks project.
Howard knows him for his architectural work on the Arts & Industry Building,
among a dozen other former-factory projects by Porth.
Before Porth shares his Eastworks history, let’s share his history.
He speaks with a German accent. This makes sense when you learn he’s from
Germany, when there used to be two, and he was in the one less desirable.
In 1955, "after a bunch of tries," he and his family flee East Germany to West
Germany. Porth is the youngest of six children. The family’s escape plan is
simple: divide and conquer. Porth's father and oldest brother go to West
Germany on a work visa, and never return. A few months later, the father notifies
the rest of his family to come. So the Porths sell their belongings.
"That was the stupidest thing we could have done," Porth says. "That raised a
big red flag. And people squealed."
At the border to West Germany, the train stops. Two Russian soldiers board
and remove the Porths. After hours of interrogation, they're ordered home.
But the Porths don't go home, not right away. First, they spend days at the
border, pleading with people for help, sleeping in train stations and bars. Then
they go home.
Three weeks later, they try again.
"We told no one. We left at 2 in the morning. Everyone had a suitcase in
proportion to their body. We got on the train and made it to West Germany."
From West Germany, the Porths make it to America, to Springfield, MA, where
Porth attends schools and receives a full college scholarship to study
architecture.
Porth's office is on the third floor of Eastworks. Like everything about the
building, it's huge: 1,200 square feet.
"It's bigger than my house," Porth says. "The biggest challenge of this building
is it’s so big."
For a time, Porth’s office doubles as a yoga studio.
“I was in the class. We just slid everything to the side and we could get 10
people in."
To an architect, early Eastworks looks like a clean canvas. Only one floor is
partitioned, the third floor, which Stanley Home used for its offices. In addition to
putting up walls, Porth’s tasked with reconciling an old building with new
building codes.
Structurally, the building’s strong. The brick walls at the base are 36 inches
thick; at the top, they're 12. The floors spans are every 10 feet, and the floors
are 6 inches thick.
Porth holds a plug drilled from a floor to install a toilet: a top layer of rock
maple, a layer of tarpaper for noise-control, a piece of fir, then a chunk of pine.
This, he says, provides a two-hour fire buffer.
“Fortunately, the whole building is sprinklered."
That's great, unless the city tampers with its water pressure. (SPOILER ALERT:
The city will soon tamper with its water pressure.)
The Eastworks building design is by floor: manufacturing and studios on the
ground floor; retail on the first floor; offices and more artist studios on the
second floor.
Artists, Bundy says, are drawn to small spaces, great light and height, and
each other. "There's a synergy of like-minded people." Besides, he adds,
"they're my people.”
Eastworks’ third floor is nonprofits and offices. And it’s fourth floor is
apartments.
"The apartments generated the most income," Porth says. "That's what the
banks loved."
DON’T FEED THE ANIMALS
Eastworks opens for business. It offers space, opportunity and unorthodoxy.
When Howard comes to work, Bundy says, he carries "a briefcase that was a
modified vodka box with duct tape and handles."
There’s a lot to do. But fortunately, there’s a lot of workers, sort of.
"They thought they found a gravy train," Bundy says.
Industrious and reliable they're not, and their whereabouts in such a big
building are often a mystery.
"It was mind boggling how dysfunctional it was organizationally. My
organizational sensibilities were if you were nice to people, they'd be nice back."
Bundy learns a lesson. His sensibilities change.
"The organizational model was kind of summer camp without the counselors."
But let's be clear. Any criticism of the first generation of Eastworks staff does
not include Stephanie Provencher, the business manager. She starts when the
business starts, and she's still going. She sets up business accounts and
financial systems for Eastworks. And she begins work before cell phones
become commonplace.
"I'd look for Will on five floors. I put a lot of miles on then. I got a lot of
exercise."
Meanwhile, in the early years of the office, Provencher looks at the Eastworks
bookkeeper, a woman, and thinks, "what's with the lizard?"
"She brought a bearded dragon to work. It didn't do much. She just kept it on
her arm."
But at least a listless lizard is less distracting than a tenant with a parrot.
"This guy used to come into the office with the cockatiel sitting on his
shoulder,” Provencher says. “I remember telling Will, `He really should change
his shirt.' I'd just go to my office and let Will talk to the guy with bird poop on his
shoulder."
About this time, Bundy contracts a worker who actually (brace yourself) works:
Diana Pinkos, a lifetime Easthampton resident, wife of Bob Pinkos, the former
planning board chairman. For 29 years she works many different jobs for Stanley
Home, lastly as overseer of its computer and phone systems.
That's why Bundy calls her, to have her modify the phone system. Mostly this
involves pulling miles of phone wires and coaxial cables from the building, and
going where few people have ever gone: the windowless, low-ceiling, dirt-floor
subbasement.
"That's the scariest place I've ever been in my life," Diana Pinkos says.
Once Pinkos modifies the big phone system to suit Eastworks, she's on call.
She stops by or calls in whenever Bundy wants. This continues until Pinkos
makes a proposal. "I said you don't need this big phone system. He said `But
you're cutting yourself out of a job.' I said I know."
A year after Bundy begins Eastworks, he continues to act on his desire to take
risks, and reap rewards. He marries. Paula O’Hara becomes Paula Bundy. One
year and one child later, Bundy sics his wife on his "workers."
Paula Bundy remembers her first impression of the Eastworks office. "It was
one big (expletive) mess." However, Will Bundy calls the office "a disaster."
So there's a discrepancy.
Meanwhile, Paula Bundy, who her husband prizes for, among other things, her
organizational skills, goes to work in the office, slashing and burning and taking
no prisoners.
"There were a lot of losers she helped me get rid of," Will Bundy says. "They
had to go."
"Oh God. Oh no."
Don’t worry. That’s just Paula Bundy still recalling her first impression of the
Eastworks office.
"It was a lot of work to set up systems for people who weren't used to being
responsible," she says. "It was really hard."
After 18 months, the office reinvention project complete, Paula Bundy
withdraws from Eastworks operations.
THE RANCH ON THE RIGHT
As soon as Eastworks opens, it has residents, though apartments won't be
built for a year. And you wonder how this could be. The answer's the Hostess
House.
Come see. It's still here. Leave the Eastworks office. Head west down the
third-floor hall. Turn left at the hallway with the empty in/out timecard racks that
flank the old timecard machine, frozen in time: 7:53. Turn right at the next hall.
Enter the former lobby of Stanley Home, decorated in early '80s pastels as
though inspired by "Miami Vice." Yes, it's quite a sight, but carry on, to the door
on the other side. Open it.
There it is: the Hostess House. This is where Stanley Home trained thousands
of women to sell their products at house parties around the country. To offer
simulation to the training, Stanley Home built a house in the middle of the
building: one story; natural cedar shingles; a bay window; a sage front door,
shutters and trim; a metal lamp post outside; a kitchen, living room bedroom,
bathroom and its own heating system.
For nearly a year, this is the home of Mark Rae and his wife, Patricia. But they
don't call it Hostess House. They call it "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia." That's as in
Marcia Brady of "The Brady Bunch," the TV show that premiered in the late 60s,
with corresponding decor.
"It has big daisy wallpaper in the bathroom," Rae says. "And it has avocado
green appliances in the kitchen."
It also has easy access to Rae's job: Eastworks security guard.
"On several occasions I had to stand in front of people and say, `no, that's not
salvaging; that's stealing.'"
Rae arrives in the Pioneer Valley as an experienced photographer, but can't
find work. So he turns to real estate, which he says was “killing” him. One day
while walking his dog in Northampton, he meets Will Bundy walking his dog.
One thing leads to another, and Rae asks for a job.
"I said I'd do anything: office, sales. He wanted a night watchman."
Rae works nights, 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. He wears black ("because the building was
filthy back then"). He carries a black flashlight. He's accompanied by a black,
100-pound, labrador/shepherd mix named Bocci. And he wears black custommade roller skates.
Rae can skate, really skate.
"It wasn't a comic thing," he says. "On roller skates, you save about an hour."
At first, Rae guards against late-night intruders. Then when the first-phase of
apartments opens, Rae and his wife move into one. Now, Rae guards against
inside jobs, what he calls "friendly fire."
"I swear the first dozen tenants in those apartments were children. They'd go
around at night and take stuff. They'd go spelunking. They'd go out at night to
see what they could find."
And Rae would find his neighbors hiding in darkened parts of the building,
greet them by name and confiscate whatever they'd taken. "It was awful. It was
like being the bouncer at a house party."
But early Eastworks life isn't all dread. With most of the top floor open, it’s a
paradise for parties. This includes Bundy’s 50th birthday, featuring the band
Wild Asparagus.
People also throw regular roller-skating parties. Porth’s a regular.
"He's the most amazing skater you'll ever see," Rae says. "We called him The
Old Smoothie. He can dance and twirl. But when you put a margarita in his
hands, it didn't always work."
For the record, Porth is the 1964 Massachusetts roller skate dance champion.
One unexpected task for Rae, not in his job description, is trying to let the
residents sleep. This is particularly tough for two weeks in 2001 when the city
attempts to address its post-dawn demand for water, which it does by
pressurizing its system in the wee of the morning. This triggers Eastworks’
sprinkler system alarm.
So every morning, at 2:45, Rae stands by the Eastworks control panel next to
the boilers.
"If I could catch the alarm at `beep,' I could shut it down. But if it got to `beep,
beep,' it was over. It called the fire department, set off alarms and started this
huge diesel pump."
Eventually Eastworks and the city resolve the issue. But for a brutal fortnight,
Rae performs his role.
"All my tenants were sticking their heads out their doors and saying, `Mark, do
we have to get out?' And my common reply was, `No, burn to death. Bye.'"
A CRITICAL DECISION
In 2000, Howard withdraws from Eastworks. Bundy buys him out. Now the
guy who joined the developer is the developer - on an enormous project.
The costs continue to mount. The revenues don't.
"You had to develop cash flow in relation to debt," Bundy says.
The debt is now all his. And he wonders and worries if it's maybe getting too
much, if he, too, should withdraw. Or maybe he should double down on his risk
and his reward.
Bundy asks his family. They know people. Mary Bundy knows Jill Ker Conway,
former Smith College president and founder of its Ada Comstock Scholars
program for non-traditional students, from which Paula Bundy graduates.
Conway's a board member of many international companies. She sends the
Eastworks financial numbers to a man in Philadelphia.
"He said this was not a great investment," Will Bundy says. "The returns will
take a long time."
Bundy shares the report with his family, including his brother Stevie, a lawyer,
that "everything went through."
"They didn't see a big upside for me. I thought if I walk away now, I walk away
with nothing. And I walk away with an idea that's failed."
Bundy gives great thought to his family's advice. Then he declines it.
"I said I think this is what I should be doing. It wasn't a declaration of
desperation. I just felt I could be the guy who owned the vision. I had done
enough work that whoever came in after me would be building on what was
here and would get it at a cut rate and make it work."
MEET THE NEIGHBORS
Nancy Fox has status. She's a first-phase Eastworks resident, and still is, the
last of her kind. In 1998, she moves from Westfield to Easthampton to be closer
to work. She sees an Eastworks flyer. It says "lofts." That’s "the magic word” for
a former New Yorker, the lure to light and height. But lofts, she says, “were
always beyond my reach."
Fox takes the last available loft, and loves it, not just the inside, but the
outside.
"You have the privacy of your own place and the socialization that a dormitory
gives. It's a like a dormitory for adults."
A monthly potluck tradition begins. Into the cavernous space in the center of
the floor, residents bring food, chairs, music and an extension cord. The
gatherings include the Bundys, who live most of their married life in the building.
They have a daughter, Fiona, then five years later, a son, Hugo.
"I said to them, `you know, I babysit,’" Fox says. "That was the beginning."
Fox is happy and can't imagine moving, until someone else does. A neighbor
decides for financial and retirement purposes that it's better to own than rent.
So she leaves.
"I thought maybe I should do that," Fox says. "And I went shopping."
Fox finds "the ideal condo," at the end of a dead end, abutted by a nature
preserve. It's scenic and quiet, and, Fox says, perhaps not so great.
"I could easily isolate myself. That would not be good for a 70-something
single woman. There was a sense it would mean giving up community."
So the condo offer Fox made that the owners accepted, Fox withdraws.
"I came charging back here to my sense of community."
Wendy Downs thinks often of moving into Eastworks, again. The first, and
only, time she moves in is 2005. Her husband and young daughter join her. Both
Downs and her husband are “starving artists” with advanced degrees; he comes
for a job; she searches for one, and finds a position answering phones at a
doctor's office.
"It's hugely demoralizing," Downs says. "After grad school, after all this time
and energy getting two degrees, I thought, `what has happened?'"
One menial job leads to another, and another. One night, Downs decides to
"make a dress, even though I don't know how." The dress turns into a tote bag.
"Someone came in our apartment and said, `I love it, you should sell it.' I
thought, `I'm an artist. I don't sell things.'"
Downs posts the bag on Etsy. It sells the next day. A business is born: Moop.
Downs makes a pattern to facilitate production. Ten months later, Etsy
promotes her tote bags on Cyber Monday.
"I had no idea what I was in for."
Life change.
The orders come, and they don't stop coming. From making one bag a day,
Downs now needs to make 45. She quits her part-time job, which at this point is
at an Apple store. She hires an assistant. She asks her husband to help when
he's not at work. And she flies in her mother.
"Everyone in the building was saying, `what is happening?' There was this
moral support."
Downs finds community with the Bundys who live a couple doors down and
whose daughter is friends with hers. She finds fellowship with artists who live
and work in the building.
Downs remembers many times leaving her studio and returning to her
apartment at 2 in the morning. "I pass someone in the hall doing the same thing.
There's acknowledgement that you're not in this alone. You're working in your
solo endeavor, but you're bolstered by others who are doing the same thing. We
support each other. There's camaraderie. That's what the building did for me."
In 2010, Downs moves to Pittsburgh to be near the family of her now former
husband. Moop thrives.
"I've spent time in dingy warehouses where you give up light and heat, and it's
soul-crushingly cold. Eastworks gave us this beautiful but minimal space and a
view of Mount Tom that was amazing."
Beth McElhiney must move. She's been living too long on Martha's Vineyard.
Rents keep going up. Spaces keeps going down. This is 2011.
She visits the Pioneer Valley for 10 days. On the last day, she visits Eastworks.
She enters an apartment.
"The sun was beaming in. The big, huge space was like the gates of heaven
opening. There was this massive beam of sunlight and because of the time and
day and angle, I expected angels to start singing. I thought, `this is home; this is
where I'm supposed to be.'"
So Eastworks is McElhiney's home, and community. Everyone knows
McElhiney. She leaves her door open. Her cat sits outside her door.
"That's Equi, the big, fat cat. Everyone stops and pets her. That's like
community cat therapy."
McElhiney institutes a winter tradition: a snowstorm tea. When it snows, she
serves tea. "People sit and talk and get to know one another. It's like a family
here."
The same applies for Thanksgiving for McElhiney, an only child who's a
continent away from her parents.
"It's important to me to have people around me who I know and I feel
connected to that are my support system."
In addition to receiving support, McElhiney promotes it for fellow Eastworks
artists. McElhiney sells vintage collectibles (BMc Vintage Design), works as a
silversmith and makes jewelry.
"Artists bring the soul of the society to us. Without the artists here, it would be
a totally different experience."
Shortly after moving in, McElhiney makes a proposal to Bundy: let Eastworks
artists use an unfilled space on the first floor to present and sell their work in an
annual, seasonal, holiday pop-up shop. It's now an institution entering its sixth
year.
"Eastworks has brought so much beauty to my life in my daily living
experience. It's amazing."
BUSINESSES, NOT AS USUAL
In a small office in a big building surrounded by a vast moat of lawn, Kathleen
Lynch sits, and works, and waits - to move. She’s executive director of
Easthampton Media, which provides community-access TV to Easthampton and
Southampton.
At the moment, Lynch is in the White Brook Middle School, an isolated
building well off the periphery of the city center. In July, she’ll lead her people
and her nonprofit to the Promised Land: Eastworks. Actually, she calls it “the
cornerstone of the new direction of Easthampton, which started 20 years ago
and is building today."
Eastworks is home to so many nonprofits: Massachusetts Councils on Aging,
the Women's Fund of Western Massachusetts and Community Resources for
People with Autism, among others.
"I felt the third floor should be nonprofits," Bundy says. "A lot of nonprofits are,
in a sense, agents of making community.”
But Easthampton Media isn’t moving to the third floor, but the first.
"Will is trying to create a synergy of creative modeling that combines culture
and economy,” Lynch says. “We want to be at the center of that collaboration. If
we support the culture, the economy comes. That's the premise of the creative
economy."
Easthampton Media started 11 years ago, and apparently soon thereafter
started planning its Eastworks move, or so it seems. It’s been years in the
making.
"We had to wait until we could afford to move. We're not just moving; we're
building out."
After nearly a decade, a half-million-dollar facility improvement plan is about to
be implemented, with the organization moving from an office of 835 square feet
to 3,000.
"Eastworks has its energy; we have our energy. Combining them is effective
and real, and creates something bigger than its parts, this new relationship. It's
one thing to be a tenant. You can be a tenant anywhere. But you can't move to
many places and be a partner. That captures the spirit of Eastworks."
THE STRAIN, THE GAIN
Sometimes store clerks ask Paula Bundy her email or mailing address, which
she provides.
"Oh, Eastworks," they say. "I love that building."
She does, too, now. But for a time, it was hard: simultaneously raising a family
and establishing and running a business, one that’s the size of a small town.
"I appreciate the building the longer we have it, because it gets easier."
Will Bundy agrees. The early years, he calls "a very tough period." But the
period passes. Now, Paula Bundy says, "the building is a gift in a lot of ways,
but it has taken a long time to get to that point."
That's the strain. Here's the gain. People appreciate.
Theresa "Terry" Perrea is an Easthampton native who graduated from the high
school in 1959. She worked for 25 years in the Eastworks building when it was
owned by Stanley Home. Now she serves as president of the Easthampton
Historical Society.
"Eastworks was the beginning. All the buildings along Pleasant Street are
active. Easthampton is back on track and is a wonderful place now. When I go
into that building and see the gorgeous floors done over, it's amazing. The
Bundys are to be commended for the work they've done."
Rae, Eastworks' first security guard, says, "It was an anchor. It started things."
Porth, Eastworks' architect, says "We were all hoping this would be the
catalyst for things." Porth has since designed two other mill-district buildings for
two other developers.
Robert Pinkos, former planning board chairman, says, "Eastworks started it
all."
Tautznik, the former mayor, says, "Easthampton used to be fixed on what was.
It really took a major transition, including what happened here in Eastworks, for
people to change their attitude about the community. Instead of looking
backward, they began looking forward. That takes leadership. For most New
Englanders, you have to show that it works. Eastworks is the thing we can point
to and say, `this could be the future.'"
LIVING IN THE PRESENT
The walls are freshly painted. The office is ably staffed. No one's hiding or
missing. And no one's wearing a lizard.
“I’m only now on the verge of having a really healthy management team,”
Bundy says.
Catherine "Cat" White, an administrative assistant, sits just inside the
Eastworks' office door. In the room behind her, sits Provencher, the business
manager, still at work, 20 years and counting. And in the room next to that, is
Shae Blaisdell, director of operations, hired in 2014.
"What really helped us and our sense of being here and made it easier to enjoy
the elements of community is when Shae came in," Bundy says. "She started
taking over a lot of responsibilities."
No longer in the office, but still in the building, is Kim Carlino. She served as
Eastworks' first marketing director from 2013 to 2016.
"In the cycle of all the building can be, in the modern era of social media, Kim
was very important,” Bundya says. “She was an unusual talent and fearlessly
created opportunities. She showed the potential that we had and she did it with
virtually nothing. She created a line that others follow.”
Carlino is an artist, who moved to the area from New York, and is well known
in the arts community. She says that enabled her to promote Eastworks. She
also says she knew what Bundy wanted.
"I thought about what Will's vision was, which is why we worked well together.
He knew that I got what his vision was. We say that I had his back."
For two separate stints, Carlino also lived in Eastworks. Now she rents studio
space here.
"This community has that kind of presence that I feel good working around,
being around other artists. I know most of the people because I did the
marketing and rented them their space."
THE WAY FORWARD
Come with Bundy. He's going to show you something: history that hasn't
happened yet. It's called the future.
Turn out the Eastworks office. Head south until you expect a wall, but find a
door. Pass through and enter Eastworks' version of a covered bridge. It's
suspended and enclosed, a windowed hallway leading to another building, a
six-story warehouse with windows on just one wall.
With a ta-dah wave of Bundy's arms, you're in. You see nothing but
emptiness, and darkness. But Bundy sees something else: potential. He sees
things you don't; and he doesn't see things you do, namely the top two floors. In
his mind, they're gone, or will be.
"The ambition is more of a subtraction. Everything behind the warehouse is
exposed and changes its value."
Here's the plan. Because of codes and logistics, remove the top two floors.
Have a roof deck for special events, and a smaller deck on the tiered floor
below. Fill the building with retail and offices, and the opportunity for the public
to take in the stunning southern view: the Manhan Rail Trail, Long Mill Pond and
Mount Tom.
This is all possible because of a 2016 multi-million-dollar state project. It
expands parking and opportunity for Eastworks, and gives parking and viability
to the district's other mills, which were nearly without parking before.
This is along the so-called back of the Eastworks building, which used to be
its front.
"It's going to be very dynamic," Bundy says. "The back parking lot does this
great thing. It gives us two first floors."
Eastworks, built into a hill, has a north main entrance on the second floor, and
will soon have a south main entrance on the first floor.
A building on one side of the warehouse, Bundy says, will be that south
entrance, a three-story glass-atrium filled with shops. A building on the other
side of the warehouse, could be a restaurant. And the cute little stand-alone
building at the eastern edge of the property, which used to be an electric plant
for the mill, could be "so many things."
Bundy’s undecided. But what is clear is he trusts his ideas, especially the big
ones. And now he sees a lot more reward than risk, after 20 years.
"I had taken a challenge. I leapt off a cliff into the unknown, where I felt
qualified to do something, and I survived. And I thought I did well."