(Nov. 24, 2016) Heather Layton and Robin Tomaselli from the Berlin Arts & Entertainment committee sat down over coffee inside Baked Dessert Café with Gregory Purnell last Monday to discuss the committee’s “Artists Giving Back: Meals for the Hungry” drive next week.
The goal of the even at Paul’s United Methodist Church on Flower Street in Berlin is to feed up to 200 people a hot, holiday meal. But for Layton and Tomaselli, the hope is that the event will become the start of something more meaningful – and ambitious – for the greater Berlin community.
That notion, according to Tomaselli, started about a year ago when the A&E committee began working with local school children on a public mural.
The first group of students came from Buckingham Elementary, and a second panel was developed with the input and brushstrokes of students in the Berlin Youth Club at Worcester Youth and Family Counseling Services.
“I’m not from here – I grew up right outside of [Washington] D.C., so I’ve only lived here for six years, Tomaselli said. “ But I didn’t have a business here long before I felt what I’ll just call the ‘great divide of 113’” — the neighborhoods on either side of the Route 113 highway in Berlin.
On one side, the predominantly African-American area surrounding Flower Street is commonly referred to as “East Berlin,” while the Main Street area that’s filled with shops and is home to the majority of town events is sometimes called “West Berlin.”
While the highway exists as a physical divide, added Purnell, a Berlin native who has been active in the black community for decades, it also continues to act as a “cultural divide.”
“We really experienced that when we worked with the kids on this mural project,” Tomaselli said. “It became really evident, particularly when dealing with the young kids, and they even articulated to us that they don’t feel like [Main Street] is part of their community.
“We really want to continue to be part of a big outreach to everyone in our community – not just artists and merchants that are on this side of 113, but to people that make up the community as a whole,” she added. “To us it’s very apparent that there is, for whatever reason, kind of a disconnect there. If Arts & Entertainment can be even a small part of reaching out to make people feel more connected to the community as a whole, we really do want to be a part of that.”
As a starting point – and perhaps a symbol – the committee wondered what they could do for the multipurpose building on Flower Street.
“When we worked with Worcester Youth and Family, we decided to have our first meet and greet with the kids there,” Tomaselli said. “A lot of the kids that were in the summer program of Worcester Youth and Family live near there, and when I first walked into that building, to me, it was just a shame [to see] the condition of some of the facilities.”
Tomaselli said she was aware that the building is used for Head Start programs in Berlin, as well as other outreach programs of Worcester Youth and Family.
“The kids that live across 113 will tell you openly that they do not feel like this part of Berlin is part of their community,” Tomaselli said. “After being in the multipurpose room, I thought to myself, if that is where you go as a child and you look at that, and you come across 113 and you see what’s happening over here, then why on earth would you not feel disenfranchised?
“That space could somehow be improved to be a very welcoming space for the people that utilize it,” she added. “And the fact of the matter is, from an arts standpoint, it’s one of the only places other than the Globe that has a stage that can be used for musical concerts and plays. It reinforced for us, what can we do to be a part of positive change and to reach out and really envelope the entire Berlin community?”
Purnell said arts and entertainment was one of the first things to help “bridge the gap” between races in Berlin, as he recalled seeing movies at the former Globe Theater – now the Globe restaurant – in his youth.
“We would come from that side of town, from all over that area, to the Globe for movies Friday and Saturday nights,” he said, adding that he remembers both 25 and 12-cent screenings.
At one time, Purnell said, Flower Street was a black enterprise zone with its own movie houses and a number of thriving businesses there. Now, it’s almost exclusively residential.
“It was out of necessity, because you couldn’t come [to Main Street] to do things, so you had to set things up on your own area,” he said. “In city hall there’s a map which shows that area as ‘Flower Town,’ just another subdivision, and the main street was Flower Street.
“When they built the highway it just became a physical barrier – like a fence,” Purnell said. “Your outreach now to the community – to the youth of the community – will turn that around. But that’s not going to happen overnight.”
Purnell used to march with one of the many high school bands in the Memorial Day parade in the early 1960s that started at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, came up Flower Street to Bay Street, and then crossed the highway and traveled down Main Street.
Decades later, he became a regular emcee of the parade that now starts and ends on Flower Street, and is largely confined to just one section of the populace.
“We haven’t reached out to the entire Berlin community, or the entire Berlin community hasn’t come to support us – it’s still seen as ‘their’ parade,” he said. “It’s not our Memorial Day, but it’s ‘our’ parade. There hasn’t been a unifying Berlin parade for 20-some years. That still kind of sticks in everyone’s mind – whatever happens over here is us; whatever happens over there is ‘them.’”
As signs that some progress has happened in Berlin, Purnell pointed to notable businesses owned Patrick Henry, Glendola Bowen and Jesse Turner. The two longest-serving Berlin Councilmen are African-American – Elroy Brittingham and Dean Burrell – as is the police chief, Arnold Downing.
“The norm is no longer the norm, but there hasn’t been too much outreach to the community,” he said. “It’s deep-seated, but it’s not in marble – its just sand. You can move it, but like what happens when nature moves sand, somebody keeps putting it back.”
While Purnell said it was certainly not the purpose of development in downtown Berlin to alienate a large segment of the populous, he also admitted that “generation after generation of disenfranchisement” had occurred.
“I’ve lived here long enough to know not to point fingers, but there have been certain challenges,” he said.
He credited Mayor Gee Williams as a unifying force in the town, bringing much-needed infrastructure improvements – including improved roads and sidewalks – to the Flower Street area, and said a proposed new community center across from Henry Park could provide a major boost to morale, although plans for that may not take shape for about a decade.
“Will the new civic center extend this part of Berlin to that section of Berlin, or will it unite us there at that line? I think the answer to that is kind of up in the air,” he said. “Would a new multipurpose building be for all of us?
“There’s kind of a mindset of people that have lived under certain systems for as long as Berlin has been,” he said. “When I walk uptown now, it’s the most beautiful small town and I am so proud to be in Berlin. I’ve walked these streets when I was a little kid, and now to see tree-lined boulevards and people walking hand-in-hand and buses coming to little Berlin and a couple movies being made – you would think that would radiate throughout, but it kind of hasn’t.”
He guessed the current multiple purpose building dates back to about 1961. When the former Flower Street Elementary School filled up, that building was used as a satellite.
“They didn’t have a room for a cafeteria and they didn’t have a room for doing plays and so forth, and at that time the black teachers were instrumental in the arts and activities for children,” Purnell said. “We gave a lot of Easter plays and Christmas plays, so the multipurpose building became a facility for that.”
After 1970, the last year of segregated schools in Worcester County, the multipurpose building became surplus and went up for auction. A civic group bought the building from the board of education for $1 and formed the Berlin Improvement Community Association, or BCIA, to oversee it.
“They had all the ideas, but none of the resources,” Purnell said of the group. “In all that time, it has been the only place to go, but no one has ever stepped up and improve it.”
He said there had been some discussion at Town Hall to help fund improvements there, but that it was “a flame and then it began to simmer, and now it’s just a few sparks.”
A few meetings have been held there, including stormwater and planning sessions, and the building has been used as a polling place during local elections.
The building needs a new roof, the bathrooms are dilapidated – Tomaselli said the women’s restroom doesn’t have a working door on any of the stalls – and the inside is generally in a state of neglect or disrepair.
Town Administrator Laura Allen said there are plans and funds set aside to build a new community center on Flower Street, but that it would likely be 5-10 years before that happens.
Tomaselli spoke with both Allen and Williams and was told the town “budgeted a certain amount of money towards maintenance and repairs” for the existing building, but with a caveat.
“They were reluctant to add anything to that budget because the roof was in such poor condition that it would have to be fixed in order for them to invest any more money,” she said.
The goal of the Berlin Arts & Entertainment Committee is to find a stopgap solution for the multipurpose building that would allow it to become its own independent entity once the new center is operating. The Red Doors Community Center in Ocean City could serve as a model for programming, according to Layton.
“It seems to me that if everybody were to come together to do some brainstorming and maybe get different estimates in what would be the best solution with the least cost, then in the interim maybe there would be more interest on the town’s part to invest a little bit more money on improvements,” Tomaselli said. “How do we all come to together to make that a place where people want to go, where children want to spend time, where you could have artistic performances that would be beneficial to everybody in the community?”
Flower Street is part of the Berlin Arts and Entertainment District, a designation that could open the door for grant money. However, a consensus exists that any renovation would also require donations from the community at large, and that outreach is a necessity.
Purnell said his goal as a native and long-time resident was to “touch the hearts of both sides” of Berlin. The multipurpose building, he said, could be an excellent starting point to that end.
“That is what’s going to bridge the gap,” he said. “When someone says it’s been too long like this, it’s got to be more than the oppressed that is saying that. What is the old axiom? In order for evil to conquer, it is only left for good men to do nothing? It is that kind of a situation.
“If we have enough voices saying – with all the success that Berlin has had – we’re going to move the barrier, we’re going to radiate out to the town limits of Berlin, then we’re moving,” Purnell added. “It’s not because someone’s at fault, because we’re all at fault for just sitting back and allowing it to happen.”
He encouraged meetings, with the BCIA and others who have influence, to discuss what could be at the current multipurpose building, what could become of the proposed new center, and what activities could happen in either space that could to draw in all of Berlin as one, unified community.
“A new multipurpose building would generate so much interest because it’s something not just new, but it’s something that has been in the hearts of people. They just don’t know how to get to it,” Purnell said.
“Nothing can stop an idea whose time has come, and its time for progress,” he added. “If we’ve got people that are willing to invest and to make this happen here, then we’ve got to listen and see how we can assist – and I mean really assist – and then you’ve got inclusiveness.”
Purnell said all of this while sitting in the window of a shop on Bay Street that faces a busy, bustling sidewalk near the rear entrance to Town Hall. It’s picturesque, to be sure, but it is also indicative of what “West Berlin” typifies.
“Everybody that comes by here will look in and they’ll see me and I’ll get a second look. Not some – everybody,” he said. “Why? Because this is not my place, even in today’s world. We really have to get rid of that invisible wall that has almost always been there, and then we can do some things.
“What you’re going to do [with Meals for the Hungry] is going to be great, but it has to have more than food with it,” Purnell continued. “It has to have the connecting tissue that says, ‘this is why we’re doing this.’ And when you’ve got the people there you’ve got to tell them ‘this is what we’re really trying to do – how can you help us do it? We’re willing to go this far and do this – what can we do to help you?’”
Artists Giving Back: Meals for the Hungry will run from 2-5 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 29 at St. Paul United Methodist Church on 405 Flower Street.
The menu will exclusively feature items donated by local Berlin businesses: macaroni and cheese from Blacksmith Berlin, turkeys from Berlin Butcher Shop, green bean casserole from the Atlantic Hotel, bread from Siculi Italian Kitchen, desserts from Baked Dessert and Brooklyn Baking Barons, and coffee from Berlin Coffee House. Burley Inn Tavern, Fins Ale House and Raw Bar, and the Globe will provide additional food.
Bungalow Love, Bruder Hill and Church Mouse will help offset the cost of all paper goods. Additionally, artists Mark Huey and Holden Becker have donated art, available for purchase at Baked Dessert and Bungalow Love, which will help fund the dinner. Any additional money collected will be donated to area nonprofits.
During Meals for the Hungry, eat-in and take-out meals will be available for needy individuals and families, and delivery will be offered for those who are homebound.
For more information, call Tomaselli at 301-785-6161.
“Our group is a small group, but it’s a small group of really invested people that are interested in bringing about really positive change not only in the art community in Berlin, but in the community as a whole,” Tomaselli said. “We’re reaching out to try to gain some clarity and some good direction.
“We understand it’s not going to happen overnight and maybe it will be just one step at a time, but we’re interested in making a commitment to take those steps and to spend the time in the community, allowing people to get to know us and to understand and trust what our true intention is,” she added. “As far as the multipurpose building, I think it’s great that the town is going to invest in maybe building another facility, but 10 years is a long time. If you’re a child in this community in 10 years you’re grown and out of here.”
The goal of the even at Paul’s United Methodist Church on Flower Street in Berlin is to feed up to 200 people a hot, holiday meal. But for Layton and Tomaselli, the hope is that the event will become the start of something more meaningful – and ambitious – for the greater Berlin community.
That notion, according to Tomaselli, started about a year ago when the A&E committee began working with local school children on a public mural.
The first group of students came from Buckingham Elementary, and a second panel was developed with the input and brushstrokes of students in the Berlin Youth Club at Worcester Youth and Family Counseling Services.
“I’m not from here – I grew up right outside of [Washington] D.C., so I’ve only lived here for six years, Tomaselli said. “ But I didn’t have a business here long before I felt what I’ll just call the ‘great divide of 113’” — the neighborhoods on either side of the Route 113 highway in Berlin.
On one side, the predominantly African-American area surrounding Flower Street is commonly referred to as “East Berlin,” while the Main Street area that’s filled with shops and is home to the majority of town events is sometimes called “West Berlin.”
While the highway exists as a physical divide, added Purnell, a Berlin native who has been active in the black community for decades, it also continues to act as a “cultural divide.”
“We really experienced that when we worked with the kids on this mural project,” Tomaselli said. “It became really evident, particularly when dealing with the young kids, and they even articulated to us that they don’t feel like [Main Street] is part of their community.
“We really want to continue to be part of a big outreach to everyone in our community – not just artists and merchants that are on this side of 113, but to people that make up the community as a whole,” she added. “To us it’s very apparent that there is, for whatever reason, kind of a disconnect there. If Arts & Entertainment can be even a small part of reaching out to make people feel more connected to the community as a whole, we really do want to be a part of that.”
As a starting point – and perhaps a symbol – the committee wondered what they could do for the multipurpose building on Flower Street.
“When we worked with Worcester Youth and Family, we decided to have our first meet and greet with the kids there,” Tomaselli said. “A lot of the kids that were in the summer program of Worcester Youth and Family live near there, and when I first walked into that building, to me, it was just a shame [to see] the condition of some of the facilities.”
Tomaselli said she was aware that the building is used for Head Start programs in Berlin, as well as other outreach programs of Worcester Youth and Family.
“The kids that live across 113 will tell you openly that they do not feel like this part of Berlin is part of their community,” Tomaselli said. “After being in the multipurpose room, I thought to myself, if that is where you go as a child and you look at that, and you come across 113 and you see what’s happening over here, then why on earth would you not feel disenfranchised?
“That space could somehow be improved to be a very welcoming space for the people that utilize it,” she added. “And the fact of the matter is, from an arts standpoint, it’s one of the only places other than the Globe that has a stage that can be used for musical concerts and plays. It reinforced for us, what can we do to be a part of positive change and to reach out and really envelope the entire Berlin community?”
Purnell said arts and entertainment was one of the first things to help “bridge the gap” between races in Berlin, as he recalled seeing movies at the former Globe Theater – now the Globe restaurant – in his youth.
“We would come from that side of town, from all over that area, to the Globe for movies Friday and Saturday nights,” he said, adding that he remembers both 25 and 12-cent screenings.
At one time, Purnell said, Flower Street was a black enterprise zone with its own movie houses and a number of thriving businesses there. Now, it’s almost exclusively residential.
“It was out of necessity, because you couldn’t come [to Main Street] to do things, so you had to set things up on your own area,” he said. “In city hall there’s a map which shows that area as ‘Flower Town,’ just another subdivision, and the main street was Flower Street.
“When they built the highway it just became a physical barrier – like a fence,” Purnell said. “Your outreach now to the community – to the youth of the community – will turn that around. But that’s not going to happen overnight.”
Purnell used to march with one of the many high school bands in the Memorial Day parade in the early 1960s that started at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, came up Flower Street to Bay Street, and then crossed the highway and traveled down Main Street.
Decades later, he became a regular emcee of the parade that now starts and ends on Flower Street, and is largely confined to just one section of the populace.
“We haven’t reached out to the entire Berlin community, or the entire Berlin community hasn’t come to support us – it’s still seen as ‘their’ parade,” he said. “It’s not our Memorial Day, but it’s ‘our’ parade. There hasn’t been a unifying Berlin parade for 20-some years. That still kind of sticks in everyone’s mind – whatever happens over here is us; whatever happens over there is ‘them.’”
As signs that some progress has happened in Berlin, Purnell pointed to notable businesses owned Patrick Henry, Glendola Bowen and Jesse Turner. The two longest-serving Berlin Councilmen are African-American – Elroy Brittingham and Dean Burrell – as is the police chief, Arnold Downing.
“The norm is no longer the norm, but there hasn’t been too much outreach to the community,” he said. “It’s deep-seated, but it’s not in marble – its just sand. You can move it, but like what happens when nature moves sand, somebody keeps putting it back.”
While Purnell said it was certainly not the purpose of development in downtown Berlin to alienate a large segment of the populous, he also admitted that “generation after generation of disenfranchisement” had occurred.
“I’ve lived here long enough to know not to point fingers, but there have been certain challenges,” he said.
He credited Mayor Gee Williams as a unifying force in the town, bringing much-needed infrastructure improvements – including improved roads and sidewalks – to the Flower Street area, and said a proposed new community center across from Henry Park could provide a major boost to morale, although plans for that may not take shape for about a decade.
“Will the new civic center extend this part of Berlin to that section of Berlin, or will it unite us there at that line? I think the answer to that is kind of up in the air,” he said. “Would a new multipurpose building be for all of us?
“There’s kind of a mindset of people that have lived under certain systems for as long as Berlin has been,” he said. “When I walk uptown now, it’s the most beautiful small town and I am so proud to be in Berlin. I’ve walked these streets when I was a little kid, and now to see tree-lined boulevards and people walking hand-in-hand and buses coming to little Berlin and a couple movies being made – you would think that would radiate throughout, but it kind of hasn’t.”
He guessed the current multiple purpose building dates back to about 1961. When the former Flower Street Elementary School filled up, that building was used as a satellite.
“They didn’t have a room for a cafeteria and they didn’t have a room for doing plays and so forth, and at that time the black teachers were instrumental in the arts and activities for children,” Purnell said. “We gave a lot of Easter plays and Christmas plays, so the multipurpose building became a facility for that.”
After 1970, the last year of segregated schools in Worcester County, the multipurpose building became surplus and went up for auction. A civic group bought the building from the board of education for $1 and formed the Berlin Improvement Community Association, or BCIA, to oversee it.
“They had all the ideas, but none of the resources,” Purnell said of the group. “In all that time, it has been the only place to go, but no one has ever stepped up and improve it.”
He said there had been some discussion at Town Hall to help fund improvements there, but that it was “a flame and then it began to simmer, and now it’s just a few sparks.”
A few meetings have been held there, including stormwater and planning sessions, and the building has been used as a polling place during local elections.
The building needs a new roof, the bathrooms are dilapidated – Tomaselli said the women’s restroom doesn’t have a working door on any of the stalls – and the inside is generally in a state of neglect or disrepair.
Town Administrator Laura Allen said there are plans and funds set aside to build a new community center on Flower Street, but that it would likely be 5-10 years before that happens.
Tomaselli spoke with both Allen and Williams and was told the town “budgeted a certain amount of money towards maintenance and repairs” for the existing building, but with a caveat.
“They were reluctant to add anything to that budget because the roof was in such poor condition that it would have to be fixed in order for them to invest any more money,” she said.
The goal of the Berlin Arts & Entertainment Committee is to find a stopgap solution for the multipurpose building that would allow it to become its own independent entity once the new center is operating. The Red Doors Community Center in Ocean City could serve as a model for programming, according to Layton.
“It seems to me that if everybody were to come together to do some brainstorming and maybe get different estimates in what would be the best solution with the least cost, then in the interim maybe there would be more interest on the town’s part to invest a little bit more money on improvements,” Tomaselli said. “How do we all come to together to make that a place where people want to go, where children want to spend time, where you could have artistic performances that would be beneficial to everybody in the community?”
Flower Street is part of the Berlin Arts and Entertainment District, a designation that could open the door for grant money. However, a consensus exists that any renovation would also require donations from the community at large, and that outreach is a necessity.
Purnell said his goal as a native and long-time resident was to “touch the hearts of both sides” of Berlin. The multipurpose building, he said, could be an excellent starting point to that end.
“That is what’s going to bridge the gap,” he said. “When someone says it’s been too long like this, it’s got to be more than the oppressed that is saying that. What is the old axiom? In order for evil to conquer, it is only left for good men to do nothing? It is that kind of a situation.
“If we have enough voices saying – with all the success that Berlin has had – we’re going to move the barrier, we’re going to radiate out to the town limits of Berlin, then we’re moving,” Purnell added. “It’s not because someone’s at fault, because we’re all at fault for just sitting back and allowing it to happen.”
He encouraged meetings, with the BCIA and others who have influence, to discuss what could be at the current multipurpose building, what could become of the proposed new center, and what activities could happen in either space that could to draw in all of Berlin as one, unified community.
“A new multipurpose building would generate so much interest because it’s something not just new, but it’s something that has been in the hearts of people. They just don’t know how to get to it,” Purnell said.
“Nothing can stop an idea whose time has come, and its time for progress,” he added. “If we’ve got people that are willing to invest and to make this happen here, then we’ve got to listen and see how we can assist – and I mean really assist – and then you’ve got inclusiveness.”
Purnell said all of this while sitting in the window of a shop on Bay Street that faces a busy, bustling sidewalk near the rear entrance to Town Hall. It’s picturesque, to be sure, but it is also indicative of what “West Berlin” typifies.
“Everybody that comes by here will look in and they’ll see me and I’ll get a second look. Not some – everybody,” he said. “Why? Because this is not my place, even in today’s world. We really have to get rid of that invisible wall that has almost always been there, and then we can do some things.
“What you’re going to do [with Meals for the Hungry] is going to be great, but it has to have more than food with it,” Purnell continued. “It has to have the connecting tissue that says, ‘this is why we’re doing this.’ And when you’ve got the people there you’ve got to tell them ‘this is what we’re really trying to do – how can you help us do it? We’re willing to go this far and do this – what can we do to help you?’”
Artists Giving Back: Meals for the Hungry will run from 2-5 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 29 at St. Paul United Methodist Church on 405 Flower Street.
The menu will exclusively feature items donated by local Berlin businesses: macaroni and cheese from Blacksmith Berlin, turkeys from Berlin Butcher Shop, green bean casserole from the Atlantic Hotel, bread from Siculi Italian Kitchen, desserts from Baked Dessert and Brooklyn Baking Barons, and coffee from Berlin Coffee House. Burley Inn Tavern, Fins Ale House and Raw Bar, and the Globe will provide additional food.
Bungalow Love, Bruder Hill and Church Mouse will help offset the cost of all paper goods. Additionally, artists Mark Huey and Holden Becker have donated art, available for purchase at Baked Dessert and Bungalow Love, which will help fund the dinner. Any additional money collected will be donated to area nonprofits.
During Meals for the Hungry, eat-in and take-out meals will be available for needy individuals and families, and delivery will be offered for those who are homebound.
For more information, call Tomaselli at 301-785-6161.
“Our group is a small group, but it’s a small group of really invested people that are interested in bringing about really positive change not only in the art community in Berlin, but in the community as a whole,” Tomaselli said. “We’re reaching out to try to gain some clarity and some good direction.
“We understand it’s not going to happen overnight and maybe it will be just one step at a time, but we’re interested in making a commitment to take those steps and to spend the time in the community, allowing people to get to know us and to understand and trust what our true intention is,” she added. “As far as the multipurpose building, I think it’s great that the town is going to invest in maybe building another facility, but 10 years is a long time. If you’re a child in this community in 10 years you’re grown and out of here.”