Fault lines

Rents, retail, and politics add up to conflict in Cambridge

Cambridge by Ben Geman

The building that once inhabited the corner of Mass Ave and Magazine Street, in Central Square, spent its final, vacant days plastered with campaign signs from the costly and unsuccessful congressional bid of Beacon Hill millionaire Chris Gabrieli.

Now a once-kaleidoscopic stretch of storefronts that included the radical Lucy Parsons bookstore has given way to capitalism, big time. Developers are transforming the site into a luxury housing/retail complex after a squabble that offered one of the most visible signs of Cambridge's gentrification. It hardly matters that there was no housing in the building prior to its demolition; the fate of this corner symbolized the fear that Cambridge is being transformed into a place where poor and working-class families can't afford to live.

Of course, Central Square won't become the Back Bay overnight, in either housing or retail prices. It may be home to a new Starbucks, but it's hardly as upscale as Harvard Square. "People were saying we'll be getting Borders," says Robert Winters, a Cambridge political sage who publishes an online journal of Cambridge politics. "We got Buck-a-Book."

Still, 1998 in Cambridge meant a continued focus on affordable housing and the course of city development. And while projects in which the city worked with nonprofit groups resulted in the creation and preservation of affordable units, activists say the fact remains that rents are climbing, and upscale businesses are crowding out mom-and-pop stores.

"The challenge is, will Cambridge still be an open and accessible place for all people?" asks Bill Marcotte of the Cambridge Eviction Free Zone. "Will it have that diversity?"

---

Yet while the city's housing crisis remained a dominant political issue in 1998, observers say it is no longer a source of political coherence. According to Winters and others, the progressive Cambridge Civic Association has been on the wane since the demise of rent control in 1995. Under rent control, says Winters, "it was easy to maintain some sort of political cohesion so that CCA-type candidates could profess to whatever they pleased but there was still something like an umbrella organization. . . . Now, it has become something like every man and woman for themselves."

The city's political landscape fractured further in 1998 with the controversy over the foiled mayoral aspirations of Katherine Triantafillou. In what one City Hall watcher called the political story of the year, the popular city councilor and former CCA member broke with the alliance after members agreed to a last-second vote switch that placed current mayor Francis Duehay in the seat Triantafillou coveted.

Heading into 1999, the repercussions of l'affaire Triantafillou are still being felt. Her defection from the CCA has insiders talking up rumors of a new coalition forming, possibly with Triantafillou involved. "Every two years there is always talk of an alternative slate," says Glenn Koocher, a former Cambridge School Committee member who hosts a cable talk show about Cambridge politics. "The reason we give it more credence this year is because the CCA has nearly disintegrated."

Other players mentioned for this coalition include possible city-council candidate Marjorie Decker, who capably helped steer state representative Alice Wolf to her second victory over city councilor Anthony Galluccio, and city councilor Ken Reeves.

Meanwhile, already announced for city council is Richard Goodwin, the city's youth-program manager, whose embryonic candidacy is one onlookers say could eat into the popular Galluccio's base. Will he go far enough to make a difference? In 1997, all nine incumbents were reelected. "The big question for me," Koocher says, "is will anyone break through the ranks of the incumbents, or will this be a yawner?"

---

Races for seats in the state legislature were often overshadowed this year by the massive attention paid to the Eighth Congressional District and gubernatorial races. In Cambridge, though, the legislative candidates held their own in the spotlight -- the election season saw the tight state-rep rematch between Wolf and Galluccio, and Jarrett Barrios won in the 28th Middlesex District, ousting incumbent Alvin Thompson to become only the second Latino legislator ever elected in Massachusetts.

Thompson, a five-term legislator and an NAACP leader, had been viewed as vulnerable for some time -- he nearly lost to challenger Dennis Benzan two years ago -- and in 1998 he ran into Barrios's impressively organized campaign. Barrios, a 30-year-old housing lawyer, is young and smart and very progressive, which can spell frustration for legislators who don't see eye to eye with House Speaker Thomas Finneran.

Heading into next year's session, though, the newly elected Barrios says he's confident his politics will work on Beacon Hill. Finneran has stated that his top priorities will be opposing a reckless tax cut and the death penalty, Barrios says. "And I agree with him on both points."

Left unexpressed, though, is a festering frustration among some legislators with the Speaker's controlling style and penchant for bottling up bills favored by the legislature's progressive wing. If the trend continues -- witness the failure earlier this year of a minimum-wage hike -- then Barrios's optimism will be tested.

Ben Geman can be reached at bgeman[a]phx.com.