Letter from Jane Park, 2 Crawford Street, requesting the City Manager work with Trinity Property Management to give the 200 tenants of the EMF building additional time to find additional space

Jane Park 2 Crawford St Public Comment on Policy Order #11 That the City Manager is requested to work with Trinity Property Management to give the nearly 200 tenants of the EMF building additional time beyond April 30, 2018 to find new space, considering the unique circumstances and outsized impact of this eviction. I live at 2 Crawford St. I'm a music teacher, songwriter, and performer. I care about Cambridge, and I vote every election. I'm also one of many Cambridge residents who, on and off, has worked many part-time jobs so I can stay here. I'm a former EMF tenant. Even though I'm no longer there, I find myself in that building for collaborations or to be a part of WEMF radio. I benefit greatly from the community there-it's a great hub to find bandmates, to try new gear, and hearing your peers practice through the walls is really inspiring. I can't count the number of times I heard my neighbors practice and thought-how are they doing that? It has all the advantages of an innovation Incubator or start up hub. To me, the closing of the EMF building means losing a large, innovative, scrappy music community-but we will find a way to keep playing, because we always do. We're the first people to put together fundraisers, or volunteer for fundraisers and public rallies. We make joyful occasions more joyful, and we make unbelievably sad occasions more bearable. We're great at organizing, we're great at networking, and we're always helping each other. We fund eachother's projects, we lend each other gear, we substitute for eachother at shows. As both a classical and rock musician, I often feel like rock music lacks the funding opportunities and language of investment that I see in the classical music world. I don't mean to downplay the struggle of funding in classical music. I only mention it, because when we talk about arts and culture in Central Square, I'm not sure that discussion includes rock music, songwriters, film artists, and comedians, etc.