The future of Out of the Blue Gallery is in question after its owner decided not to move forward with the city’s leasing reapplication process at the Somerville Armory. Instead, Parama Chattopadhyay is appealing to the mayor and other city officials to let her remain at the Armory or offer her a settlement for relocating to a new space. If the city doesn’t agree to her requests, Chattopadhyay plans to move forward with a discrimination lawsuit, she told Cambridge Day.
Chattopadhyay and the gallery have called the Armory home since 2020, though her time there has been fraught with uncertainty and contention with the city. The city of Somerville seized the Armory from the Sater family, which also owns the Middle East nightclub and restaurant in Central Square, in 2021 in a $5 million eminent domain acquisition. The 34,000-square-foot building at 191 Highland Avenue now holds just four small business tenants, along with The Center for the Arts at the Armory.
Out of the Blue gallery occupies a basement space brightly decorated with artwork, plants, and a colorful collection of mismatched furniture. There, Chattopadhyay hosts performances and community gatherings, many of them highlighting marginalized communities and social justice issues. “This is my life’s work,” Chattopadhyay, who also works as a teacher, said in an interview at the gallery. She and her partner live upstairs in a small live-work space, and the walls throughout the building feature art she’s curated.
Out of the Blue was formed in the 1980s by the late local arts legend Tom Tipton under the ethos that art should be accessible to all. For decades, Tipton and his collaborators maintained that mission, providing a space for disabled, queer, and unhoused people to share art and find community.
The gallery took on different forms over the years and inhabited a variety of spaces, mostly in Cambridge. Chattopadhyay joined Tipton as his volunteer business manager in 2015, and the gallery moved to her former home in Medford in 2018 after rent increases forced it from its space in Cambridge’s Central Square. Tipton took a step back from the gallery in 2020, and Chattopadhyay led it to its current home at the Armory, a move prompted by a close relationship with former owner Joseph Sater, who died earlier this month.
After acquiring the Armory, the city worked with community members, tenants, and consultants in a tenuous process to set a plan for the space. A draft of that plan was released in November 2024. The finalized version, released in June 2025, details the process for prospective and current tenants to apply for spaces. A volunteer advisory board, formed by the city over the summer, will guide the process and provide recommendations to the city.
The deadline to submit proposals was extended earlier this month to March 18. Interviews with prospective tenants are planned for April and May, and recommendations and selections by the advisory board and city officials will take place in May and June. Decisions will be announced on July 13, according to a tentative timeline by the city. Chattopadhyay did not submit a proposal, believing she would not “stand a chance” through the RFP process and that any space she might bid for would not be comparable.
Chattopadhyay and her partner, along with friends and supporters, made the case for the gallery in a public hearing with the Somerville city council’s Housing, Community Development and Equity committee on March 4. “I am a teacher. I am a philosopher. I am a community organizer,” Chattopadhyay said at the hearing. “Many people in this city know who I am, and I have served the community for a very long time.”
Fellow artists and longtime supporters of the gallery addressed the committee, praising Chattopadhyay’s work and urging the city to work with her. “She is exactly what I want in a public arts space,” one supporter said. Chattopadhyay has not heard from Councilor Kristen Strezo, who chairs the committee, since the hearing, she said in a phone interview. Strezo did not respond to a request for comment from Cambridge Day.
The hearing was a result of a petition signed by 52 voters requesting an end to what Chattopadhyay describes as “harassment” and “abuse” from the city. She referenced multiple instances of police being called to her events and eviction attempts that would leave her homeless. In July 2025, Chattopadhyay received an eviction notice from the city requesting she and her partner vacate their live-work home by the end of February 2026, as the Armory Master Plan does not include residences.
After months of petitioning the city for assistance, Chattopadhyay requested a meeting with newly-inaugurated Somerville mayor Jake Wilson at the start of February. In response, the mayor’s staff notified her on Feb. 11 that she would not have to vacate her residence until July 13, emails shared by Chattopadhyay show. That was the first time she was notified she could stay past the end of the month. The city of Somerville has yet to respond to a request for comment about the future of the gallery.
On March 18, Chattopadhyay filed a complaint with the Massachusetts attorney general’s civil rights division reporting discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity or national origin, disability, and retaliation for complaint.
In a meeting with the mayor, his staff, and an attorney on March 19, Chattopadhyay shared her grievances and made her requests, hoping that the new administration would be amenable. “If you have to get rid of me, through no wrongdoing of my own, I want a lump sum settlement,” she said in a phone interview about the meeting.
Somerville officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Chattopadhyay remains wary of alternative relocation assistance by the city. “I don’t trust them,” she said. “How could I possibly trust them in where I’m going next?”
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