I didn’t know it at the time, but I had inadvertently stumbled upon a “third place” – a place that is neither home nor work, where people can meet and spend time, for free or almost free. Whether you are an individual visitor, an organizer looking to bring an audience together, or part of a group of friends looking for a place to enjoy the moment, a third place is a place for social cross-pollination.
The human hunger for community is insatiable, and Americans have done an admirable job throughout their history of cultivating third places in their communities. The public park where you go for an evening run around a reservoir. The hair salon where you swap sink-fixing tips with a friend. The dive bar near home that’s always full of nice people. All of these places have the potential to be third places.
The term was coined in the 1980s by sociologist Ray Oldenburg, who once wrote that third places “foster a sense of warmth, conviviality, and that special kind of human nourishment we call community.” When the pandemic began in the winter of 2020, locking millions of people at home, Oldenburg predicted that third places would eventually would make a comeback as people started to get tired of Zoom and Google Meet.
Four years later, life has returned to its hectic rhythm, and the need for third places is back—perhaps even more palpable than it was pre-pandemic, given everything we’ve been through. But finding a reliable place to hang out that doesn’t come with financial obligations is harder than it should be. That’s especially true in a city like Boston, where fickle weather makes being outdoors unappealing for much of the year, and where many of the businesses we’ve asked in the past to serve as third places—like indie restaurants and cafes, music venues, and local shops—have either closed or are struggling with high commercial rents.
Third places appear
Earlier this year, small signs appeared on the tables of Caffe Nero near my apartment in Jamaica Plain — the only cafe with seating within walking distance — and required customers to make a second purchase if they wanted to sit at a table for more than 90 minutes. Less than a block away, the local Eastern Bank branch offered what at first sounded like an antidote to this austerity: a “community space” that people could use to meet up. But to use the space, you had to have an Eastern Bank account. In my estimation, the nearby branch of the Boston Public Library is the only place in my neighborhood where you can hang out indoors without paying or being a member. But libraries aren’t usually good places to chat with friends and strangers — unlike the CultureHouse lounge I found in Cambridge.
Unfortunately CultureHouse no longer exists: The lounge at Kendall Square was only temporary, one of many pop-ups that the non-profit organization CultureHouse, located at Union Square in Somerville, was founded in 2018.
The pop-ups were created in vacant shops, on empty lots and other Spaces in affluent parts of Greater Boston. The nonprofit’s more recent pop-ups have included community lounges in Harvard Square and East Somerville, as well as outdoor spaces like shaded Wi-Fi zones outside libraries and the Winter City Sauna, which was set up outside Boston City Hall last January. But it was CultureHouse’s very first pop-up—a community space in an unused lobby of Somerville’s Bow Market—that gave Aaron Greiner, the nonprofit’s executive director, and his team confirmation that they were onto something big.
“We were only open for a month and in that time we held over 50 events,” says Greiner. “People just came in and we had free coffee, books, sofas, table tennis, quiz nights and a few World Cup broadcasts. The reaction we often got – and I found this telling – was that people said, ‘I’ve been looking for something like this. I just didn’t know it was possible.'”
That sense of possibility also led to something special in Boston’s Downtown Crossing last winter. Faced with a shortage of commercial space, the Downtown Boston Business Improvement District transformed a vacant storefront on Summer Street into the aptly named 3rd Space—an art gallery by day and a live performance venue after sunset, open to the public for free.
“We had two exhibitions by local BIPOC artists whose work told stories about spatial inequality in built environments,” recalls Michael Nichols, president of the Downtown Boston BID. “We handed out hot chocolate to lure people inside during the day, sometimes people brought their lunch into the space, and we made it free to nonprofits and for-profit organizations with social impact, with the goal of bringing together community members who don’t always feel like Downtown Boston was built for them.”
Like CultureHouse’s pop-ups, 3rd Space was temporary, but Nichols says there could be repeats soon. “We’ve probably heard from half a dozen landlords who are interested in us replicating the 3rd Space concept, and we’re in active discussions with some of them right now,” Nichols says. “We’re working with property owners who are essentially providing these spaces either for free or below market rate because they believe the positive visitor numbers and foot traffic that can come from using these spaces will bring broad economic benefits to the neighborhood.”
In addition to finding interested landlords, the creators of 3rd Space will also have to be resourceful in finding funding. Operating costs for 3rd Space came directly from the Downtown Boston BID’s coffers (which are replenished by commercial property owners in the district). CultureHouse has received a number of grants, including money from the American Rescue Plan. But as those funds dry up and expire, the question is: what’s next?
Trade is vital to Boston, but so is the community
The city of Boston seems poised to lead the way. Sort of, anyway. The mayor’s office of New Urban Mechanics once housed an initiative called Third Spaces Lab, funded by a grant from the Bloomberg Innovation Team. Projects included a child-friendly playground at Boston City Hall, free summer lunches at City Hall Plaza, and the Engagement Center—a covered space on Atkinson Street where people who are homeless or addicted to drugs can rest, drink, charge their electronic devices, and access health services such as nursing and therapy. But as I learned from According to an email from Mayor Michelle Wu’s press office last month, the Engagement Center was converted into emergency shelter space and the Third Space Lab was disbanded in 2020 as funding ran out. However, the lab’s website remains active and the smoke of the idea still lingers in the air.
I suppose that’s because third places provide something many of us know we need. But we haven’t yet figured out how to sustainably fund these spaces. In theory, a city like Boston could directly fund pop-up or permanent third places in neighborhoods like Downtown Crossing that haven’t fully recovered from the pandemic in terms of commerce and footfall. But with the city facing an impending decline in property tax revenue, the proposal to subsidize third places seems like a no-go.
Whether the money to support third places comes from local governments, foundations, or corporations, the last four years have made it clear that we must prioritize finding third places. Commerce is vital to any city, but there must also be life and community.
I was reminded of this on a muggy afternoon as I stopped by Gilman Pop-Up Park, a new gathering place run by CultureHouse in Somerville. that transformed a sun-scorched lot on the Green Line into an open-air community zone with colorful awnings, lounge chairs, toilets and, on weekends, an open-air market where you can buy vintage clothing or drink an ice-cold ale from Winter Hill Brewing. I was tempted to drink the Pool Boi IPA, but the Wish was mitigated by the fact that daytime drinking in your 30s is more strenuous than daytime drinking in your 20s. And that’s OK. Because I could just be here. People could just be here. It’s a nice feeling.
Miles Howard is a freelance writer in Boston and founder of Walking City Trail. He publishes the weekly hiking newsletter Pay attention to the moss.
