The Democracy Center, a beloved, long-standing meetinghouse for progressive organizations in Cambridge’s Harvard Square, announced on Saturday that it would close July 1 for the foreseeable future, sending activists and Cambridge community members scrambling.
The center at 45 Mount Auburn St. has supported nonprofits, activist organizations and other progressive causes since 2001, along with events such as drag shows and clothing drives. It is sponsored fiscally by the Foundation for Civic Leadership, an incubator and funding house for progressive voting initiatives. The foundation’s president and founder is Ian Simmons, husband of the multimillionaire Liesel Pritzker Simmons.
The closing would be used to make “necessary renovations” to the building, according to an announcement to The Democracy Center’s newsletter email list, with “the hope that in the future we will be able to welcome community groups once again.”
The closing announcement followed an Instagram post in mid-February by the Showbooking Collective, which worked with the center to rent space for music shows, about complaints that an organization called Meor was meeting at the center. Meor says it is about Jewish mentorship; the collective calls it “Zionist.” With tensions in the Middle East running high, several groups decided to stop using the space, and some activists speculated that the disagreement may have influenced the decision within the FLC to close the center. Disruptions there, such as a neo-Nazi group’s protest against 2022’s Anarchist Book Fair, might have had an effect too, they said.
“The executive leadership of The Democracy Center’s fiscal sponsor made an extremely sudden decision … There was no process with staff or the DC community,” an April 7 post by the Showbooking Collective said. “There is no explanation or timeline offered for these changes.”
Activists close to the center are coordinating their efforts to keep the space open as long as possible, and putting out calls to action across various online channels ahead of two hybrid community meetings scheduled by the foundation: 9:30 to 11 a.m. Thursday and 7 to 9 p.m. Monday.
The Showbooking Collective advised that activists “pack the community meetings to show that the community rejects this disrespectful, harmful decision.”
A request for comment at The Democracy Center drew an email explaining that manager Elizabeth Rucker was on vacation until Wednesday.
Later came an emailed response repeating the explanation from the newsletter: “The need for repairs/refurbishments is the driving factor behind The Democracy Center’s closure, and conversations about its physical condition have been occurring for many years. After being well-used by the community over the last 22 years, the repairs are long overdue,” wrote Sue Heilman, the interim executive director of a related organization called Democracy House. “Once the building is ready to reopen, our intention is that it will be a space open to community organizations.”
Founder’s nonprofit and firm
Democracy House is another program underway by the foundation that focuses on youth leadership. The foundation gives an address that’s attached and around the corner from The Democracy Center at 30 Bow St.
A feature from a Harvard University conservative publication called The Salient dug into the center in 2022, tracking the history of the house back to a fraternity and following the history of its buyer, Simmons, as a left-leaning “scion of the family who founded the department store Montgomery Ward” whose foundation bought the property in 2002 for $2.8 million. (The property was assessed this year at $5.1 million.) Simmons and his wife – whose family owns the Hyatt hotel chain – lead a social investment firm called the Blue Haven Initiative at the One Mifflin Place office building in Harvard Square.
“Their office stands in contrast to the poor conditions of the nonprofit’s house,” The Salient said.
Heart is affected
Cambridge’s Heart, a locally founded, unarmed safety response team that has been facing difficulties getting started with a city government collaboration, had planned to run its call center in the building.
“The Democracy Center has been home to Cambridge Heart since Heart began its operations in 2022,” the organization said by email when asked for comment. “All nine full-time staff actively use the space on a daily basis for meetings, responding to community members and for mutual aid and advocacy events. The organization also just finished outfitting an office as a call center that will support a crisis response warm line for community members. Our team was only informed of this decision days ago.”
Activists express concern
The Democracy Center is well-known by activists across Boston, and many reacted with dismay when they heard that the Cambridge organizing hub would be shutting down.
“The Democracy Center has been so vital for our training purposes, and because our yearly trainings have been so essential to keeping the work afloat, I really feel like The Democracy Center is a member of our group, and it’s a member we cannot afford to lose,” said a street medic and member of the Boston Area Liberation Medics who requested anonymity to speak on its behalf. “This is devastating, and I do not know how we will be able to continue without this space. I have a very sincere hope that the leadership may just not have had the opportunity to understand how important they are, and that they will reconsider this decision once they realize how important they are and how grateful people are for this space. And in turn, I think we and a lot of the organizations can listen to them, and we can find a way to work together to keep this space open.”
Alex Golonka, an activist with the Boston Democratic Socialists of America, said too much organizing now was tried in online spaces, “frequented by less and less people despite their seeming accessibility,” and The Democracy Center was different.
“If we hope to revive the socialist movement, we will need to do it in-person from places like The Democracy Center. I hope that news of its closing isn’t final and that I’ll be able to see the green walls of the Nelson Mandela room soon,” the activist said.
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Cambridge’s Heart… had planned to run its call center in the center.
A tangent, I know, but– shouldn’t Heart be run from the same call center that handles 911 calls? I thought the whole point was to dispatch unarmed social worker types to address nonviolent calls (say, a pill-head stumbling around the street) to save the cops for actual criminals. Why is Heart re-inventing the wheel?
Regarding HEART, no, the idea of HEART was never to handle calls from the same physical place as 911 calls. And the city has not yet agreed that HEART will answer any 911 calls.
Regarding the Democracy Center closing, this is terrible news for many organizations, especially those with offices in the building. I hope the building owner hears the call to stop the closure.
Is it closing permanently or temporarily? Letting a community center disintegrate rather than close it for necessary repairs isn’t good either.
To Yaakov Aldrich: Had your article’s title been truer, as in “The Democracy Center in Harvard Square shocks activist groups with the news it will close in July for the foreseeable future” I would not have been forced, once again, to despise the journalistic practice of tailoring one’s words to the most sensational, in the hope of catching people’s attention. In these days of widespread lies and semi-truths, I would have definitively preferred that approach. Thank you.